That night, after the storm ceased and a spell before the moon rose, a
man of the Guardia Civil rode across hills sweetened by the rain, and
came in a roundabout way to the ancient wild olive at the portal of the
barranca of the Gitanos. Here he dismounted and waited like one keeping
a tryst, smoking innumerable cigarettes and kicking up the soft loam
impatiently. He was Miguel Alvarado.
At length and on the sudden, he heard sounds as of some one coming
toward him down the canyon through the dripping leaves. He hearkened a
moment, then lifted his voice in a rich but gentle baritone:
"Loud sang the Spanish cavalier,
And thus his ditty ran:
God send the Gypsy lassie here,
And not the Gypsy man."
She came to him from out the trees, the wench Paquita. She was clad in a
dress of vermilions and yellows, those vermilions and yellows now
bedusked by the soft light of the night. In her hair was wound a green
scarf. And, as she approached, she sang the answering quatrain:
"At midnight, when the moon began
To show her silver flame,
There came to him no Gypsy man,
The Gypsy lassie came."
Impulsively he ran to meet her. They were like shadows that merged
together and became one. They trembled, they swayed; they swayed as the
wild olive swayed in the wind of the night. They kissed long and
ardently. Then she drew herself away, throwing her head back and holding
him off with arms rigidly extended.
"Ah, Miguel, my caballero of the impetuous lips," she sighed, "I could
love you with all my heart and soul, but for one little thing!"
"Carajo! what is that?" he asked, his voice sharp with anxiety and
eagerness. "Have I not always been the most adoring and tender of
lovers--aye, and the most voracious and headlong, too? Did I not hurry
pellmell for this meeting, the moment you sent word to me by that Gypsy
brat? What have I done to make you think dismally of me? How have I
displeased you? Tell me; I burn to know!"
She suddenly drew herself to him and clung there once again, kissing his
lips and fondling his head with her hands. He shivered in every limb. He
moaned in an ecstasy of delight, and pressed her to him with such
impetuosity and gusto that it seemed as if his arms would break her body
in two.
Beneath the ardor of his greedy embrace, the girl Paquita shuddered and
went very pale in the gloom. A scream rose in her throat but she
smothered it, unborn. Across her shoulders, under her gaudy gown, were
red raw furrows where her father's greenhide had bitten and seared her.
But she made no outcry, she gave no sign, though she was as one who has
been tortured horribly and then given up to the iron caresses of a
terrible, crushing machine.
His arms relaxed somewhat after a little, and she lay upon his neck and
whispered:
"It is not what you have done; you were always the perfect lover. It is
what you are. You are a policeman, one of those feared and hated and
despised by my clan. I feel shame in loving a man of the Guardia Civil;
there is something in my Gypsy blood that makes me feel that shame. It
is the uniform you wear, the things that it symbolizes."
"We Guardias Civiles are the bravest of Spaniards. We are most brave and
mettlesome men, every one!" returned the young policeman slowly, seeking
to marshal his arguments in order. "Most Spanish girls are quick to love
us if only because of our smart uniforms and gallantry and daring. And
it is as natural for me to be a policeman as it is for you to be a
Gitana. My father is a sergeant of the police; he has been in the
Guardia Civil for thirty years. And all my male ancestors have been
Guardias Civiles back to the long-ago, when they were bandoleros and
outlaws who grew tired of being hunted and became Miquelets."
"But if you were more like your ancestors, the Miquelets--ah, then I
could love you body and soul!" breathed the girl Paquita. And she went
on very softly:
"Last night, there came to our camp in the barranca an outlaw, a
salteador de camino. He was strong, he was magnificently strong, and he
had a long absolute jaw and bold, proud, imperious eyes. About him, like
an odor, hung the reek of the imposing and cruel and terrible things he
had done.
"It is natural for us Gitanas to love an outlaw; we Gitanas are outlaws
to the core, ourselves. And he was as arrogant as a Bourbon prince, or a
sheik of Barbary, or an Andalusian sun on a noonday; but he looked at me
only with the eyes of contempt, granite eyes. I made the fool of myself
by flinging my body and soul at his feet. He--"
"Cascaras! what was his name?" cried Miguel Alvarado sharply. It was as
though a knife had been plunged into his side and twisted this way and
that.
"He was the glorious bandolero, Jacinto Quesada!"
