So silently did the girl come that the charcoal-burners were forced to
jump aside, and, springing in the wrong direction, the hunchback was
bowled over by the beast of the _mozo_ who rode at her back.
"Why, senor!" she exclaimed, reining in. Then taking in the knives,
pistol, broken club, she asked, "They attacked you? Tomas!"
Her Spanish was too rapid for Seyd's ear, but it was easy to gather its
tenor from the results. With a certain complaisance Seyd looked on while
his enemies scattered on a run that was diversified by uncouth leaps as
the _mozo's_ whip bit on tender places.
"He struck at you?" She broke in on the rice-huller's voluble plea that
never, _never_ would he have raised a finger against the senor had he
known him for a friend of hers! "Then he, too, shall be flogged."
"I would not wish--" Seyd began.
But she interrupted him: "You were going toward San Nicolas? Then I
shall turn and ride with you." Anticipating his protest, she added,
"I had already ridden beyond my usual distance."
Very willingly he fell in at her side, and they rode on till they met
the _mozo_ returning, hot and flushed, from the pursuit. He was keen
as a blooded hound; it required only her backward nod to send him
darting along the trail, and just about the time they overtook the
charcoal-burners a sudden yelling in their rear told that the account
of the rice-huller was in course of settlement.
Passing his late enemies, Seyd could not but wonder at their
transformation. With the exception of the hunchback, in whose beady eyes
still lurked subdued ferocity, all were sobbing, and even he broke into
deprecatory whinings. Having read his Prescott, Seyd knew something of
the rigid Aztec caste systems from which Mexican peonage was derived.
Now, viewing their abjectness, he was able to apprehend, almost with the
vividness of experience, the ages of unspeakable cruelty that had given
birth to their fear. But that which astonished him still more was the
indifference with which the girl had ordered the flogging.
Such glimpses of her face as he was able to steal while they rode
did not aid him much. It was impossible to imagine anything more
typically modern than the delicately chiseled features lit with a vivid
intelligence which seemed to pulse and glow in the soft shadow beneath
her hat. And when from her face his glance fell to her smart riding-suit
of tan linen he was completely at sea.
Curiosity dictated his comment: "Your justice is certainly swift. Really
I am afraid that I was the aggressor. At least I struck first."
"But not without cause." She glanced at his smudged clothes. "Tell me
about it." And when he had finished she commented: "Just as I thought.
And these are dangerous men. They would have killed you without a qualm.
In the days that Don Sebastien was clearing the country of bandits he
counted that hunchback one of his best men."
"Yet he whined like a puppy under your man's whip."
Smiling at his wonder, she went on to state the very terms of his
puzzle. "You do not know them--the combination of ferocity and
subservience that goes with their blood. In the old days he who raised
his hand against the superior caste was put to death by torture, and,
though, thank God, those wicked days are past, the effect remains. They
are obedient, usually, as trained hounds, but just as dangerous to a
stranger. If I had not ordered them flogged they would have taken it as
license to kill you at their leisure."
"Now I realize the depth of my obligation."
He spoke a little dryly, and she leaped to his meaning with a quickness
that greatly advanced her in his secret classification. "I have hurt
your pride. You will pardon me. I had forgotten the unconquerable valor
of the gringos."
"Oh, come!" he pleaded.
She stopped laughing. "Really, I did not doubt your courage. But do not
imagine for one moment that they would attack you again in the open. A
knife in the dark, a shot from a bush, that is their method, and if you
should happen to kill one, even in self defense, gringos are not so well
beloved in Guerrero but that some one would be found to swear it a
murder. Be advised, and go carefully."
"I surely will." He was going on to thank her when she cut him off with
the usual "It is nothing." Whereupon, respect for her intuition was
added to the classification which was beginning to bewilder him by its
scope and variety.
In fact, he could not look her way nor could she speak without some
physical trait or mental quality being added to the catalogue. Now it
was the quivering sensitiveness of her mouth, an unsuspected archness,
the astonishing range of feeling revealed by her large dark eyes.
Looking down upon the charcoal-burners, they had gleamed like black
diamonds; in talking, their soft glow waxed and waned. Sometimes--but
this was omitted from the classification because it only occurred when
his head was turned--a merry twinkle illumined a furtive smile. Taken in
all its play and sparkle, her face expressed a lively sensibility
altogether foreign to his experience of women.
