I
People wondered why Don Beltran remained in the casa down by the river.
He had been warned by his prudent neighbors, who lived anywhere from two
to six miles away, that some time a flood, greater than any that the
valley had yet known, would arise and sweep house and inmates away to
the sea.
Don Beltran laughed at this. He was happy as he was, and content. There
had always been floods, and they had sometimes caused the river to
overflow so as to wash across his potreros, but the cacao and bananas
were planted on gentle elevations where the water as yet had never
reached. Then, too, there was always the Hill Rancho, though neither so
large nor so comfortable as the casa. Why borrow trouble? At the first
sign of danger the cattle and horses had always betaken themselves to
the grove on the hill, there to browse and feed, until the shallow lake
which stretched across the plains below them had subsided. Once Don
Beltran, Adan, his faithful serving-man, and Adan's niece, Agueda, had
been belated. Adan had quickly untied the bridle of the little brown
horse from the tethering staple at the corner of the casa, and mounting
it, had swum away for safety.
"That is right," said Don Beltran; "he will swim Mexico"--Don Beltran
said Mayheco--"to the rising ground, and save the young rascal. As for
us, Agueda, the horse had stampeded before I noticed the cloud-burst. It
seems that you and I must stay."
Agueda made no answer, but she thought it no hardship to remain.
"There is no danger for us, child; we can go up to the thatch and wait."
"The peons have gone," said Agueda, shyly.
"They were within their rights," answered Don Beltran. "All must go who
are afraid. I have always told them that. For me, I have known many
floods. They were always interesting, never dangerous. Had I my choice,
I should have stayed."
"And I," said Agueda. She did not look at Don Beltran as she spoke. The
lids were drooped over her grey eyes.
Agueda turned away and entered the comidor, leaving Don Beltran looking
up the valley: not anxiously--merely as one surveys a spectacle of
interest. Once in the comidor, Agueda busied herself opening cupboards
and closets. She took therefrom certain articles of food which she
placed within a basket. She did not move nervously, but quickly, as if
to say, "It may come at any moment; we have not much time, perhaps." She
recalled, as she lightly hurried about, the last time that the flood had
overtaken them at the casa. Nada, her mother, had prepared the basket
then. Nada, Adan's sister, who had kept Don Beltran's house, after she
had been left alone on the hillside--Nada, sweet Nada, who had died six
months ago of no malady that the little Spanish doctor could discover.
Don Beltran prized his Capitas, Adan, above all the serving-men whom he
had ever employed, and nothing was too good for Adan's sister Nada--so
young, so fair-looking, so patient, her mouth set ever in that
heartrending smile, which is more bitter to look upon than a fierce
compression of the lips, whose gentle tones wring the heart more cruelly
than do the wild denunciations of the revengeful and vindictive. The
little Spanish doctor, who, like the Chinese, had never forgotten
anything, as he had never learned anything, had ordered a young calf
slain and its heart brought to where Nada lay wasting away. Warm and
almost beating, it had been opened and laid upon the spot where she
felt the gnawing pain; but as there is no prophylactic against the
breaking of a heart, so for that crushed and quivering organ there is no
remedy. And Nada, tortured in every feeling, physical and mental, had
suffered all that devotion and ignorance could suggest, and died.
Agueda knew little of her mother's history, and remembered only her
invariable patience and gentleness. She remembered their leaving Los
Alamos to come to the hacienda down by the river. She remembered that
one day she had suddenly awakened to the fact that Don Jorge was at the
casa no longer, that her mother smiled no more, that she paid slight
attention to her little daughter's questionings, that Nada was always
robed in black now, that there had been no funeral, no corpse, no grave!
Don Jorge was not dead, that she knew, because the old Capitas, Rafael,
was always ordering the peons about, saying, "The Señor wills it," or
"The Señor will have it so." Then there had come a day when the
bull-cart was brought to the door--the side door which opened from their
apartment. In it were placed her little trunk, which Nada had brought
her from Haldez, when she went to the midwinter fair, and her mother's
American chair, which Don Jorge had brought once when he returned from
the States; she remembered how kindly he had smiled at her pleasure. In
fact, all that in any way seemed to be part and parcel of the two was
placed in the cart, not unkindly, by Juan Filipe, and then the vehicle
awaited Nada's pleasure. She remembered how Nada had taken her by the
hand and led her through the rooms of the large, spreading, uneven casa.
