In the few moments during which this scene had passed, the administrador
at a sign from the General had been half forced—though he made no
attempt at resistance—to the lower corridor. Thence he followed his
captor to a dining-room, where a servant with terrified alacrity was
already bringing in cups of chocolate for the breakfast, while a woman
with a tray of small loaves of sweet-bread in her hands dropped it
incontinently at sight of the dreaded Ramirez. He laughed, throwing
himself into a chair, and looking around him with the furtive glance
with which men involuntarily regard places or persons connected with
memories distasteful or horrifying. There was an image of the Virgin of
Guadalupe at one end of the apartment, with a small lamp burning before
it. He crossed himself, and muttered an _Ave_ as he looked at it; then
pointed to a second chair and the cups of chocolate.
“It is early, Don Rafael,” he said lightly, “but I have a soldier’s
appetite, which the fresh air has sharpened,—and you know the saying,
that a stomach at rest makes an active brain; so accompany me, I
entreat, in breaking the morning fast, and then let us to business.” And
with a show of indifference, which imposed far better upon his
followers, who made an interested throng around the door, than upon Don
Rafael, he tasted the chocolate he had drawn to his side.
The administrador remained standing, though the two soldiers, who had
each held an arm, released their grasp and stepped back. Disconcerted by
the thought that in his dishabille he could scarcely present a dignified
figure, Don Rafael still maintained his composure sufficiently to refuse
the proffered refreshment with the air of a man who questions the right
of another to play the part of host,—assuming, in fact, toward the
intruder rather the attitude of personal than of political hostility.
Ramirez divined this, and his face darkened. “You know me, Don Rafael,”
he said in a low tone, “and that I am a man to take no denials.”
“Yes,” answered the administrador, shortly, “I know you. The saints must
have blinded me that I was so easily deceived upon your last visit; but
you had always the power to mask your face at will.”
“Bah! every man has a dozen countenances at his command, if he but know
how to summon them,” replied Ramirez, carelessly, “and a touch of art to
fix their coloring, and twist the eyebrows or moustache. Why, even your
mother was deceived! Where is she now? Ah! that woman was like Isabel
herself; I swear she would have killed me, even when she seemed to love
me most. It is the way of women, like serpents, to twine and sting at
the same moment.”
“My mother is dying,” said Don Rafael, lifting his eyes for a moment
upon the face of the image of Mary. “Yet living or dying, it is not for
a man to hear another speak lightly of his mother. But this is nothing
to the purpose.”
“Nothing,” replied the other, accepting the rebuke; “and I have no time
to lose.” He seemed to forget the chocolate, pushing the cup from him,
and turning as if to rise from the chair. “Look you, Rafael, what money
did Isabel leave with you? Not half her resources went in that mad freak
of raising a troop for Gonzales.”
Perhaps Don Rafael had expected the question, for his countenance
remained imperturbable. “There are horses and cattle and corn and men,
still,” he answered. “The administrador of Tres Hermanos can do nothing
to defend them; but the money,—by Heaven and the Holy Virgin, its
hiding-place is known only to him, and he will die before you shall have
another dollar to add to those which have cost so much blood and so many
tears!”
Ramirez’s eyes flashed; yet the look of astonishment which he threw upon
the small, half-clothed man was as full of admiration as though he had
been a king clad in royal robes. But even a king would not have thwarted
Ramirez with impunity.
“You know me,” he reiterated in the same intonation with which he had
before spoken the words, allowing a long, dark, intimidating gaze to
rest upon the face of Don Rafael.
“Yes, I know you,” was the answer as before. “Yes, I know you; and it is
for that reason I have said that never a dollar belonging to the woman
you have so foully wronged shall pass into your hands. Thank Heaven that
she is not here to be tempted! Thank God that while the identity of
Ramirez with the bane and curse of the house of Garcia has been shaping
itself in my mind, no hint of the truth has been in hers!”