After a short silence she took up the subject again. "But I am giving
you a terrible impression of our people. It is only in moments of
passion that the old Aztec crops out. At other times they are kind,
pleasant, generous. Neither are we the cruel taskmasters that some
foreign books and papers portray us. You would not believe how angry
they make me--the angrier because I have a strain of your blood in my
own veins. My grandfather, you know, was Irish. It was from him I
learned your speech."
The last bit of information was almost superfluous, for from no other
source could she have obtained the pure lilting quality that makes the
Dublin speech the finest English in the world. To it she had added an
individual charm, the measured cadence and soft accent of her native
Spanish, delivered in a low contralto that had in it a little break. Her
laugh punctuated its flow as she came to her conclusion.
"But you will soon be able to see for yourself what terrible people we
are."
He obtained one glimpse within the next mile. He had already noted the
passing of the last wild jungle. From fields of maize which alternated
with sunburned fields of _maguey_ they now rode into an avenue that led
on through green cane. Rising far above their heads, the cane marched
with them for a half mile, then suddenly opened out around a primitive
wooden sugar mill. Under the thatched roof of an open hut half-nude
women were stirring boiling syrup in open pans, and at the sight of
Francesca one of them came running out to the trail.
"Her baby is to be christened next Sunday," the girl told him as they
rode on. "She was breaking her heart because she had no robe. But now
she is happy, for I have promised to ask the good _mama_ to lend her
mine, which she has treasured all these years."
Soon afterward as they turned out of the cane into a new planting they
almost ran down her uncle, who had come out to inspect the work. Only
his quick use of the spur averted a collision, and as his own spirited
roan sprang sideways Seyd noted with admiration that despite his bulk
and age horse and man moved as one. If surprised at the sight of his
niece in such company, the old man did not reveal it by so much as the
lift of a brow. It was difficult even to perceive the twinkle in his
eyes that lightened his chiding.
"_Ola_, Francesca! If there be no respect for thy own pretty neck,
at least have pity on my old bones. It is you, senor? Welcome to San
Nicolas."
Neither did Seyd's explanation of his business abate his brown
impassivity. If assumed, his ponderous effort at recollection was
wonderfully realistic. "Ah, _si_! Santa Gertrudis? If I remember aright,
it was denounced before. Yes, yes, by several--but they had no good
fortune. Still, you may fare better. Paulo, the administrador, will
attend to the business."
With a wave of the hand, courteous in its very indifference, he put the
matter out of his province and displayed no further interest until the
girl told of the attack on Seyd. Then he glanced up quickly from under
frowning brows.
"You had them whipped? _Bueno!_ The rascals must be taught not to molest
travelers. And now we shall ride on that the senor may break his fast.
And thou, too, wicked one, will be late. As thou knowest, it is the only
fault the good mother sees in thee."
"Would that it totaled my sins," she laughed. "To escape another black
mark I shall have to gallop. _Ola!_ for a race!"
As from a light touch of the spur her beast launched out and away, the
roan reared and tried to follow, and while he curbed it back to a walk
the old man's heavy face lit up with pleasure. "She rides well. I have
not a vaquero with a better seat. But go thou, Tomas, lest she come to
a harm. And you, senor, will follow?"
With a vivid picture of the figure Peace would cut in a race occupying
the forefront of his mind it did not take Seyd long to choose. After the
girl had passed from sight behind a clump of tamarinds he took note, as
they rode along, of the peons who were laying the field out in shallow
ditches wherein others were planting long shoots of seed cane. To his
practical engineer's eye the hand-digging seemed so slow and laborious
that he could not refrain from a comment.
"It seems to me that a good steel plow would do the work much cheaper."
"Cheaper? Perhaps." After a heavy pause, during which he took secret
note of Seyd out of the corner of his eye, the old man went on: "To
do a thing at less cost in labor and time seems to be the only thing
that you Yankees consider. But cheapness is sometimes dearly purchased.
Come! Suppose that I put myself under the seven devils of haste that
continually drive you. What would become of these, my people? Who would
employ them? It is true that theirs is not a great wage--perhaps, after
all, totals less than the cost of your steel plow and a capable man to
run it. We pay only three and a half cents for each ditch, in our
currency, and a man must dig twelve a day. If he digs less he gets
nothing.
