Do not make me--”
“Kiss me!” whispered Montes hoarsely, “or I’ll never let you go. It was
his wish. Come, I dare you--I beg you!”
One wild moment she responded to his kiss, and then she thrust him away.
“Ah, by the saints!” she murmured with hands over her face. “Now I will
love you more--my heart will break.”
“Dolores, I can’t let Perez have you,” declared Montes miserably.
“Too late, my dear. I am to be his wife.”
“But you love me, Dolores?”
“Alas! too true. I do. Oh, I never knew how well!” she cried.
“Let us run away,” he implored eagerly.
Mournfully she shook her head, and looking up suddenly she espied the
Yaqui. His great burning cavernous eyes, like black fire, were fixed
upon her.
“Oh, that terrible Yaqui,” she whispered. “It is he who watches us at
the bull fights--Let us go, Montes--Oh, he saw us--he saw me--Come!”
Upon their return to the house the old Don greeted them effusively. He
seemed radiant with happiness. He had united two of the first families
of Yucatan, which unison would make the greatest henequen plantation.
The beautiful señorita had other admirers. But this marriage had
unusual advantages. The peculiar location and productiveness of the
plantations and the obstacles to greater and quicker output that
would be done away with, and the fact that Lieutenant Perez through
his military influence could work the fields with peon labor--these
facts had carried the balance in favor of the marriage. The old Don
manifestly regarded the arrangement as a victory for him which he owed
to the henequen, and he had decided to make the wedding day one on
which the rich product of the plantation should play a most important
part.
“But how to bring in the henequen!” he concluded in perplexity. “I’ve
racked my brain. Son, I leave it to you.”
Young Perez magnificently waved the question aside. Possessing himself
of his fiancée’s reluctant hand, he spoke in a whisper audible to
Montes. “We planned the wedding presents. That was the secret. But you
shall not see--not know--until we are married!”
Montes dropped his eyes and his brow knit thoughtfully. Later, as a
peon brought his horse, he called Perez aside.
“I’ve an idea,” he said confidentially. “Have Yaqui select the most
perfect henequen fiber to make the most beautiful and perfect bale of
henequen ever pressed. Have Yaqui place the wedding presents inside the
bale before the final pressing. Then send it to Donna Isabel’s house
after the wedding and open it there.”
Young Perez clapped his hands in delight. What a capital plan! He
complimented Montes and thanked him and asked him to keep secret the
idea. Indeed, the young lieutenant waxed enthusiastic over the plan.
It would be unique; it would be fitting to the occasion. Perez would
have Yaqui pick over and select from the racks the most perfect fibers,
to be laid aside. Perez would go himself to watch Yaqui at his work.
He would have Yaqui practice the operation of pressing, so at the
momentous hour there could be no hitch. And on the wedding day Perez
would carry the presents himself. No hands but his own would be trusted
with those jewels, especially the exquisite pearls that were his own
particular gift.
At last the day arrived for the wedding. It was to be a holiday. Yaqui
alone was not to lie idle. It was to fall to him to press that bale of
henequen and to haul it to the bride’s home.
But Perez did not receive all his gifts when he wanted them. Messengers
arrived late and some were yet to come. He went to the mill, however,
and put Yaqui to work at packing the henequen in the press and building
it up. The Indian was bidden to go so far with the bale, leaving a
great hole in the middle for the gifts and to have the rest of the
fiber all ready to pack and press. Perez would not trust anyone else
with his precious secret; he himself would hurry down with the gifts,
and secretly, for the manner of presentation was to be a great surprise.
Blue was the sky, white gold the sun, and the breeze waved the palms.
But for Montes an invisible shadow hovered over the stately Mendoza
mansion where Dolores was to be made a bride. The shadow existed in
his mind and took mystic shape--now a vast, copper-hazed, green-spiked
plain of henequen, and then the spectral gigantic shape of a toiling
man, gaunt, grim, and fire-eyed.
Montes hid his heavy heart behind smiling lips and the speech of a
courtier. He steeled himself against a nameless and portending shock,
waiting for it even when his mind scorned the delusion. But the shock
did not come at sight of Señorita Dolores, magnificently gowned in
white, beautiful, serene, imperious, with her proud, tawny eyes and
proud, red lips. Nor when those sleepy strange eyes met his. Nor when
the priest ended the ceremony that made her a wife.
He noted when Lieutenant Perez laughingly fought his way out of the
crowd and disappeared. Then the unrest of Montes became a haunting
suspense.
By and by the guests were directed out to the shaded west terrace,
where in the center of the wide stoned space lay a huge white
glistening bale of henequen. Beside it stood the giant Yaqui, dark,
motionless, aloof. The guests clustered round.
