Meanwhile, the subject of Dr. West's meditations was slowly making his
way along the high-road towards the fonda. He walked more erect and
with less of a shuffle in his gait; but whether this was owing to his
having cast the old skin of garments adapted to his slouch, and because
he was more securely shod, or whether it was from the sudden
straightening of some warped moral quality, it would have been
difficult to say. The expression of his face certainly gave no
evidence of actual and prospective good fortune; if anything, the lines
of discontent around his brow and mouth were more strongly drawn.
Apparently, his interview with his father had only the effect of
reviving and stirring into greater activity a certain dogged sentiment
that, through long years, had become languidly mechanical. He was no
longer a beaten animal, but one roused by a chance success into a
dangerous knowledge of his power. In his honest workman's dress, he was
infinitely more to be feared than in his rags; in the lifting of his
downcast eye, there was the revelation of a baleful intelligence. In
his changed condition, civilization only seemed to have armed him
against itself.
The fonda, a long low building, with a red-tiled roof extending over a
porch or whitewashed veranda, in which drunken vaqueros had been known
to occasionally disport their mustangs, did not offer a very reputable
appearance to the eye of young Guest as he approached it in the
gathering shadows. One or two half-broken horses were securely
fastened to the stout cross-beams of some heavy posts driven in the
roadway before it, and a primitive trough of roughly excavated stone
stood near it. Through a broken gate at the side there was a glimpse
of a grass-grown and deserted courtyard piled with the disused
packing-cases and barrels of the tienda, or general country shop, which
huddled under the same roof at the other end of the building. The
opened door of the fonda showed a low-studded room fitted up with a
rude imitation of an American bar on one side, and containing a few
small tables, at which half a dozen men were smoking, drinking, and
playing cards. The faded pictorial poster of the last bull-fight at
Monterey, and an American "Sheriff's notice" were hung on the wall and
in the door-way. A thick yellow atmosphere of cigarette smoke, through
which the inmates appeared like brown shadows, pervaded the room.
The young man hesitated before this pestilential interior, and took a
seat on a bench on the veranda. After a moment's interval, the yellow
landlord came to the door with a look of inquiry, which Guest answered
by a demand for lodging and supper. When the landlord had vanished
again in the cigarette fog, the several other guests, one after the
other, appeared at the doorway, with their cigarettes in their mouths
and their cards still in their hands, and gazed upon him.
There may have been some excuse for their curiosity. As before hinted,
Guest's appearance in his overalls and woolen shirt was somewhat
incongruous, and, for some inexplicable reason, the same face and
figure which did not look inconsistent in rags and extreme poverty now
at once suggested a higher social rank both of intellect and refinement
than his workman's dress indicated. This, added to his surliness of
manner and expression, strengthened a growing suspicion in the mind of
the party that he was a fugitive from justice--a forger, a derelict
banker, or possibly a murderer. It is only fair to say that the moral
sense of the spectators was not shocked at the suspicion, and that a
more active sympathy was only withheld by his reticence. An
unfortunate incident seemed to complete the evidence against him. In
impatiently responding to the landlord's curt demand for prepayment of
his supper, he allowed three or four pieces of gold to escape from his
pocket on the veranda. In the quick glances of the party, as he
stooped to pick them up, he read the danger of his carelessness.
His sullen self-possession did not seem to be shaken. Calling to the
keeper of the tienda, who had appeared at his door in time to witness
the Danae-like shower, he bade him approach, in English.
"What sort of knives have you got?"
"Knives, Senor?"
"Yes; bowie-knives or dirks. Knives like that," he said, making an
imaginary downward stroke at the table before him.
The shopkeeper entered the tienda, and presently reappeared with three
or four dirks in red leather sheaths. Guest selected the heaviest, and
tried its point on the table.
"How much?"
"Tres pesos."
The young man threw him one of his gold pieces, and slipped the knife
and its sheath in his boot. When he had received his change from the
shopkeeper, he folded his arms and leaned back against the wall in
quiet indifference.
The simple act seemed to check aggressive, but not insinuating,
interference. In a few moments one of the men appeared at the doorway.
"It is fine weather for the road, little comrade!"
Guest did not reply.
"Ah! the night, it ess splendid," he repeated, in broken English,
rubbing his hands, as if washing in the air.
Still no reply.
"You shall come from Sank Hosay?"
"I sha'ant."
The stranger muttered something in Spanish, but the landlord, who
reappeared to place Guest's supper on a table on the veranda, here felt
the obligation of interfering to protect a customer apparently so
aggressive and so opulent. He pushed the inquisitor aside, with a few
hasty words, and, after Guest had finished his meal, offered to show
him his room. It was a dark vaulted closet on the ground-floor,
gaining light from the stable-yard through a barred iron grating. At
the first glimpse it looked like a prison cell; looking more
deliberately at the black tresseled bed, and the votive images hanging
on the wall, it might have been a tomb.