“I do not believe it!” cried Ramirez, violently. “She hates me! for the
sake of that puling boy and her dotard husband she hates me still! ‘The
bane of the house of Garcia,’ said you. Why, what man among them has a
name beyond his own door-stone but me? And the women! Ah, ah! What saint
would have saved the fame of the women of the house of Garcia had it not
been for me?”
Don Rafael glanced around him warningly,—the room was full of strange
faces, beginning to light with wondering curiosity at this strange
conversation, so different in substance from that usual between the
guerilla and his victims. This was no place in which to talk of women;
yet Don Rafael himself desired to avoid a private interview with this
man, while Ramirez on his part assumed an ostentatious air of having
nothing to conceal,—nothing that he might be ashamed his followers
should learn. He knew, in fact, that at that crisis, surrounded as he
was by the most unscrupulous and desperate characters, the prestige of
his mad career might be advantageously heightened rather than
diminished, if he would keep his ascendency. Don Rafael read his
thought, and lest in very hardihood his opponent should be led to
accusations or revelations it would be impossible for him to leave
unanswered, he began one of those long and desultory conversations that,
while apparently frank and unstudied, are triumphs in the art of
avoiding or concealing the real subject at issue.
Ramirez, well as he knew the tricks of the genuine ranchero, whether of
the higher or lower grade, was himself for a time deceived,—for, with
far less than his usual astuteness, he allowed himself to lapse into
occasional denunciations, and to make demands of the administrador that
increased the curiosity and interest of his listeners. These did not in
any degree shake the constancy of Don Rafael, who, with the thought that
the crisis of his life was approaching, crossed his arms upon his breast
and fortified his courage with the remembrance of the vows by which he
had pledged himself, and the less heroic satisfaction that he promised
himself then in thwarting the plans of a man whose will had been as
triumphant as it was insatiable.
Meanwhile, the tumult in the house increased. A wild rumor had spread
that the General José Ramirez was by right the master of the place and
all it contained. Some said he was the lover, others the brother, of
Doña Isabel. At last, even the name by which he had been known there
began to be shouted, though the sound of it was less popular than that
by which he had won his way later to fame. Still, it gave a certain
authority for license where there had been before a show of restraint;
and a speedy assault was made upon the store-rooms and granaries, and
even upon the inner chambers and courts, which contained nothing but
furniture and ornaments,—useless to soldiers on the march, or even as
booty for their wives and followers.
Ramirez listened to the tumult without attempting to interfere.
Evidently his object was to break the resolution of Sanchez by an
exhibition of the destructive and unscrupulous character of his
followers. But Don Rafael never winced except once, when the cry of a
woman pierced the apartment.
Ramirez heard it also. “Ah! it came from the kitchens, from some
scullery-maid,” he commented after a moment. “Now, Don Rafael, you see
and hear for yourself what a crew of devils I have with me,—just the
riff-raff of the mountains, whom that cursed Pedro failed to wile away
from me. _Caramba!_ never was a surprise greater. It would not have
happened but that like a fool I lingered near El Toro waiting for a
chance to pounce upon Gonzales. Never let a private vengeance sway the
judgment,” he added sententiously. “A thousand devils! It seems as if
the hacienda were tumbling about our ears! Yet at a word I can stop it.
Where is the money?”
“If the din never ceases till I reveal that,” answered Don Rafael,
doggedly, “you will never have your revenge on Gonzales; for what I have
sworn I have sworn. The flocks and herds I can’t defend; and what are a
few hundred beeves or horses? But the money; no, by God! if Doña Isabel
herself should command it, I would not suffer that another coin should
touch your bloody hand!”
Ramirez started up with an oath. Involuntarily he glanced at his hand.
It would not have surprised him to have seen it literally red,—and,
strangely enough, the blood gushing from the fatal wound he had dealt
the American, just from the arms of Herlinda, rather than that of his
nephew or Don Gregorio, was that which presented itself to his mind. He
walked the room in a new and undefinable excitement. The sight of Don
Rafael, to whom the destruction of the property that was precious as his
life seemed as nothing to the pleasure of baffling the man he abhorred
of the money he believed absolutely necessary to his success in leading
troops to encounter the well-reinforced and well-equipped Gonzales,
revealed to him the hatred and horror in which he was held. Doubtless
that of the servant was but a mere reflection of that of Doña Isabel.
