"I have let you know, Gil," she said. "I am not going away, but I am
unhappy. I am a prisoner. I wonder if you will save me?" Ana's heavy
tread was heard along the corridor. Raquel hastily thrust the note
within the bosom of her dress. When the cotton had been adjusted and the
slipper replaced, Ana took up the scrap-basket.
"Dear Ana, stay a little while. I am so lonely. Don't you think he would
let me sit on the veranda?"
"He would let you go anywhere if you would promise not to speak to the
Señor Silencio," said Ana.
"I will never promise that, Ana," said Raquel, with a compression of the
lips.
She laid her head down on Ana's shoulder.
"I am so lonely," she said. The tears welled over from the childish
eyes. The lips quivered. "I wonder how it feels, Ana, to have a mother."
Ana's eyes were moist, too, but she repressed any show of feeling. Had
not the Señor Escobeda ordered her to do so, and was not his will her
daily rule?
Suddenly Raquel started--her hearing made sensitive by fear.
"I hear him coming, Ana," she said.
"You could not hear him, sweet; he has gone over to see the Señor
Anecito Rojas."
"That dreadful man!" Raquel shuddered. "Why does he wish to see the
Señor Anecito Rojas?"
"I do not know, Señorita." Ana shook her head pitifully. It seemed as
if she might tell something if she would.
Suddenly she strained her arms round the girl.
"Raquel! Raquel!" she said, "promise me that you will sometimes think of
me. That you will love me if we are separated. That if you can, if you
have the power, you will send for me--"
"Ana! Ana!" Raquel had risen to her feet and was crying. Her face was
white, her lips bloodless. "Tell me what you mean. How can I send for
you? Where am I going that I can send for you? Am I going away, Ana?
Ana, what do you know? Tell me, Ana, dear--dear Ana, tell me!"
But Ana had no time or reason to answer. There was a sound of horse's
hoofs before the door, a man's heavy foot alighting upon the veranda,
the throwing wide of the outer door, and Escobeda's voice within the
passage.
"Ana!" it shouted, "Ana!"
Ana arose trembling. "I am here, Señor," she said.
"Where is that girl, Raquel?"
"The Señorita is also here, Señor," answered Ana.
The door was flung open.
"Pack her duds," said Escobeda. "She leaves this by evening."
"_I--leave--here?_" Raquel had arisen, and was standing supporting
herself by Ana's shoulder.
"I suppose you understand your mother tongue. It is as I said; you leave
here this evening."
"Oh, uncle! Where--where am I to go?"
"That you will find out later. Pack her duds, Ana."
Ana trembled in every limb. She arose to obey. Raquel threw herself on
the bare floor at Escobeda's feet.
"Oh, uncle!" she said. "What have I done to be sent away? Will you not
tell me where I am going?"
The girl cried in terror. She wept as a little child weeps, without
restraint. "I am so young, uncle. I have no home but this. Do not send
me away!"
Escobeda looked down at the childish figure on the ground before him,
but not a ray of pity entered his soul, for between Raquel's face and
his he saw that of Silencio, whose father had been his father's enemy as
well as his own. He felt sure that soon or late Silencio would have the
girl. He spoke his thoughts aloud.
"I suppose he would even marry you to spite me," he said.
"Who, uncle? Of whom do you speak?"
"You know well enough; but I shall spoil his game. Get her ready, Ana;
we start this afternoon."
"There is a knocking at the outer door," said Ana. "I will go--"
"You will pack her duds," said Escobeda, who was not quite sure of Ana.
"I will answer the summons myself."
As he was passing through the doorway, Raquel said, despairingly:
"Uncle, wait a moment. You went to the Señor Anecito Rojas. How did you
get back so soon--"
"And who told you that I was going to him? Yes, I did start for the
house of Rojas, but I met him on the way, so I was saved the trouble."
"Are you going to send me to him, uncle?" asked Raquel. The girl's face
had again become white, her eyes were staring. There was some unknown
horror in store. What could it be?
"Send you to him? Oh, no! Why should I send you to him? I have a better
market for you than that of Rojas. He is only coming to aid me with
those trusty men of his, in case your friend Silencio should attempt to
take you from me. He had better not attempt it. A stray shot will
dispose of him very quickly."
"Am I to remain on the island, uncle?"
"Yes and no," answered Escobeda. "We take the boat to-night for the
government town. When we arrive, it will be as the governor says--he
must see you first."
Raquel understood nothing of his allusions. Ana cried silently as she
took Raquel's clothes from the drawers and folded them.
"I cannot see what the governor has to do with me?" said Raquel.
"You will know soon enough," said Escobeda. His laugh was cruel and
sneering.