"It is the best," said the landlord. "The Padre Vincento will have
none other on his journey."
"I suppose God protects him," said Guest; "that door don't." He
pointed to the worm-eaten door, without bolt or fastening.
"Ah, what matter! Are we not all friends?"
"Certainly," responded Guest, with his surliest manner, as he returned
to the veranda. Nevertheless, he resolved not to occupy the cell of
the reverend Padre; not from any personal fear of his disreputable
neighbors, though he was fully alive to their peculiarities, but from
the nomadic instinct which was still strong in his blood. He felt he
could not yet bear the confinement of a close room or the propinquity
of his fellow-man. He would rest on the veranda until the moon was
fairly up, and then he would again take to the road.
He was half reclining on the bench, with the slowly closing and opening
lids of some tired but watchful animal, when the sound of wheels,
voices, and clatter of hoofs on the highway arrested his attention, and
he sat upright. The moon was slowly lifting itself over the limitless
stretch of grain-fields before him on the other side of the road, and
dazzling him with its level lustre. He could barely discern a
cavalcade of dark figures and a large vehicle rapidly approaching,
before it drew up tumultuously in front of the fonda.
It was a pleasure party of ladies and gentlemen on horseback and in a
four-horsed char-a-bancs returning to La Mision Perdida. Buchanan,
Raymond, and Garnier were there; Amita and Dorotea in the body of the
char-a-bancs, and Maruja seated on the box. Much to his own
astonishment and that of some others of the party, Captain Carroll was
among the riders. Only Maruja and her mother knew that he was recalled
to refute a repetition of the gossip already circulated regarding his
sudden withdrawal; only Maruja alone knew the subtle words which made
that call so potent yet so hopeless.
Maruja's quick eyes, observant of everything, even under the double
fire of Captain Carroll and Garnier, instantly caught those of the
erect figure on the bench in the veranda. Surely that was the face of
the tramp she had spoken to! and yet there was a change, not only in
the dress but in the general resemblance. After the first glance,
Guest withdrew his eyes and gazed at the other figures in the
char-a-bancs without moving a muscle.
Maruja's whims and caprices were many and original; and when, after a
sudden little cry and a declaration that she could stand her cramped
position no longer, she leaped from the box into the road, no one was
surprised. Garnier and Captain Carroll quickly followed.
"I should like to look into the fonda while the horses are being
watered," she said, laughingly, "just to see what it is that attracts
Pereo there so often." Before any one could restrain this new caprice,
she was already upon the veranda.
To reach the open door, she had to pass so near Guest that her soft
white flounces brushed his knees, and the flowers in her girdle left
their perfume in his face. But he neither moved nor raised his eyes.
When she had passed, he rose quietly and stepped into the road.
On her nearer survey, Maruja was convinced it was the same man. She
remained for an instant, with a little hand on the door-post. "What a
horrid place, and what dreadful people!" she said in audible English as
she glanced quickly after Guest. "Really, Pereo ought to be warned
against keeping such company. Come, let us go."
She contrived to pass Guest again in regaining the carriage; but in the
few moments' further delay he walked on down the road before them, and,
by the time they were ready to start, he was slowly sauntering some
hundred yards ahead. They passed him at a rapid trot, but the next
moment the char-a-bancs was suddenly pulled up.
"My fan!" cried Maruja. "Blessed Santa Maria!--my fan!"
A small black object, seen distinctly in the moonlight, was lying on
the road, directly in the track of the sauntering stranger. Garnier
attempted to alight; Carroll reined in his horse.
"Stop, all of you!" said Maruja; "that man will bring it to me."
It seemed as if he would. He stopped and picked it up, and approached
the carriage. Maruja stood up in her seat, with her veil thrown back,
her graceful hand extended, her eyes and mouth tremulous with an
irresistible smile. The stranger came nearer, singled out Captain
Carroll, tossed the fan to him with a slight nod, and passed on the
other side.
"One moment," said Maruja, almost harshly, to the driver. "One
moment," she continued, drawing her purse from her pocket brusquely.
"Let me reward this civil gentleman of the road! Here, sir;" but,
before she could continue, Carroll wheeled to her side, and interposed.
"Pray collect yourself, Miss Saltonstall," he said, hurriedly; "you can
not tell who this man may be. He does not seem to be one who would
insult you, or whom YOU would insult gratuitously."
"Give me the fan, Captain Carroll," she said, with a soft and caressing
smile. "Thank you." She took it, and, breaking it through the middle
between her gloved hands, tossed it into the highway. "You are
right--it smells of the fonda--and the road. Thank you, again. You are
so thoughtful for me, Captain Carroll," she murmured, raising her eyes
gently to his, and then suddenly withdrawing them with a half sigh.