Well, let them hate him with reason; let the wild mountaineers take
their own sport unchecked. He heard one of the clerks, flying rather
than running through the corridor, exclaim that Don Rafael must come, or
there would be a famine in the place before the next harvest; that the
great storehouses of maize had been forced open, and the contents
scattered throughout the village for horses and men to tread under their
feet; and that the very oxen and sheep were revelling in the abundance,
liable to destroy themselves by very excess, even if the soldiers should
fail to drive them before them.
Ramirez and the administrador glanced at each other. They had not spoken
for many minutes, each feeling the other implacable, yet each perhaps
believing that the wanton destruction would appeal to the other’s weaker
or better nature. Ramirez grew crimson, almost black, with inward
rage,—rage as great with those who were wreaking destruction on his
sister’s house, as with this insignificant yet determined man who
withstood it. Don Rafael was white as death, his lips blue, his eyes
strained; again the cry of a woman sounded on the air! It came from
above. He started toward the door. A dozen hands seized him. Ramirez
turned upon him with his drawn sword.
“Where is my daughter?” he demanded in a voice of fury. “I will find a
way to force the gold from you, but first my daughter,—where is she?”
“Your daughter?” echoed Don Rafael in a tone of such absolute amazement
that even Ramirez was for a second distracted from his rage.
“Yes, my daughter! She whom you have aided Isabel to hide from me all
these years. Faith, it was a pretty trick,—an eye for an eye, with a
vengeance. But after all it was a petty plot, and soon fathomed. You
were less jealous of flesh and blood than of this cursed gold, and gave
me the first inkling of her whereabouts yourself.”
“I?” exclaimed the administrador; “I? What know I of a child of yours?”
“Ah, that is what you must satisfy me of. Where is she,—the Chata, whom
you nodded and hinted about so mysteriously in your cups so many years
ago?”
Don Rafael—if it were possible—turned a shade whiter than before; his
form seemed to shrink, his heart sank with guilty shame and absolute
terror. How well he remembered those few words, which, though so
indirect and apparently unimportant, he had thought of with remorse a
thousand times. And to what a terrible, though utterly unforeseen,
conclusion they had led this man! He lifted his hands above his head.
“By the Blessed Mother, I swear,” he said, “that I know not what you
mean! I know nothing of a child of yours!”
Ramirez looked at him contemptuously. “You will tell me next that the
child your wife denies is yours,” he said.
In effect it had been upon the lips of Don Rafael to claim Chata as his
daughter, as he had done a thousand times before. Was she not his before
all the world? Had she not been from the very moment the eyes of his
wife had rested upon her? But she had betrayed the confidence to which
she had been but partially admitted,—Rita! He hesitated, and Ramirez
seized the advantage.
“You dare not!” he exclaimed. “Your wife has confessed all: it will
never do to trust a woman with a secret in company of a man who cares to
learn it, though very perversity might keep her silent with a world of
women.” The sight of the discomfiture of Don Rafael had restored to
Ramirez some portion of good nature. “The screeching has ceased,” he
added. “Yet I am a fond father. I would assure myself of my child’s
safety. Where is the girl? I must and will see her, if but to tell her
why I played her false last week. Where is my daughter?”
Don Rafael’s face, which throughout this interview had retained its
pallor, crimsoned with excess of agitation. The mystery of Chata’s visit
to the hacienda was revealed. Had she met this man? Did she know—did she
believe? He remembered her changed aspect, her silence, her tears.
Ramirez stood watching him with impatience, yet triumph. The crimson
flush convicted the administrador. Don Rafael strove in vain to steady
the glance of his suffused and burning eyes, to still the throbbing of
his temples, while he sought to command the most impressive and
convincing words in which to answer and forever silence this mad
assumption. But none presented themselves. The group around listened
breathlessly, more excited than Ramirez himself. They looked silently
from face to face of the two men who were engaged in this singular
dispute. Inside the room one might have heard a feather float through
the air, so deep was the silence; and at last, in despair of finding
imposing words, the administrador uttered the simple denial, “Chata is
not your child.”