"That does not seem just to you?" He read Seyd's surprise. "It would if
you knew them. Grown children without responsibility or sense of duty
are they. If left free to come and go, they would dig one, two, three
ditches, enough and no more than would supply them with _cigarros_ and
_aguardiente_, and our work would never be done. As it is, they dig the
full twelve, and have money for other necessities.
"The wage seems small?" Again he read Seyd's mind. "Yet it is all that
we can afford, nor does it have to cover the cost of living. Each man
has his patch of maize and frijoles, and a run for his chickens and
pigs. Then the river teems with fish, the jungle with small game. His
wage goes only for drink and _cigarros_, or, if there be sufficient
left over, to buy a dress for his woman. They are perfectly content."
Slightly lifting his heavy brows, he finished, looking straight at Seyd:
"I am an old Mexican hacendado, yet I have traveled in your country and
Europe. Tell me, senor, can as much be said of your poor?"
Now, in preparing a thesis for one of his social-science courses, Seyd
had studied the wage scale of the cotton industry, and so knew that,
ridiculously small as this peon wage appeared at the first glance, it
actually exceeded that paid to women and children in Southern cotton
factories. In their case, moreover, the pittance had to meet every
expense.
He did not hesitate to answer. "I should say that your peons were better
off, providing the conditions, as you state them, are general."
"And they are, senor, except in the south tropics, where any kind of
labor is murder. But here? It is as you see; and why disturb it by the
introduction of Yankee methods?"
Pausing, he looked again at Seyd, and whether through secret pleasure at
his concession or because he merely enjoyed the pleasure of speaking out
that which would have been dangerous if let fall in the presence of a
countryman, he presently went on: "Therefore it is that I do not stand
with Porfirio Diaz in his commercial policies. He is a great man. Who
should know it better than I that fought with or against him in a dozen
campaigns. And he has given us peace--thirty years of slow, warm peace.
Yet sometimes I question its value. In the old time, to be sure, we cut
each other's throats on occasion. In the mean time we were warmer
friends. And war prevented the land from being swamped by the millions
that overrun your older countries, the teeming millions that will
presently swarm like the locusts over your own United States. As I say,
senor, I am only an old Mexican hacendado, but I have looked upon it all
and seen that where war breeds men, civilization produces only mice. If
I be allowed my choice give me the bright sword of war in preference to
the starvation and pestilence that thins out your poor."
Concluding, he looked down, interrogatively, as though expecting a
contradiction. But though, after all, his argument was merely a
restatement of the time-worn Malthusianism, coming out of the mouth of
one who had strenuously applied it during forty years of internecine
war, it carried force. Maintaining silence, Seyd stole occasional
glances at the massive brown face and the heavy figure moving in stately
rhythm with the slow trot of his horse, while his memory flashed over
tale after tale that Peters, the station agent, had told him when he was
out the other day to the railroad--tales of bravery, hardy adventures,
all performed amidst the inconceivable cruelties of the revolutionary
wars. Even had he been certain that the eventual peopling of the earth's
vacant places would not force a return to at least a revised
Malthusianism, it was not for his youth to match theories with age. When
he did speak it was on another subject.
"I have been riding all morning on your land. I suppose it extends as
far in the other direction?"
"A trifle." A deprecatory wave of the strong brown hand lent emphasis to
the phrase. "A trifle, senor, by comparison with the original grant to
our ancestor from Cortes. 'From the rim of the Barranca de Guerrero on
both sides, and as far up and down from a given point as a man may
ride in a day,' so the deed ran. Being shrewd as he was valiant, my
forefather had his Indians blaze a trail in both directions before he
essayed the running. A hundred and fifty miles he made of it when he
started--not bad riding without a trail. But it is mostly gone by family
division, or it has been forfeited by those who threw in their luck on
the wrong side of a revolution. Now is there left only a paltry hundred
or so thousands of acres--and this!"
For the first time pronounced feeling made itself felt through his
massive reserve, and looking over the view that had suddenly opened,
Seyd did not wonder at the note of pride. After leaving the cane they
had plunged through green skirts of willow to the river that split the
wide valley in equal halves, and from the shallow ford they now rode
out on a grassy plateau that ran for miles along low lateral hills.