They had passed through halls and corridors, and had finally come to a
pretty interior, which Agueda remembered well, but in which she had not
been now for a long time. The walls were pink, and on the floor was a
pink and white rug, faded it is true, but dainty still. Here Nada had
looked about with streaming eyes. She had gone round behind the bed, and
Agueda had looked up to see her standing, her lips pressed to the wall,
and whispering through her kisses, "Good by, good by!" Then she had
taken Agueda by the hand.
"Look at this room well, 'Gueda," she had said.
"Why, mother?"
But Nada did not speak. Her lips trembled. She could not form her words.
She stood for a moment, her eyes devouring that room which she should
never see again. Her tears had stopped; her eyes were burning.
She stooped down by her daughter.
"Agueda," she said, "repeat these words after me."
"Yes, mother."
"Say, 'All happiness be upon this house.'"
"No, no! mother, I will not. This casa has made you cry. I will not say
it."
"Agueda!" Nada's tone was almost stern. "Do as I tell you, child, repeat
my words--'All happiness come to this house.'"
But Agueda had pressed her lips tightly together and shaken her head.
She had closed the grey eyes so that the curled lashes swept her round
brown cheek. Nada had lifted the child in her arms and carried her
through the corridors and out to the side veranda. She had set her in
the cart and got in beside her.
"Where to, Señora?" Juan Filipe had asked gently.
"To San Isidro," Nada had answered from stiff lips.
"_Aaaaaiiieee!_" Juan Filipe had shouted, at the same time flourishing
the long lash of his whip round the animals' heads. They, knowing that
they must soon move, had tossed their noses stubbornly. Another warning,
the wheels had creaked, turned round, and they had passed down the hill.
Agueda never forgot that ride to San Isidro. Had it not been for her
mother's tears, she would have been more than happy. She had always
wished to ride in the new bull-cart; Juan Filipe had promised her many
a time. Now he was at last keeping his promise. This argued well. If she
could take one ride, how many more might she not have? All the time
during that little trip to San Isidro, Agueda was asking herself mental
questions. There was no use in speaking to her mother. She only looked
far away toward Los Alamos, and answered "Yes" and "No" at random.
Agueda remembered with what delight she had seen the patient bulls turn
the creaking cart into the camino which led to San Isidro.
"Oh," she said, clapping her hands, "we are going to Uncle Adan's!"
For was not this Uncle Adan's casa, and did not Don Beltran live with
Uncle Adan? She was not sure. But when she had been there with her
mother, she had seen that splendid tall Don Beltran about the house with
the dogs, or with his bulls in the field, or in his shooting coat with
his gun slung across his shoulder, or going with his fishing-tackle to
the river. Yes, she was sure that Don Beltran lived at Uncle Adan's
house.
Agueda's thoughts sped with the rapidity that reminiscence brings, and
as she placed some rounds of cassava bread in the basket she saw her
mother doing the same, as if it were but yesterday, and saying between
halting breaths:
"Never trust a gentleman--Agueda--marry some--plain, honest--man--a man
of--our people, Agueda--but do not--trust--"
"Who are our people, mother?" the girl had interrupted.
Aye, who were their people?
Nada had not answered. She had lain her thin arms round Agueda's
unformed shoulders, turned the girl's head backward with the other hand
laid upon her brow, and gazed steadily into the good grey eyes.
"My little Agueda," she had said--stopped short, and sighed. It was
hopeless. There was no escape from the burden of inheritance. Agueda had
not understood the cause of her mother's sigh and her halting words. She
had been ill to death--that she knew. Then came long years of patience,
as Agueda grew to girlhood. Could it be only six months ago that she had
lost her?
"My sweet Nada," she whispered, as she laid a napkin over the contents
of the basket, "I do not know what you meant, but I do not forget you,
Nada."
"Hasten, Agueda! There is no danger, but there is no need of getting a
wetting."
Agueda turned to see Don Beltran standing in the doorway of the comidor.
He was smiling. His face looked brown and healthful against the worn
blue of the old painted door. His white trousers were tucked within the
tops of his high boots, and he wore a belt of tanned leather, with the
usual accompaniment of a pistol-holder, which was empty, the belt
forming a strap for a machete, and holding safely that useful weapon of
domesticity or menace. His fine striped shirt hung in loose folds partly
over the belt; the collar, broad, and turned down from the brown throat,
being held carelessly in place by a flowing coloured tie. He had an old
Panama hat in his brown hand. His wavy hair swept back from his
forehead, crisp and changeable in its dark gold lights. His brown eyes
looked kindly at the girl, but more particularly at the basket which she
filled.