Raquel turned from Escobeda with an increased feeling of that revulsion
which she had never been able entirely to control. She had felt as if it
were wrong not to care for her uncle, but even had he been uniformly
kind, his appearance was decidedly not in his favour. She glanced at his
low, squat figure, bowed legs, and thick hands. She had time to wonder
why he always wore earrings--something which now struck her as more
grotesque than formerly. Then she thrust her hand within the bosom of
her gown, raised it quickly, and slipped something within her mouth.
Escobeda caught the motion of Raquel's arm as he raised his eyes. She
backed toward the wall. He advanced toward her threateningly. He seized
her small shoulder with one hand, and with a quick, rough motion he
thrust the thick forefinger of the other between her lips, and ran it
round inside her mouth, as a mother does in seeking a button or some
foreign substance by which a child might be endangered. Raquel
endeavoured to swallow the paper. At first she held her teeth close
together, but the strength of Escobeda's finger was equal to the whole
force of her little body, and after a moment's struggle Silencio's note
was brought to light. He tried to open it.
"It is pulp! Nothing but pulp!" he said, shaking the empty hand at her.
Raquel stood outraged and pale. What was the matter with this man? He
had suddenly shown himself in a new light.
"How dare you treat me so?" she gasped.
"You have hurt her, Señor," said Ana, reproachfully. "Does it pain you,
sweet?" Ana had run to the girl, and was wiping her lips with a soft
handkerchief. A tiny speck of blood showed how less than tender had been
this rough man's touch.
"If it pains me? Yes, all over my whole body. How dare he! Anita, how
dare he!"
Escobeda laughed. He seated his thick form in the wicker chair, which
was Raquel's own. It trembled with his weight. He laid the paper
carefully upon his knee, and tried to smooth it.
"I thought you said she received no notes from gentlemen," he roared.
Ana stood red-eyed and pale.
"She never does, Señor," she answered, stifling her sobs.
"And what is that?" asked Escobeda, in a grating voice. He slapped the
paper with the back of his hand into the very face of Ana. "Do you think
that I cannot read my enemy's hand--aye, and his meaning? Even were it
written in invisible ink. '_Gil!_' Do you see it? '_Gil!_'" He slapped
the paper again, still thrusting it under Ana's nose.
"There may be more than one Gil in the world, Señor," sniffed the
shaking Ana.
"Do not try to prevaricate, Ana. You know there is not more than one Gil
in the world," said Raquel, scornfully.
Ana, in danger from the second horn of her dilemma, stood convicted of
both, and gasped.
"There is only one Gil in the world for me. That is Don Gil
Silencio-y-Estrada. That is his note which you hold, uncle. It is a love
letter. I have answered it this very day."
Raquel, now that the flood of her speech had started to flow, said all
that she could imagine or devise. She said that which had no foundation
in fact. She made statements which, had Silencio heard them, would have
lifted him to the seventh heaven of bliss.
"He wants me to go away with him. He knows that I am imprisoned. He
implores me to come to him. Be sure," said Raquel, her eyes flashing,
"that the opportunity is all that I need."
Ana stood aghast. She had never seen Escobeda defied before. All the
countryside feared to anger him. What would become of the two helpless
women who had been so unfortunate?
Escobeda was livid. His eyes rolled with rage; they seemed to turn red.
He arose from the chair, leaving it creaking in every straw. He clenched
his fist, and shook it at the woman and girl alternately. His ear-rings
danced and trembled. He seemed to be seized with a stuttering fit. The
words would not pass the barrier of his brown teeth. He jerked and
stammered.
"We--we--shall see. We shall s--s--see. This--this--eve--evening."
Raquel, her short spurt of courage fled, now stood with drooped head.
Escobeda's anger seemed to have left him as suddenly as it had appeared.
He threw Silencio's note on the floor.
"Ah! bah!" he said, contemptuously. "It sounds very fine. It is like
hare soup: first catch your hare. Silencio shall not catch you, my
little hare. His horses are not fleet enough, nor his arm long enough."
"All the same, I think that he will catch me," said Raquel, again
defiant, with a fresh burst of courage.
Escobeda turned on his heel.
"Go to the door, Ana," he said, "and see who keeps up that thumping."
When Ana had shuffled along the passage, Raquel turned to Escobeda. "It
may be a messenger from the Señor Silencio," she said. "I sent him a
letter some hours ago."
"And by whom, pray?"
"That I will not tell you. I do not betray those who are kind to me. You
told me early this morning that I was to be taken away. You will see now
that I, too, have a friend."
Ana's steps interrupted this conversation.
"Well?" asked Escobeda. "The messenger is--will you speak?"
"It is the man Rotiro from Palmacristi," said Ana, in a low voice.
Raquel gave a quick little draw of her breath inward. The sound made a
joyous note in that cruel atmosphere.
"It will do you no good," said Escobeda. "Go and tell him that I will
see him presently. I will lock you up, my pretty Señorita, that you send
no more notes to that truhan.[5] You have now but a few hours to make
ready. Put in all your finery; though, after all, your new master can
give you what he will, if you please him."