Dotted with tamarinds, banyans, and the tall ceibas which held huge
leafy umbrellas over panting cattle, it formed a perfect foreground for
the hacienda, whose chrome-yellow buildings lay like a band of sunlight
along the foot of the hill. The thick adobe walls that bound stables,
cottages, and outbuildings into a great square gave the impression of a
fortified town, castled by the house, which rose tier on tier up the
face of the hill.
When they rode through the great gateway of the lower courtyard the
interior view proved equally arresting. Mounting after Don Luis up
successive flights of stone steps, they came to the upper courtyard,
wherein was concentrated every element of tropical beauty--wide
corridors, massive chrome pillars, time-stained arches, luxurious
foliage. From the tiled roof above a vine poured in cataracts of living
green so dense that only vigorous pruning had kept it from shutting off
all light from the rooms behind. Left alone, it would quickly have
smothered out the palms, orchids, rare tropical plants that made of the
courtyard a vivid garden.
"They call it the _sin verguenza_." While he was admiring the creeper
Francesca had joined them from behind. "Shameless, you know, for it
climbs 'upstairs, downstairs,' nor respects even the privacy of 'my
lady's chamber.' Thanks to the good legs of my beast, I escaped a
scolding. Sit here where the vines do not obstruct the view."
If Seyd had been told a few minutes before that anything could have
become her more than the tan riding-suit he would have refused to
believe. But now by the evidence of his own eyes he was forced to admit
the added charm of a simple batiste, whose fluffy whiteness accentuated
her girlishness. The mad gallop had toned her usual clear pallor with a
touch of color, and as she looked down, pinning a flower on her breast,
he noted the perfect curve of her head.
"Room for a good brain there," he thought, while answering her
observation. "It is beautiful. But don't you find it a little dull
here--after Mexico City?"
"No." She shook her head with vigor. "Of course, I like the balls
and parties, yet I am always glad to return to my horses and dogs
and--though it is wicked to put them in the same category--my babies.
There are always at least three mothers impatiently awaiting my return
to consult me upon names. I am godmother to no less than seven small
Francescas."
"I never should have thought it. You must have begun--"
"--Very young? Yes, I was only fifteen, so my first godchild is now
seven. That reminds me--she is waiting below to repeat her catechism.
There is just time--if you would like it."
"I would be delighted. So the position is not without its duties?"
"I should think not." Her eyes lit with a touch of indignation. "I hold
the baby at the christening after helping to make the robe. When they
are big enough I teach them their catechism. You could not imagine the
weight of my responsibilities, and I believe that I am much more
concerned for their behavior than their mothers. If any of them were to
do anything really wicked"--her little shudder was genuine--"I should
feel dreadfully ashamed. But they are really very good--as you shall
judge for yourself. Francesca!" As, with a soft patter of chubby feet, a
small girl emerged from a far corner, she added with archness that was
chastened by real concern, "Now you must not dare to say that she isn't
perfect."
In one sense the caution was needed. After a brave answer to the
question "Who is thy Creator, Francesca?" the child displayed a slight
uncertainty as to the origin of light, added a week or two to the "days
of creation," and became hopelessly mixed as to the specific quantities
of the "Trinity"--wherein, after all, she was no worse than the
theologians who have burned each other up, in both senses, in furious
disputes over the same question. But better, far better than letter
perfection, was the simple awe of the small brown face and the devotion
of the lisping voice which followed the tutor's gentle prompting.
"Fine! fine!" Seyd applauded a last valorous attack on the Ten
Commandments, and the small scholar ran off clutching a silver coin,
just so much the richer for his heretical presence. As he rose to follow
his hostess inside he added, "If all the Francescas are equal to sample,
the next generation of San Nicolas husbands will undoubtedly rise up and
call you blessed."
"Now you are laughing at me," she protested. "Though that might be truly
said of my mother. She is a saint for good works. But come, or I shall
yet earn my scolding. And let me warn you to take care of your heart.
All of the _caballeros_ fall in love with mother."