"Have you some glasses?" he asked, "and some--"
"Water, Señor? Yes, I have not forgotten that."
Don Beltran laughed merrily.
"I fancy that we shall have water enough, 'Gueda, child. Get my flask
and fill it with rum. The pink rum of the vega. Here, let me get the
demijohn. Run for the flask, child. Perhaps I should have listened to
the warning of old Emperatriz."
There were other warnings which Beltran had not taken into account. The
sultry day that had passed, the total absence of breeze, the low-flying
birds, the stridulous cry of the early home-flying parrots, the
dun-colored sky to the south and east, the whinneying and neighing of
the horses. The old grey, who knew the signs of the times, had torn his
bridle loose and raced across the pasture-land to the hill where stood
the rancho. He was the pioneer; the others had followed him, and the
little roan had galloped away last of all, with Adan to guide and
reassure him. The bulls, leaping and plunging with heads to earth and
hind hoofs raised in air, with shaking fringe of tail and bellowed
pleading, had asked, as plainly as could creatures to whom God gave a
soul, to be allowed to flee to the mountain. Adan, in passing, had
unclasped and thrown wide the gate, and they had raced with him for
certain life from the death which might be imminent. Emperatriz had
whined and had pounded her tail restlessly against the planks of the
floor. Then she had arisen, and stood with her great forepaws resting
upon Beltran's shoulder, gazing with anxiety that was almost human into
his face.
"Caramba Hombre!" Beltran had said, as he threw the great beast away
from him. Then he had laughed. "I am like the peons, who address even
the women so. It does mean a storm, Emperatriz, old girl, but I do not
care to go."
He had opened the outer door. The great hound had darted through,
leaped from the veranda to the ground, and fled toward the south,
barking as she ran at the encroaching enemy. She had circled round the
casa, nose in air, her whimpering cries ascending to the sky, which
shone, as yet, blue overhead. Then back she had torn to the steps, and
bounding up and in at the door, had crouched at her master's feet, her
nose upon the leather of his shoe, her flanks curved high. Then she had
leaped upon him again. She had taken his sleeve gently between her teeth
as if to compel him to safety, then crouched again, flapping her great
tail upon the floor, her eyes raised to his, her whine pleading like the
tones of a human voice. Beltran had shaken the dog away.
"I am not going, Emperatriz," he had said, impatiently. "Be off with
you!"
A few more circlings round the casa, a few more appealing cries, a
backward glance and a backward bark, and Emperatriz had started for the
rancho, and none too soon. The potrero had become a shallow lake,
through which she splashed before she had placed her forefeet upon the
rise.
"Hasten, Agueda! Come! Come!" called Beltran.
Agueda ran to the ladder, which was ever ready for just such surprises.
It was the expected which usually did not happen at San Isidro, but the
ladder was always there, fastened secure and firm, rivetted to the
floor and roof alike. It could move but with the house. Agueda stepped
lightly upon the rungs, one after the other. She raised the basket up to
Don Beltran's down-reaching grasp. He took it, placed it upon the gently
sloping roof, and held out a kindly hand to the girl, but Agueda did not
take it at once. She descended the ladder a round or two, and from a
nail in a near-by beam seized a coat which Don Beltran wore sometimes
when the nights were cool, and the trade winds blew up too freshly from
the sea. When she climbed again to the opening in the thatch, Don
Beltran was leaning against the old stone chimney, which raised its
moss-grown head between the casa and cocina. He had forgotten the girl.
His horizontal palm shaded his eyes from the ray of the level sun. There
was no sign of fear visible upon his face; he appeared rather like an
interested observer, which indeed he was, for he felt secure and safe,
for himself, his people, and his cattle.
"See the commotion among the forests up there, near Palmacristi, Agueda!
It may be only a slight storm and quickly over, but if we do have a
flood like the last one, I have no wish that Garcia and Manuel Medina
shall float in at my front door in their dugouts and carry off all
things movable. It is so easy to lay everything to the flood!"
"The men have been moving the furniture for an hour past, Señor. I
think there is little that can be carried away."
Don Beltran gave a sudden start.
"Where is the cross, Agueda? Did you remember that?"
"I have it here, Señor." Agueda laid her hand upon the bosom of her
gown. "And the Señor's little cart, that is locked within the inner
cupboard. It cannot go unless the casa goes also."