"Jacinto Quesada! That swollen toad, that strutting mountebank in rags
and tinsel, that upstart, the zascandil! Por los Clavos de Cristo! and
you flung yourself at him?"
"But he is altogether the arrogant and brave man, altogether the savage
and magnificent one!"
"Carjo! he is only a mountaineer's brat. We grew up on opposite slopes
of the same mountain of the Sierra Nevada. His clodhopper of a father
sold firewood to the sweet mother of me! He is uneducated; has no
resource or originality. And he lacks entrails as well as brains! I am
more varonil, I tell you; more impetuous with headlong daring than he.
Were there a man such as Miguel Alvarado in the shoes of Jacinto
Quesada, there would be things done, I wot! But I will show you what is
what. I--"
"Yes, yes, you will show me--how, when?"
But to the ears of Miguel Alvarado the wind had borne sound of the to-do
raised by an approaching horse. He hearkened to that pounding and
clattering, looking down the sweep of foothills below the barranca. He
saw nothing just at once. But the sounds became more distinct, drew
nearer. Those sounds leaped toward them in great panther leaps.
Suddenly a man on horseback came bounding over the hogback of a hill
right below. He wore the tight uniform and the businesslike look of a
man of the Guardia Civil. His policeman's three-cornered hat of shiny
leather shimmered in the light of the newly risen moon. With the
velocity and abandon of a French dragoon, he galloped full tilt up
toward the barranca. And as he came, he shouted:
"Hola, Miguelillo!"
"It is my officer, my parent!" whispered the young policeman, and he
swore softly in disappointment. Then, with the absolute obedience of
only a Spanish son, he shouted back: "Here I am, Don Esteban, my father!
What do you want of me?"
The sergeant of police came up like a driving pillar of sand and
dismounted while his horse was in full charge. Swinging his quirta, he
advanced swiftly upon the pair. There was in him no sign of the weakness
of age. He had a short, knife-sharp white beard, and a face as lean and
haughty as a griffon vulture's. From his tricorn hat still hung down,
behind his head, a sun shield of white linen cloth.
"Come away with me!" he ordered peremptorily. "I have word that Jacinto
Quesada is in the mountains near the Pass of Despenaperros. While
there's work to do for Spanish policemen, I'll not have you playing the
bear for the entertainment of any senorita in Spain, no matter how fine
the moon!"
He peered into the soft shade beneath the wild olive.
"Aha, the maiden is with you, I see! But, zut! this is bad. She and you
alone in this abandoned glen--has the girl no thought for what the
people of her village will say of her?"
"The girl is a Gitana!" spoke up Paquita proudly.
"A Gitana! Blood of Christ! my son keeping tryst with a Gitana! Have you
no respect for your Christian mother, you ungrateful whelp? Have you no
pride in your policeman father and in your ancestors that have been
keepers of the peace of Spain for a hundred years? Have you no thought
of the uniform you wear?"
The father was severely angry.
"This is disgraceful, this is vile, Alvarado, my son! A Gitana, eh! Come
away with me, at once. Come away, and no more words with this wanton
Gypsy wench, or I shall lay my quirta across your back!"
The imperious old man turned on his heel, strode away, and leaped with
one lithe strong spring upon his horse's back. Miguel Alvarado turned
from the girl and moved reluctantly toward his own horse. He feared his
father too much to disobey him. He feared his father as he feared
neither God nor the Devil. He knew his father would beat him without
qualm or ruth at the first word or look of defiance or rebellion.
Man-grown though he was, he could prove to you an acquaintance with his
father's rawhide quirta by merely baring his young body to the waist.
Spanish family life is the most solid and wholesome thing about Spain.
Spanish sons and daughters respect and revere those who gave them life;
they have been taught respect and reverence at the ends of whips. In the
same manner, Jehovah made the Israelites love him; and who, through all
the years of the world, have been more faithful to God than the stern
race of Jews?
"I will be here, at this wild olive, ere the waning of three nights. At
midnight of the third night, meet me, Paquita, virgin of my soul!"
whispered Miguel Alvarado, bending down from the saddle.
"You will tell me then what you will do?" she whispered in return. "You
will tell me then, will you not, my caballero of the impetuous lips and
the great courage? I will remain chaste as gold, pure as a sacrament,
for you, caballerete!"
"I will prove to you that I am not unworthy of your great love, my
little one. This Jacinto Quesada--za!"
He thundered away after his proud and haughty parent.