It was quite believable. While seated in the dining-room, a vaulted
chamber cool as a crypt in spite of the sunblaze outside, a room which
would have seated an army of retainers, he observed the senora with the
satisfaction that even a stranger may feel in the promise a handsome
mother holds out to her girls. In addition to the sweetness of her eyes
and her tenderly tranquil expression she had retained her youthful
contour. She exhibited the miracle of middle age achieved without fat or
stiffness. In her scarf and black lace she was maturely beautiful.
Waving away his apologies for the intrusion, she was anxiously
solicitous for his wants through the meal. Yet he noticed that in
taking his leave an hour later she did not ask him to call again.
Up to that moment there had been no further mention of his business. But
as he stood hesitating, loath to introduce it, Don Luis relieved his
embarrassment. "Now you would see the administrador? I am sorry, senor,
but it seems that he is away at Chilpancin about the sale of cattle. But
if you will intrust your moneys to Francesca she will see to the
business and have the papers sent out to the mine."
Neither did Francesca, when saying good-by, ask him to return. But,
conscious that with all their kind hospitality they still regarded him
as an intruder, Seyd was neither offended nor surprised. He was even a
little astonished when Don Luis stated his intention of riding with him
as far as the cane.
Until they came to the ford they rode in silence. Though only a few
inches deep at this season, the river's wide bed proclaimed it one of
those torrential streams which rise from a trickle to a flood in very
few hours, and when he remarked upon it Don Luis assented with his heavy
nod.
"_Si_, it is very treacherous. One night during the last rains it rose
fifty feet and swept down the valley miles wide, bearing on its yellow
bosom cattle, houses, sheep, and pigs, and it drowned not a few of our
people. And each year the floods go higher. Why? Because of the cursed
lust that would mint the whole world into dollars. Year by year your
Yankee companies are stripping the pine from the upper valley, and,
though I have spoken with Porfirio Diaz about it, he is mad for
commerce. He would see the whole state of Guerrero submerged before he
revoked one charter. And they even try to make me a party to it.
'General, if you will grant us a concession to do this, that, the other?
If you will only allow us to run a branch line into your pine we can
make big money--guarantee you half a million pesos.' When I am in Mexico
your Yankee promoters swarm round me like hungry dogs. But never have I
listened, nor ever will!"
He struck the pommel of his saddle a heavy blow, then looked his
surprise as Seyd spoke. "I should not think that you would. I understand
your feelings."
"You do? _Caramba!_ Then you are the first Yankee that ever did. In
return for your sympathy let me offer you advice. You are not the first
man to denounce on my land, nor is Santa Gertrudis the only location.
Yankees, English, French, Germans, they have come, denounced claims here
and there, but no man has ever held one. No man ever _will_. Already you
have tasted the bitter hostility of my people, and were I to nod not
even the American Ambassador could save you alive. And this is only the
beginning. Let me return your money? Mexico is one great mine. Anywhere
you can kick the soil and uncover a fortune."
"But none like the Santa Gertrudis." Seyd smiled. "Of course, I feel
it's pretty raw for me to force in on your land; but, knowing that
if I don't some other will, I shall have to refuse. As for the
opposition--that is all in the day's work." He finished, offering his
hand. "But I hope this won't prevent us from being good neighbors?"
Shaking his massive head, Don Luis reined in his horse. "No, senor, we
can never be that. But next to a good friend I count a hearty enemy, and
you may depend upon me for that."
With a courteous wave of the hand he rode off; and, watching him go at
a stately canter, Seyd muttered, "Enemy or friend, you are a fine old
chap."
* * * * *
"You are surely a fine old chap."
Retracing his path through the long succession of farm, jungle, and
fields, Seyd repeated it, and as he rode along he saw things in a new
light. As he passed through one village at sundown the entire population
was filing into church, the peons in clean blankets, their women in
decent black. The next hamlet was in the throes of a fiesta. Girls in
white, garlanded with flaming flowers, were dancing the eternal jig of
the country with their brown swains. And these two functions, church and
_baile_, marked the bounds of their simple life. A plenty of rice and
frijoles, a peso or two for clothing, were all that they asked or
needed.
While prospecting in the Sierra Madres Seyd had drawn many a comparison
between the happy indolence of the peon and the worry, strain, strife to
live up to a standard just beyond income that obtains in American life.