"And in that case I should want it no more in this world, Agueda. You
are thoughtful, child. The two souvenirs of my mother! Ah, see!" As he
spoke there was a stir among the treetops far over to the westward.
There, where yellow-brown clouds hung massed and solid as a wall over
the rift below, a strange agitation was visible.
"It is a dance, 'Gueda. Do you see them, those fairies? Watch that one
advancing there, to the southward. She approaches the lady from the
east. See them skip and whirl and pass as if in a quadrille. It is a
pretty sight. You will see that once in a lifetime--not oftener. They
call it the _trompa marina_ at sea."
Agueda raised her eyes and looked smiling towards the spot to which he
nodded. There white and twisting spirals danced and swayed against that
lurid background, and above the deep bay, which was hidden by the
hills. They advanced, they retreated, they dipped like sprites from palm
tuft to palm tuft. Sometimes they skipped gaily in couples, again one
was left to follow three or four that had their heads close together,
like schoolchildren telling secrets. It was all so human and
everyday-like, that Agueda laughed gaily and gazed fascinated at the
antics of these children of the storm. The long, ragged-edged split in
the angry clouds disclosed a blood-red glow behind, which sent its glare
down through the valley and across the woods, where it flecked the tree
trunks. From Beltran's vantage point the palm shafts stood black as
night against the glare. When he turned and looked behind him, unwilling
to lose a single bit of this latest painting from the brush of nature,
he found that she had dashed every tree trunk with one gorgeous splash
of ruddy gold.
Agueda lifted her basket and carried it to the chimenea unaided. Beltran
was so absorbed in the grand sight that he had forgotten to be kind.
There was usually no thought of gallantry in what he did for the girl,
but even the natural kindliness of his manner was in abeyance. Agueda
set the basket behind the great stone wall. She remembered what he had
said the last time they had sought shelter from the water. "It is
ridiculous, that great chimney," he had said: "but even the absurd
things of life have their uses." She remembered how she had crouched in
her mother's arms the whole long day, but beyond a few drops there had
been no cloud-burst, no flood that came higher than the top step of the
veranda. They had descended at night dry and unharmed.
"It may be like the last one," she ventured to say. But her sentence was
drowned. There came a rustling and swaying sound from afar, growing
louder as it approached. Beltran noted the ruthless path which it
indicated, and then, "there came a rushing, mighty wind from Heaven." It
fell upon the tall lilies as if they were grass, bent them to the earth,
and laid them prostrate. Some of them, denizens of the soil more
tenacious of their hold than others, clung to Mother Earth with the grip
of the inheritor of primogeniture. But the struggle was brief.
"I was certain that those I planted upside down would stand," said
Beltran to Agueda. "I allowed twelve-inch holes, too." But there comes a
time when precaution is proven of no avail. The massive stalks were torn
from their holdings like so much straw, and laid low with their weaker
brothers. As they began to fall in the near field, "It is upon us!"
shouted Beltran. He seized Agueda's wrist and drew her behind the
chimney. And there they cowered as the wind raved past them on either
side, carrying heavy missiles on its strong wings. At this Beltran's
face showed for the first time some uneasiness.
He was peering out from behind his stone bulwark.
"There goes Aranguez's casa," he said, regretfully. "I had no thought of
that. I wish I had sent you to the rancho, child."
They crouched low behind the chimney. He clung to one of the staples
mortared in the interstices of the stone-work, against just such a day
as this, and braced his foot beneath the eaves. Again he peered
cautiously out. A whistling, rustling sound had made him curious as to
its source.
The river, which had been flowing tranquilly but a few minutes before,
now threw upward white and pointed arms of foam, They reached to the
branches, which threshed through open space, and swayed over to meet
their supplication, then straightened a moment to bend again to north,
to east, to west. The floods had fallen fiercely upon the defenceless
bosom of the gentle Rio Frio, had beaten and lashed it and overcome it,
so that it mingled perforce with its conqueror, while raising appealing
arms for mercy. It grieved, it tossed, it wept, it wailed, but its
invader shrieked gleefully as he hurried his helpless prize down through
the savannas to that welcoming tyrant, the sea.