When Montes saw the Yaqui like a statue beside the bale of henequen, he
sustained the shock for which he had been waiting. He slipped to the
front of the circle of guests.
“Ah!” exclaimed the old Don, eyeing the bale of henequen with great
satisfaction. “This is the surprise our son had in store for us. Here
is the jewel case--here are the wedding presents!”
The guests laughed and murmured their compliments.
“Where is Señor Perez?” demanded the Don as he looked round.
“The boy is hiding,” replied Donna Isabel. “He wants to watch his bride
when she sees the gifts.”
“No--he would not be there,” declared the old Don in perplexity.
Something strange edged into his gladness of the moment. Suddenly he
wheeled to the Yaqui. But he never spoke the question on his lips.
Slowly he seemed to be blasted by those great black-fired orbs, as
piercing as if they had been lightnings from hell.
“Hurry, open the bale,” cried the bride, her sweet voice trilling above
the gay talk.
Yaqui appeared not to hear. Was he looking into the soul of the father
of Lieutenant Perez? All about him betrayed almost a superhuman
intensity.
“Open the bale,” ordered the bride.
Yaqui cut the wire. He did not look at her. The perfectly folded and
pressed strands of fiber shook and swelled and moved apart as if in
relief. And like a great white jewel case of glistening silken threads
the bale of henequen opened.
It commanded a stilling of the gay murmur--a sudden silence that had a
subtle effect upon all. The beautiful bride, leaning closer to look,
seemed to lose the light of the tawny proud eyes. Her mother froze
into a creature of stone. The old Don, in slow strange action, as if
his mind had feeble sway over body, bent his gray head away from the
gaunt and terrible Yaqui. Something showed blue down under the center
strands of the glistening fiber. With a swift flash of his huge black
hand, with exceeding violence, Yaqui swept the strands aside. Then from
his lips pealed an awful cry. Instead of the jewels, there, crushed and
ghastly, lay the bridegroom Perez.
TIGRE
TIGRE
“Yes, I’ve a power over animals. Look at Tigre there! But the old women
in Micas say I’ve found one wild thing I’ll never tame.”
“And that, _señor_?” asked Muella.
“My young and pretty wife.”
She tossed her small head, so that her black curls rippled in the
sunlight, and the silver rings danced in her ears.
“Bernardo, I’m not a parrot to have my tongue slit, or a monkey to be
taught tricks, or a jungle cat to be trained. I’m a woman, and--”
“Yes--and I am old,” he interrupted bitterly. “Look, Muella--there on
the Micas trail!”
“It’s only Augustine, your _vaquero_.”
“Watch him!” replied Bernardo.
Muella watched the lithe figure of a man striding swiftly along the
trail. He was not going to drive cattle up to the corrals, for in that
case he would have been riding a horse. He was not going toward the
huts of the other herders. He faced the jungle into which ran the Micas
trail.
Surely he could not be on his way to Micas! The afternoon was far
advanced and the village many miles away. No _vaquero_ ever trusted
himself to the dangers of the jungle at night. Even Augustine, the
boldest and strongest of Bernardo’s many herders, would scarcely
venture so much. Yet Augustine kept on down the trail, passed the
thatched bamboo fence, went through the grove of palms, and disappeared
in the green wall of jungle.
“He’s gone!” cried Bernardo. “Muella, I sent Augustine away.”
She saw a dull red in her husband’s cheeks, a dark and sinister gleam
in his eyes; and her surprise yielded to misgiving.
“Why?” she asked.
“He loved you.”
“No! No! Bernardo, if that’s why you sent him away, you’ve wronged him.
Of all your _vaqueros_, Augustine alone never smiled at me--he cared
nothing for me.”
“I say he loved you,” returned Bernardo hoarsely.
“Bernardo, you are unjust!”
“Would you lie to me? I know he loves you. Girl, confess that you love
him. Tell it! I won’t bear this doubt another day!”
Muella stood rigid in his grasp, her eyes blazing the truth that her
lips scorned to speak.
“I’ll make you tell!” he shouted, and ran to a cage of twisted vines
and bamboo poles.
As he fumbled with the fastening of a door, his brown hands shook. A
loud purr, almost a cough, came from the cage; then an enormous jaguar
stepped out into the sunlight.
“Now, girl, look at Tigre!”
Tigre was of huge build, graceful in every powerful line of his yellow,
black-spotted body, and beautiful. Still, he was terrible of aspect.
His massive head swung lazily; his broad face had one set expression of
brute ferocity.