Because the peon had time to think his simple thoughts, listen to bird
song and the music of babbling streams, to watch the splendors of
sunrise and sunset over purple valleys, Seyd's suffrage had often gone
to him. Observing this pastoral life in its tropical setting of palms
and jungle, the opinion grew into a strong conviction.
"The old fellow's right!" he ejaculated, riding out of the last village
into the jungle proper. "We have nothing to give his people, and we'd
surely kill all they have."
Though the profusion of foliage which made of the trail one long green
tunnel prevented him from seeing it, he was now riding along at the
foot of the Barranca wall. Its deep shadow already filled the jungle
with a twilight that thickened into night as he rode. But, knowing
that whatever her faults of temperament Peace could be trusted to
fetch her own stable, he left her to take her own way while he
pursued his thoughts. While the siren whistle of beetles, chatter of
_chickicuillotes_--wild hens of the jungle--deafened his ears, he tried
to bring the crowding impressions of the day into some kind of order--no
easy task when a fire-eating old general and a typical Mexican mother
had to be reconciled in thought with a young girl who possessed the face
of a Celt, eyes of a Spaniard, vivacity of a Frenchwoman, and American
intelligence.
Next he fell to speculating upon the causes which had kept her single at
an age that, according to Mexican standards, placed her hopelessly upon
the shelf, and he found the answer in the gossip of the American station
agent on his last trip out to the railroad. "She could have had her
cousin Sebastien any time, and there were others around these parts. But
once let a high-strung girl like her get a glimpse of the outside world
and no common hacendado can ever hope to tie her shoestring. They say
she has had other chances--attaches of foreign legations in Mexico City.
But she turned 'em down--I don't know why, unless it's ideals." With a
humorous twinkle the agent had added: "Bad things, ideals--always in the
way. If you happen to have any in stock give 'em to the first beggar you
meet along the road. Hers are keeping San Nicolas and El Quiss from
reuniting, but she don't seem to care."
"A fine girl--the man will be lucky that gets her." Seyd now
re-expressed the agent's homely verdict. "If it wasn't--" He stopped
short, with a savage laugh. "You darned fool! mooning over a girl who
would turn up her pretty nose at any gringo, much more one that has
forced himself in on her uncle's land. Your business is to get a
fortune out of the mine, and do it quick. And even if it wasn't--"
The thought was never finished, for the last few minutes had brought him
out into the starlight at the foot of the Barranca wall, and as Peace
gathered herself for the scramble upward the jungle lit up with a sudden
flash. Before Seyd's ears caught the report he felt his left shoulder
clutched, as it were, by a red-hot hand. The next second he was almost
thrown by the mule's sudden plunge--fortunately, for otherwise the
bullet that came out of a second flash would have smashed through his
brain.
"Muzzle-loaders!" In the moment he lay on the mule's neck he divined it
from the thick explosion. Then the thought, "It will take them a minute
to reload," followed a quick calculation, "They'll catch me again on the
first turn."
With him action always sprang of subconscious processes which were
quicker than thought, and while he crouched on her neck and Peace took
the turn on a scrambling gallop he turned loose with both of his Colts,
aiming at the spot from which the flashes had come. And the sequel
proved his judgment. This time a single flash announced the bullet which
grazed the mule's rump just as she shot into a patch of woodland.
"Reckon I made one of you sick," he interpreted the single shot.
The burning smart of his wound and the treachery of the attack had
loosed within him a fury of anger. Reining in, he felt his shoulder. The
bullet had plowed a furrow in the flesh of the upper arm, but, muttering
"I guess it's bled about all it's going to," he first tied the mule to a
tree, then slid the "reloads" into his guns.
It would have been foolish to expose himself in the open trail under the
clear starlight. Resisting the savage impulse which urged him to close
quarters, he crawled back to the edge of the timber and again turned
loose his guns, searching the jungle below with a swinging muzzle. Time
and again he did it, thanking his stars whenever he reloaded for the
forethought which had caused Billy to slip an extra box of cartridges
into the holsters, and not until only one charge was left did he pause
to listen.
Whether or no it was the firing that had frightened even the night birds
into temporary quiet, not even a twig stirred in the darkness below. He
caught only the distant whooping which told that Billy had heard, and as
this drew nearer with astonishing quickness Seyd rose and went back to
his mule.
"Coming downhill hell for leather!" he muttered. "If I don't hurry he'll
break his neck."