"But I am keeping you all. Go on."
The carriage rolled away and Guest returned from the hedge to the
middle of the road. San Jose lay in the opposite direction from the
disappearing cavalcade; but, on leaving the fonda, he had determined to
lead his inquisitors astray by doubling and making a circuit of the
hostelry through the fields hidden in the tall grain. This he did,
securely passing them within sound of their voices, and was soon well
on his way again. He avoided the highway, and, striking a trail
through the meadows, diverged to the right, where the low towers and
brown walls of a ruined mission church rose above the plain. This
would enable him to escape any direct pursuit on the high road,
besides, from its slight elevation, giving him a more extended view of
the plain. As he neared it, he was surprised to see that, although it
was partly dismantled, and the roof had fallen in the central aisle, a
part of it was still used as a chapel, and a light was burning behind a
narrow opening, partly window and partly shrine. He was almost upon
it, when the figure of a man who had been kneeling beneath, with his
back towards him, rose, crossed himself devoutly, and stood upright.
Before he could turn, Guest disappeared round the angle of the wall,
and the tall erect figure of the solitary worshiper passed on without
heeding him.
But if Guest had been successful in evading the observation of the man
he had come so suddenly upon, he was utterly unconscious of another
figure that had been tracking HIM for the last ten minutes through the
tall grain, and had even succeeded in gaining the shadow of the wall
behind him; and it was this figure, and not his own, that eventually
attracted the attention of the tall stranger. The pursuing figure was
rapidly approaching the unconscious Guest; in another moment it would
have been upon him, when it was suddenly seized from behind by the tall
devotee. There was a momentary struggle, and then it freed itself,
with the exclamation, "Pereo!"
"Yes--Pereo!" said the old man, panting from his exertions. "And thou
art Miguel. So thou wouldst murder a man for a few pesos!" he said,
pointing to the knife which the desperado had hurriedly hid in his
jacket, "and callest thyself a Californian!"
"'Tis only an Americano--a runaway, with some ill-gotten gold," said
Miguel, sullenly, yet with unmistakable fear of the old man. "Besides,
it was only to frighten him, the braggart. But since thou fearest to
touch a hair of those interlopers--"
"Fearest!" said Pereo, fiercely, clutching him by the throat, and
forcing him against the wall. "Fearest! sayest thou. I, Pereo, fear?
Dost thou think I would soil these hands, that might strike a higher
quarry, with blood of thy game?"
"Forgive me, padrono," gasped Miguel, now thoroughly alarmed at the old
man's awakened passion; "pardon; I meant that, since thou knowest him--"
"I know him?" repeated Pereo scornfully, contemptuously throwing Miguel
aside, who at once took that opportunity to increase his distance from
the old man's arm. "I know him? Thou shalt see. Come hither, child,"
he called, beckoning to Guest. "Come hither, thou hast nothing to fear
now."
Guest, who had been attracted by the sound of altercation behind him,
but who was utterly unconscious of its origin or his own relation to
it, came forward impatiently. As he did so, Miguel took to his heels.
The act did not tend to mollify Guest's surly suspicions, and, pausing
a few feet from the old man, he roughly demanded his business with him.
Pereo raised his head, with the dignity of years and habits of command.
The face of the young man confronting him was clearly illuminated by
the moonlight. Pereo's eyes suddenly dilated, his mouth stiffened, he
staggered back against the wall.
"Who are you?" he gasped, in uncertain English.
Believing himself the subject of some drunkard's pastime, Guest
replied, savagely, "One who has enough of this d--d nonsense, and will
stand no more of it from any one, young or old," and turned abruptly on
his heel.
"Stay, one moment, Senor, for the love of God!"
Some keen accent of agony in the old man's voice touched even Guest's
selfish nature. He halted.
"You are--a stranger here?"--faltered Pereo. "Yes?"
"I am."
"You do not live here?--you have no friends?"
"I told you I am a stranger. I never was here before in my life," said
Guest, impatiently.
"True; I am a fool," said the old man, hurriedly, to himself. "I am
mad--mad! It is not HIS voice. No! It is not HIS look, now that his
face changes. I am crazy." He stopped, and passed his trembling hands
across his eyes. "Pardon, Senor," he continued, recalling himself with
a humility that was almost ironical in its extravagance. "Pardon,
pardon! Yet, perhaps it is not too much to have wanted to know who was
the man one has saved."
"Saved!" repeated Guest, with incredulous contempt.
"Ay!" said Pereo, haughtily, drawing his figure erect; "ay, saved!