The eyes of any jaguar are large, yellow, cold, pale, cruel, but
Tigre’s were frightful. Every instant they vibrated, coalesced,
focused, yet seemed always to hold a luminous, far-seeing stare. It was
as if Tigre was gazing beyond the jungle horizon to palm-leaf lairs
which he had never seen, but which he knew by instinct. And then it
was as if a film descended to hide their tawny depths. Tigre’s eyes
changed--they were always changing, only there was not in them the life
of vision; for the jaguar was blind.
Bernardo burst into rapid speech.
“The taunting old crones of Micas were right when they said I could not
tame the woman; but I’ve tamed every wild creature of the Taumaulipas
jungle. Look at Tigre! Who beside Bernardo ever tamed a jaguar? Look!
Tigre is my dog. He loves me. He follows me, he guards me, he sleeps
under my hammock. Tigre is blind, and he is deaf, yet never have I
trained any beast so well. Whatever I put Tigre to trail, he finds. He
never loses. He trails slowly, for he is blind and deaf, but he never
stops, never sleeps, till he kills!”
Bernardo clutched the fur of the great jaguar and leaned panting
against the thatch wall of the cage.
“I’ll soon know if you love Augustine!” he went on passionately. “Look
here at the path--the path that leads out to the Micas trail. See!
Augustine’s sandal-prints in the dust! Now, girl, watch!”
He led Tigre to the path and forced the nose of the beast down upon
Augustine’s footmarks. Suddenly the jaguar lost all his lax grace. His
long tail lashed from side to side. Then, with head low, he paced down
the path. He crossed the grassy plot, went through the fence, along the
trail into the jungle.
“He’s trailing Augustine!” cried Muella.
She felt Bernardo’s gaze burning into her face.
“Tigre will trail him--catch him--kill him!” her husband said.
Muella screamed.
“He’s innocent! I swear Augustine does not love me! I swear I don’t
love him! It’s a horrible mistake. He’ll be trailed--ah, he’ll be torn
by that blind brute!” Muella leaped back from her husband. “Never! You
jealous monster! For I’ll run after Augustine--I’ll tell him--I’ll save
him!”
She eluded Bernardo’s fierce onslaught, and, fleet as a frightened
deer, she sped down the path. She did not heed his hoarse cries, nor
his heavy footsteps.
Bernardo was lame. Muella had so little fear of his catching her that
she did not look back. She passed the fence, sped through the grove,
and entered the jungle.
II
The trail was hard-packed earth, and ahead it lost its white line in
the green walls. Muella ran swiftly, dodging the leaning branches,
bowing her head under the streamers of moss, striking aside the slender
palm leaves. Gay-plumaged birds flitted before her, and a gorgeous
butterfly crossed her path. A parrot screeched over her head.
She strained her gaze for the trailing jaguar. Then she saw him, a
long black and yellow shape moving slowly under the hanging vines and
creepers.
When Muella caught up with Tigre, she slackened her pace, and watched
for a wide place in the trail where she could pass without touching him.
“I must pass him,” she muttered. “He can’t hear me--I can do it
safely--I must!”
But still she did not take advantage of several wide places.
Presently the trail opened into a little glade. Twice she started
forward, only to hang back. Then desperately she went on, seeing
nothing but the great spotted cat just in front of her.
[Illustration: TWICE SHE STARTED FORWARD, ONLY TO HANG BACK]
Sharp spear-point palm leaves stung her face, and their rustling
increased her terror. She flashed by Tigre so close that she smelled
him.
Muella uttered a broken cry and began to run, as if indeed she were the
wild creature Bernardo had called her. She looked over her shoulder to
see the sinuous yellow form disappear round a bend of the trail. Then
she gathered courage. For a long time her flying feet pattered lightly
on the trail. She was young, supple, strong, and it took much to tire
her. She ran on and on, until her feet were heavy, her breath was
almost gone, and her side pierced by a sharp pain. Then she fell to a
walk, caught her breath, and once more ran.
Fears began to beset her. Had Augustine left the trail? How swiftly he
had walked! It seemed as if she had run several miles. But that was
well, for, the larger the distance the farther she would get ahead of
the jaguar.
Shadows began to gather under the overhanging vines and creepers. Only
the tips of the giant ceibas showed a glint of sunlight. The day was
fast closing. Once more she ran on and on; and then, as she turned a
curve, a tall, dark form stood out of the green, and blurred the trail.
“Augustine! Wait! Wait!” she cried.
The man swung round, and ran back. Muella, panting for breath and with
her hand pressed over her heart, met him.
