With a swift glance of admiration at Maruja, Guest flung open the door.
The hastily-summoned servants were already bearing away the madman,
exhausted by his efforts. Captain Carroll alone remained there, erect
and motionless, before the threshold.
At a sign from Maruja, he entered the room. In the flash of light made
by the opening door, he had been perfectly conscious of her companion,
but not a motion of his eye or the movement of a muscle of his face
betrayed it. The trained discipline of his youth stood him in good
service, and for the moment left him master of the situation.
"I think no apology is needed for this intrusion," he said, with cool
composure. "Pereo seemed intent on murdering somebody or something,
and I followed him here. I suppose I might have got him away more
quietly, but I was afraid you might have thoughtlessly opened the
door." He stopped, and added, "I see now how unfounded was the
supposition."
It was a fatal addition. In the next instant, the Maruja who had been
standing beside Guest, conscious-stricken and remorseful in the
presence of the man she had deceived, and calmly awaiting her
punishment, changed at this luckless exhibition of her own peculiar
womanly weapons. The old Maruja, supreme, ready, undaunted, and
passionless, returned to the fray.
"You were wrong, Captain," she said, sweetly; "fortunately, Mr.
Guest--whom I see you have forgotten in your absence--was with me, and
I think would have felt it his duty to have protected me. But I thank
you all the same, and I think even Mr. Guest will not allow his envy of
your good fortune in coming so gallantly to my rescue to prevent his
appreciating its full value. I am only sorry that on your return to La
Mision Perdida you should have fallen into the arms of a madman before
extending your hands to your friends."
Their eyes met. She saw that he hated her--and felt relieved.
"It may not have been so entirely unfortunate," he said, with a
coldness strongly in contrast with his gradually blazing eyes, "for I
was charged with a message to you, in which this madman is supposed by
some to play an important part."
"Is it a matter of business?" said Maruja, lightly, yet with a sudden
instinctive premonition of coming evil in the relentless tones of his
voice.
"It is business, Miss Saltonstall--purely and simply business," said
Carroll, dryly, "under whatever OTHER name it may have been since
presented to you."
"Perhaps you have no objection to tell it before Mr. Guest," said
Maruja, with an inspiration of audacity; "it sounds so mysterious that
it must be interesting. Otherwise, Captain Carroll, who abhors
business, would not have undertaken it with more than his usual
enthusiasm."
"As the business DOES interest Mr. Guest, or Mr. West, or whatever name
he may have decided upon since I had the pleasure of meeting him," said
Carroll--for the first time striking fire from the eyes of his
rival--"I see no reason why I should not, even at the risk of telling
you what you already know. Briefly, then, Mr. Prince charged me to
advise you and your mother to avoid litigation with this gentleman, and
admit his claim, as the son of Dr. West, to his share of the property."
The utter consternation and bewilderment shown in the face of Maruja
convinced Carroll of his fatal error. She HAD received the addresses
of this man without knowing his real position! The wild theory that
had seemed to justify his resentment--that she had sold herself to
Guest to possess the property--now recoiled upon him in its utter
baseness. She had loved Guest for himself alone; by this base
revelation he had helped to throw her into his arms.
But he did not even yet know Maruja. Turning to Guest, with flashing
eyes, she said, "Is it true--are you the son of Dr. West, and"--she
hesitated--"kept out of your inheritance by US?"
"I AM the son of Dr. West," he said, earnestly, "though I alone had the
right to tell you that at the proper time and occasion. Believe me that
I have given no one the right--least of all any tool of Prince--to
TRADE upon it."
"Then," said Carroll, fiercely, forgetting everything in his anger,
"perhaps you will disclaim before this young lady the charge made by
your employer that Pereo was instigated to Dr. West's murder by her
mother?"
Again he had overshot the mark. The horror and indignation depicted in
Guest's face was too plainly visible to Maruja, as well as himself, to
permit a doubt that the idea was as new as the accusation. Forgetting
her bewilderment at these revelations, her wounded pride, a torturing
doubt suggested by Guest's want of confidence in her--indeed everything
but the outraged feelings of her lover, she flew to his side. "Not a
word," she said, proudly, lifting her little hand before his darkening
face. "Do not insult me by replying to such an accusation in my
presence. Captain Carroll," she continued, turning towards him, "I
cannot forget that you were introduced into my mother's house as an
officer and a gentleman. When you return to it as such, and not as a
MAN OF BUSINESS, you will be welcome. Until then, farewell!"
She remained standing, erect and passionless, as Carroll, with a cold
salutation, stepped back and disappeared in the darkness; and then she
turned, and, with tottering step and a little cry, fell upon Guest's
breast. "O Harry--Harry!--why have you deceived me!"
"I thought it for the best, darling," he said, lifting her face to his.