Most of the men drew back for the moment convinced. Not so Ramirez. “It
is false!” he cried. “I have your own maudlin hint, and your wife’s
positive confession, that the girl is neither hers nor yours.”
Don Rafael grew pale again. There was that in his face which would have
augured ill to Doña Rita had she seen it; but he said with an effort, “I
will not give my wife the lie. The child is neither mine nor hers!”
“Then whose—whose but mine?” demanded Ramirez fiercely.
Don Rafael paused a moment as before. In an instant he had recalled
the circumstances that had attended the adoption of the child. Rita
had been young, placable, easily pleased with a gift: the fewer
confidants the better; it was ever the duty of a Mexican wife to obey
unquestioningly,—she had been obedient then; it had not been necessary
that she should know more than it had been wise to tell. Don Rafael
drew a deep breath of relief. Ramirez and the group around him watched
him narrowly.
“Declare then!” queried Ramirez at last, “whose daughter is she if not
mine?”
“I will not say,” answered Don Rafael; “but I do swear she is not yours.
Stay,” he added, struck with an idea. “What reason have you for thinking
she is yours?”
“Reason!” echoed Ramirez scornfully; “because fifteen years ago, more or
less,—perhaps you have reason here to remember well that year,—I sent my
child here, to Doña Isabel: it was a whim of mine that she should have
tender nurture and decent training. I was a fool to trust a woman’s
love. Of course Isabel remembered her own bantling, though I had even
some foolish thought that the little one I sent might console her,—most
women have hearts for baby wants and fancies that sicken men. Of course
for her it was a chance for revenge too good to be lost. I have been in
two minds ever since I knew how she scorned my trust whether to be angry
or pleased with you for aiding her purpose. But let it pass; yield the
child and the money quietly and”—he looked over his shoulder with an
impatient frown—“that infernal tumult and destruction shall cease. If
not—”
“I will yield neither the girl nor the money;” replied Don Rafael. “They
are neither of them mine nor yours; but I have possession of both, and
will keep them.—Surely Rita has both girls in the secret recess, as we
have always planned in such a case as this,” he thought, with a qualm at
the remembrance of his wife’s treason, as revealed by Ramirez. “Surely
at such a time she will protect a young damsel, even though she be not
her own child.”
Ramirez looked at him with a lowering brow, repeating again, “If not
mine, whose child is she? By Heaven, I know she is mine! There could not
be on all the earth a creature in whom Doña Isabel or Feliz or yourself
could have so deep an interest as to trouble yourself for life with his
child. It is incredible, impossible. Unless she is—” He paused on the
name, looked round him, clinched his hands, advanced to Don Rafael, and
gazed searchingly into his face.
Don Rafael did not flinch. Ramirez burst into a laugh. “I would have
killed you had you dared even to have looked askance,” he said.
“_Caramba!_ the women of the Garcias may be fools or devils,—they have
shown the spirit of both; but if a man should ever kill another because
of one of them, it would be for his daring, not in revenge of his
triumph.”
Did these words indicate a tardy repentance, a conviction that Herlinda
had been indiscreet but innocent? Don Rafael had no time to discuss the
question with himself; but he had such new insight into the mind of
Ramirez that he was warned from giving any fresh cause of offence. Had
he had no previous reasons, it would have been a sufficient one for him
to keep inviolate the secret which he had sworn to preserve to his
life’s end. In his present humor, the man with whom he had to deal would
in his baffled and vengeful rage have spared neither the name nor fame
of even his own mother, had occasion offered to tempt him to blacken it.
Don Rafael believed the women of his household as well as the money safe
in the hiding places he had constructed for them,—the first known to
Doña Feliz and Doña Rita, the second to himself alone. To any fate that
might befall himself he looked with stoical courage if not indifference.
Leaning against the wall, he crossed his arms defiantly and awaited
events.