“_Señora!_ What has happened?” he exclaimed.
“Wait! My breath’s gone!” she gasped. “Wait! But keep on--we--we
mustn’t stop!”
Muella took a fleeting upward glance at him. It was so hurried that she
could not be positive, but she thought she had caught a strange, paling
flush of his bronzed face and a startled look of his dark eyes. Why
should his meeting her unexpectedly cause more than surprise or concern?
As she trotted along, she shot another quick glance up at him. He
seemed unmistakably agitated; and this disconcerted her. She heard his
amazed questions, but they were mostly unintelligible.
She had thought of nothing save to catch up with him and to blurt out
that Tigre was on his trail, and why. The words now halted on her lips.
It was not easy to tell him. What would he say--what would he do? A few
moments back, he had been only one of Bernardo’s herders--the best,
truly, and a man whom it was pleasing to look upon, but he had been
nothing to her. He alone of the _vaqueros_ had not smiled at her, and
this piquing of her pride had gained him notice which otherwise he
might never have got.
As she pattered on, slowly regaining her breath, the presence of the
man seemed to grow more real. It was well that she knew Augustine cared
nothing for her, else she could not have told him of Bernardo’s unjust
suspicions.
The trail opened into a clearing, where there were several old
palm-thatched huts, a broken-down corral, and a water hole. The place
had once been used by Bernardo’s herders, but was now abandoned and
partly overgrown. At this point, Augustine, who for a time had silently
stalked beside Muella, abruptly halted her.
“_Señora_, what is wrong? Where are you going?”
“Going!” She uttered a little laugh. “Why, I don’t know. I followed--to
warn you. Bernardo put Tigre on your trail!”
“Tigre? _Santa Maria!_”
“Yes. I ran, and ran, and passed him. He must be far back now. He’s
slow at first, but he’s sure, and he’s trailing you. Hurry on! You
mustn’t stop here!”
“_Señora!_ You ran--you risked so much to save me? Oh, may our Blessed
Lady reward you!”
“Man, I tell you, don’t stop. Go on! You have only your machete. Why
did you start into the jungle without a gun?”
“Bernardo drove me off. I owned nothing at the hacienda except my
blanket and machete.”
“He’s selfish--he was beside himself. Why, Augustine, he was jealous.
He--he told me he drove you away because you--you cared for me. I’m
ashamed to tell you. But, Augustine, he’s growing old. You mustn’t
mind--only hurry to get safe from that terrible brute!”
“I forgive him, _señora_. It’s his way to fall in a rage; but he
quickly repents. And you, _señora_--you must take this old trail back
to the hacienda. Go swiftly, for soon it will be night.”
“I’m not going back,” said Muella slowly. “I won’t live any longer with
Bernardo. Take me to Micas--to my sister’s home!”
With one long stride Augustine barred the trail and stood over her.
“You must go back. It’s best you should know the truth. Bernardo spoke
truth when he told you I loved you!”
“Augustine, you’re telling a lie--just to frighten me back to him!”
“No. Bernardo asked me for the truth; so I told him.”
Muella’s eyes dilated and darkened with shadows of amaze, wonder, and
pain.
“Oh, why did you tell him? I didn’t know. Oh, I swore by the Virgin
that you had no thought of me. He’ll believe that I lied.”
“_Señora_, you are innocent, and Bernardo will learn it. You know
him--how hotheaded he is, how quickly he is sorry. Go back. Take this
old cattle road--here--and hurry. The sun has set. You must run. Have
no fear for me!”
“I’m not going back to Bernardo.” She straightened up, pale and
composed, but as she stepped forward to pass the _vaquero_ in the trail
she averted her eyes. “Take me to Micas!”
With a passionate gesture Augustine stopped her.
“But, _señora_, consider. Darkness is upon us. Micas is a long way.
You’re only a girl. You can’t keep up. You’ve forgotten that Tigre is
on my trail.”
“I forget nothing,” she replied coldly. “I’ve begged you to hurry.”
“Muella, go back at once. To-morrow--after a night in the jungle--with
me--you can’t go. It’ll be too late!”
“It’s too late now,” breathed the girl. “I can’t go back--now!”
“Go first, then,” he said, whipping out the long machete. “I’ll wait
here for Tigre.”
“_Señor_, there are other _tigres_. There are panthers, too, and wild
boars. I may lose the trail. Will you let me go alone?”
III
Augustine whispered the name of a saint, and turning his dark face
toward where the trail led out of the clearing, he strode on without
sheathing his machete.