"You know now the prospect I spoke of--the hope that buoyed me up! I
wanted to win you myself alone, without appealing to your sense of
justice or even your sympathies! I did win you. God knows, if I had
not, you would never have learned through me that a son of Dr. West had
ever lived. But that was not enough. When I found that I could
establish my right to my father's property, I wanted you to marry me
before YOU knew it; so that it never could be said that you were
influenced by anything but love for me. That was why I came here
to-day. That was why I pressed you to fly with me!"
He ceased. She was fumbling with the buttons of his waistcoat.
"Harry," she said, softly, "did you think of the property
when--when--you kissed me in the conservatory?"
"I thought of nothing but YOU," he answered, tenderly.
Suddenly she started from his embrace. "But Pereo!--Harry--tell me
quick--no one-nobody can think that this poor demented old man
could--that Dr. West was--that--it's all a trick--isn't it?
Harry--speak!"
He was silent for a moment, and then said, gravely, "There were strange
men at the fonda that night, and--my father was supposed to carry money
with him. My own life was attempted at the Mision the same evening for
the sake of some paltry gold pieces that I had imprudently shown. I
was saved solely by the interference of one man. That man was Pereo,
your mayordomo!"
She seized his hand and raised it joyfully to her lips. "Thank you for
those words! And you will come to him with me at once; and he will
recognize you; and we will laugh at those lies; won't we, Harry?"
He did not reply. Perhaps he was listening to a confused sound of
voices rapidly approaching the cottage. Together they stepped out into
the gathering night. A number of figures were coming towards them,
among them Faquita, who ran a little ahead to meet her mistress.
"Oh, Dona Maruja, he has escaped!"
"Who? Not Pereo!"
"Truly. And on his horse. It was saddled and bridled in the stable
all day. One knew it not. He was walking like a cat, when suddenly he
parted the peons around him, like grain before a mad bull--and behold!
he was on the pinto's back and away. And, alas! there is no horse that
can keep up with the pinto. God grant he may not get in the way of the
r-r-railroad, that, in his very madness, he will even despise."
"My own horse is in the thicket," whispered Guest, hurriedly, in
Maruja's ear. "I have measured him with the pinto before now. Give me
your blessing, and I will bring him back if he be alive."
She pressed his hand and said, "Go." Before the astonished servants
could identify the strange escort of their mistress, he was gone.
It was already quite dark. To any but Guest, who had made the
topography of La Mision Perdida a practical study, and who had known
the habitual circuit of the mayordomo in his efforts to avoid him, the
search would have been hopeless. But, rightly conjecturing that he
would in his demented condition follow the force of habit, he spurred
his horse along the high-road until he reached the lane leading to the
grassy amphitheatre already described, which was once his favorite
resort. Since then it had participated in the terrible transformation
already wrought in the valley by the railroad. A deep cutting through
one of the grassy hills had been made for the line that now crossed the
lower arc of the amphitheatre.
His conjecture was justified on entering it by the appearance of a
shadowy horseman in full career round the circle, and he had no
difficulty in recognizing Pereo. As there was no other exit than the
one by which he came, the other being inaccessible by reason of the
railroad track, he calmly watched him twice make the circuit of the
arena, ready to ride towards him when he showed symptoms of slackening
his speed.
Suddenly he became aware of some strange exercise on the part of the
mysterious rider; and, as he swept by on the nearer side of the circle,
he saw that he was throwing a lasso! A horrible thought that he was
witnessing an insane rehearsal of the murder of his father flashed
across his mind.
A far-off whistle from the distant woods recalled him to his calmer
senses at the same moment that it seemed also to check the evolutions
of the furious rider. Guest felt confident that the wretched man could
not escape him now. It was the approaching train, whose appearance
would undoubtedly frighten Pereo toward the entrance of the little
valley guarded by him. The hill-side was already alive with the
clattering echoes of the oncoming monster, when, to his horror, he saw
the madman advancing rapidly towards the cutting. He put spurs to his
horse, and started in pursuit; but the train was already emerging from
the narrow passage, followed by the furious rider, who had wheeled
abreast of the engine, and was, for a moment or two, madly keeping up
with it. Guest shouted to him, but his voice was lost in the roar of
the rushing caravan.
Something seemed to fly from Pereo's hand. The next moment the train
had passed; rider and horse, crushed and battered out of all life, were
rolling in the ditch, while the murderer's empty saddle dangled at the
end of a lasso, caught on the smoke-stack of one of the murdered man's
avenging improvements!
. . . . . . . . .
The marriage of Maruja and the son of the late Dr. West was received in
the valley of San Antonio as one of the most admirably conceived and
skillfully matured plans of that lamented genius. There were many who
were ready to state that the Doctor had confided it to them years
before; and it was generally accepted that the widow Saltonstall had
been simply made a trustee for the benefit of the prospective young
couple. Only one person perhaps, did not entirely accept these views;
it was Mr. James Price--otherwise known as Aladdin. In later years, he
is said to have stated authoritatively "that the only combination in
business that was uncertain--was man and woman."