The water crept rapidly up toward the foundation of the casa. It washed
underneath the high flooring. It lapped against the pilotijos. It
carried underneath the house branches and twigs which it had brought
down in its mad rush toward the lowlands. As it rose higher and higher,
it wove the banana stalks and wisps of straw which it bore upon its
bosom in and out between the trunks and stems of trees. With the skill
of an old-time weaver, it interlaced them through the upright growth
which edged the bank. One saw the vegetable fabric there for years
after, unless the sun and rain had rotted it away, and another flood had
replaced within the warp a fresher woof.
Beltran arose and took a few cautious steps upon the roof, but the wind,
if warm, was fierce, and thrust him back with violence. He barely
escaped being dashed to the new-made lake below. He caught at the
chimenea, and edging slowly round, seated himself again by Agueda. She
had been calling to him, and had stretched out her hand. Her eyes showed
her fear, and also the relief which his presence gave her. When she felt
that he was safe beside her she made no further sign.
Beltran had laid his hand on Agueda's shoulder as he would have done
upon the chimney itself. By it he steadied himself in taking his seat.
She raised her eyes and shyly offered him his coat. He shook his head
with a smile. His lips moved, but she could hear no word for the noise
of the wind and water. Don Beltran put his hand to his mouth and placed
his lips to Agueda's ear.
"Do not be afraid," he shouted. "There is really no danger."
She shook her head and glanced up at him again, dropping almost at once
the childish eyes to the hands in her lap. She moved a little nearer to
their dividing line, and called in answer:
"I am not afraid."
He saw her lips move, and guessed at the words, though her look of
confidence would have answered him. Why had he never noticed those eyes
before? Was it because she had always kept them cast down? What slim
hands the girl had! What shapely shoulders! He looked at them as they
rested against the weather-beaten stones of the chimney.
Agueda turned her head backward and clutched quickly at the light
handkerchief which confined the waves of her short hair. She laughed and
looked upward at Don Beltran from under her sweeping lashes. Her soul
went forth to meet his gaze, unconscious as a little child that she had
a secret to tell; unconscious that the next moment she had told it. How
can one tell anything except by word of mouth?
Beltran drew sharply back, as far as the contracted space would allow.
He leaned over the edge of the roof, and saw that the water was now
sweeping through the casa, flowing more slowly as it spread over a
greater space. It glided in at the doors and out at the windows, which
he had left open purposely, not dreaming, it is true, that this flood
would be greater than others of its kind, but that in case it should be,
the resistance might be less. Glancing down stream, he saw a chair and
some tin pans bobbing and courtesying to each other as they drifted
across the potrero where the cattle usually browsed.
The sun declined, the dusk came creeping down, and with the approach of
night the wind subsided. Fortunately there was no rain. The clouds had
been carried in from the sea at right angles with the stream, and had
broken in the mountains and poured out their torrents there.
Still the rushing of the river drowned all other sounds. It grew quite
dark. Beltran leaned back against the chimenea. The slight creature at
his side rested, also, in silence. The darkness became intense. The
chimenea was needed no longer as a protection from the wind, but the
utter absence of all light made the slightest motion dangerous. A chill
mist crept up from the sea. The night began to grow cold, as do the
tropic nights of midwinter. Beltran shivered. Something was pushed
against his hand. He reached down and felt another hand, a hand slim
and cold. He took it within his own, but it was at once withdrawn, and a
rough and heavy article thrown across his knees. He felt some buttons, a
pocket which held papers, a collar. Ah! It must be his woollen coat,
which she had had the forethought to bring. Feeling for the sleeve, he
threw the coat round his shoulders, and with a resolve born in a moment,
reached out toward Agueda. His groping fingers fell upon her sweet
throat and the tendrils of her boyish hair, the great dark rings, which,
now that he could not see them, he suddenly remembered. Throwing his arm
around her, he drew the damp and shivering figure close. Then he grasped
the sleeve of his coat, and drew it towards him, forcing her head down
upon his breast. He sought the other hand, and later found the tremulous
lips. He held his willing prisoner close, and so they sat the whole
night through.
Many and strange thoughts rushed through Agueda's brain during those
blissful hours. Life began for her then, and she found it well worth
living. She awoke. Her child's heart sprang into full being, to lie
dormant never again. Nada's words came back to her. She did not wish to
recall them, but they forced themselves upon her: "Never trust a
gentleman, Agueda; he will only betray you."
"I should think much of your warning, Nada," thought Agueda, "if I saw
other gentlemen. I never do see them. If I do, he will protect me." The
danger had not arrived. It could never come now. She had found her
bulwark and her defence.