Muella kept close to him, and entered the enclosing walls of jungle
verdure. She felt indeed that she was the untamed thing Bernardo had
called her, and now she was hunted. Light as dropping leaves, her feet
pattered in the trail. Augustine loomed beside her, striding swiftly,
and now and then the naked blade he carried, striking against a twig or
branch, broke the silence with a faint ring.
The green walls became hovering shadows and turned to gray. Muella
had an irresistible desire to look back. The darkening menace of the
gloom before and on each side was nothing to that known peril behind.
She saw nothing, however, but a dull, gray, wavering line fading into
the obscurity of the jungle. She strained her hearing. Except for the
soft swishing of her skirt on the brush, and the occasional low ring of
Augustine’s machete, there was absolutely no sound.
She noted that her companion never turned his head. Had he no fear?
Quick flashes of memory recalled stories of this herder’s daring. How
tall and powerful he was--how swiftly he strode--how dark and stern and
silent he seemed! He must know full well the nature of Bernardo’s pet,
the terrible blind brute that never failed on a trail.
All at once the jungle grew into two ragged walls of black separated
by a narrow strip of paler shade. Night had fallen; and with it came
a blinking of stars through dense foliage overhead, and the lighting
of fireflies. Insects began to hum. Rustlings in the brush augmented
Muella’s sensitiveness. A strange call of a night bird startled her,
and instinctively she shrank closer to Augustine. She wished to speak
to him, to make the silence bearable; but stealthy steps off to the
right made her heart leap and her tongue mute.
Augustine heard, for he struck the leaves with his machete. From the
enshrouding blackness came the snapping of twigs, pattering little
steps, the rush of animals running through grass or ferns, and soft
rustlings in the brush. Then the night silence awoke to strange
cries--squall of cat and scream of panther, squeaks and grunts and
squeals of peccaries, and inexpressibly wild sounds, too remote to
distinguish.
“Oh, Augustine!” whispered Muella, fear at last unlocking her lips.
“Listen! All before us--do you hear?”
“_Señora_, we have not greatly to fear ahead,” he replied. “But
behind--a trailing _tigre_ warms with the night! We must not lag!”
“I’m not tired. I can walk so, all night; but the steps, the cries,
frighten me. It grows darker, and I stumble.”
She fancied she saw him reach out as if to help her, and then draw
suddenly back. The darkness became so thick that she could scarcely see
him. Like a tall specter he moved on.
She groped for his arm, found it, and slipped her hand down to his.
Instantly she felt his strong fingers convulsively close round hers.
The warm clasp helped and cheered her.
So, mile after mile, Muella kept tireless pace with the herder; and
when the jungle creatures ceased their hue and quest, and the dead
silence once more settled thickly down, the strange night flight lost
its reality and seemed a dream. The black shadows lifted and paled to
opaque gloom. A whiteness stole into the jungle; silver shafts gleamed
through the trees. The moon was rising. Muella hailed it with joy, for
it meant that the night was far advanced, and that their way would be
lightened.
Soon all about her was a radiant, encompassing world of silver shadows
and gleams. It was a beautiful night. The cold fear weighting her heart
lessened, seemed momentarily to be thrilled and warmed away. She loved
that great, silver-orbed, golden-circled moon; and now she looked up at
it through a streaked and fringed and laced web.
She wondered if Augustine saw the beauty of the sharp-cut palms, the
delicate-leaved bamboos, and the full-foliaged ceibas, all festooned
with long silver streamers of moss. Gnarled branches of a dead monarch
of the forest, silhouetted against the deep blue of the sky, showed
orchids and aloes and long, strangling vines--parasites that had killed
it. Every unshadowed leaf along the trail glistened white with dew. The
glamor of the white night was upon Muella.
Augustine’s voice broke the spell.
“You are tiring, but we must not lag. Shall I carry you?”
“No, no! I can keep up.”
His words and the glint of his naked machete brought her back to
actuality. She slipped her hand from his.
Slowly a haze overspread the moon. The brightness failed, and then the
moonlit patches imperceptibly merged into the shadows, until all was
gray. The jungle trees rose dim and weird and lost their tips in clouds
of mist. A chicolocki burst into song, and the broken notes heralded
the coming of day.
“Augustine, it is near dawn,” said Muella. “Oh, how good the light will
be! I’m so cold--so wet. We shall be safe in Micas soon, shall we not?”
The herder mumbled a reply that she did not understand.
IV
Swiftly upon the gray dawn came the broad daylight. The clouds of
creamy mist rose and broke and rolled away, letting the sunshine down
into the jungle. The balmy air rang with the melodies of birds. Flocks
of parrots passed overhead, screeching discordant clamor.