Senor." He stopped and shrugged his shoulders. "But let it pass--I
say--let it pass. Take an old man's advice, friend: show not your gold
hereafter to strangers lightly, no matter how lightly you have come by
it. Good-night!"
Guest for a moment hesitated whether to resent the old man's speech, or
to let it pass as the incoherent fancy of a brain maddened by drink.
Then he ended the discussion by turning his back abruptly and
continuing his way to the high-road.
"So!" said Pereo, looking after him with abstracted eyes, "so! it was
only a fancy. And yet--even now, as he turned away, I saw the same
cold insolence in his eye. Caramba! Am I mad--mad--that I must keep
forever before my eyes, night and day, the image of that dog in every
outcast, every ruffian, every wayside bully that I meet? No, no, good
Pereo! Softly! this is mere madness, good Pereo," he murmured to
himself; "thou wilt have none of it; none, good Pereo. Come, come!"
He let his head fall slowly forward on his breast, and in that action,
seeming to take up again the burden of a score more years upon his
shoulders, he moved slowly away.
When he entered the fonda half an hour later, the awe in which he was
held by the half superstitious ruffians appeared to have increased.
Whatever story the fugitive Miguel had told his companions regarding
Pereo's protection of the young stranger, it was certain that it had
its full effect. Obsequious to the last degree, the landlord was so
profoundly touched, when Pereo, not displeased with this evidence of
his power over his countrymen, condescendingly offered to click glasses
with him, that he endeavored to placate him still further.
"It is a pity your worship was not here earlier," he began, with a
significant glance at the others, "to have seen a gallant young
stranger that was here. A spice of wickedness about him, truly--a kind
of Don Caesar--but bearing himself like a very caballero always. It
would have pleased your worship, who likes not those canting Puritans
such as our neighbor yonder."
"Ah," said Pereo, reflectively, warming under the potent fires of
flattery and aguardiente, "possibly I HAVE seen him. He was like--"
"Like none of the dogs thou hast seen about San Antonio," interrupted
the landlord. "Scarcely did he seem Americano, though he spoke no
Spanish."
The old man chuckled to himself viciously. "And thou, thou old fool,
Pereo, must needs see a likeness to thine enemy in this poor runaway
child--this fugitive Don Juan! He! he!" Nevertheless, he still felt a
vague terror of the condition of mind which had produced this fancy,
and drank so deeply to dispel his nervousness that it was with
difficulty he could mount his horse again. The exaltation of liquor,
however, appeared only to intensify his characteristics: his face
became more lugubrious and melancholy; his manner more ceremonious and
dignified; and, erect and stiff in his saddle from the waist upwards,
but leaning from side to side with the motion of his horse, like the
tall mast of some laboring sloop, he "loped" away towards the House of
the Lost Mission. Once or twice he broke into sentimental song.
Strangely enough, his ditty was a popular Spanish refrain of some
matador's aristocratic inamorata:--
Do you see my black eyes?
I am Manuel's Duchess,--
sang Pereo, with infinite gravity. His horse's hoofs seemed to keep
time with the refrain, and he occasionally waved in the air the long
leather thong of his bridle-rein.
It was quite late when he reached La Mision Perdida. Turning into the
little lane that led to the stable-yard, he dismounted at a gate in the
hedge which led to the summerhouse of the old Mision garden, and,
throwing his reins on his mustang's neck, let the animal precede him to
the stables. The moon shone full on the inclosure as he emerged from
the labyrinth. With uncovered head he approached the Indian mound, and
sank on his knees before it.
The next moment he rose, with an exclamation of terror, and his hat
dropped from his trembling hand. Directly before him, a small, gray,
wolfish-looking animal had stopped half-way down the mound on
encountering his motionless figure. Frightened by his outcry, and
unable to retreat, the shadowy depredator had fallen back on his
slinking haunches with a snarl, and bared teeth that glittered in the
moonlight.
In an instant the expression of terror on the old man's ashen face
turned into a fixed look of insane exaltation. His white lips moved;
he advanced a step further, and held out both hands towards the
crouching animal.
"So! It is thou--at last! And comest thou here thy tardy Pereo to
chide? Comest THOU, too, to tell the poor old man his heart is cold,
his limbs are feeble, his brain weak and dizzy? that he is no longer
fit to do thy master's work? Ay, gnash thy teeth at him! Curse
him!--curse him in thy throat! But listen!--listen, good friend--I
will tell thee a secret--ay, good gray friar, a secret--such a secret!
A plan, all mine--fresh from this old gray head; ha! ha!--all mine! To
be wrought by these poor old arms; ha! ha! All mine! Listen!"
He stealthily made a step nearer the affrighted animal. With a sudden
sidelong snap, it swiftly bounded by his side, and vanished in the
thicket; and Pereo, turning wildly, with a moan sank down helplessly on
the grave of his forefathers.