Laura Preston

“ In the night all cats are gray; in times of perplexity all soldiers are patriots. The ragged urchins of El Toro threw up their hats for the soldiers of Ramirez, and the discreet householders leaned from their balconies every evening to hear the little band play, and to exult for a brief quarter of an hour in the mild excitement inseparable from a garrison town.
Chata and Chinita had delighted in the distant music, and had caught glimpses of the soldiers, as disenchanting as those of the rude grimy structures they had in the moonlight imagined to be marble palaces ”

“ In whom but in our child could reappear your own face, glorified, masked, by woman’s softness? Ah, Doña Isabel and this Pedro were deceived; they thought it was the beauty of Herlinda that they saw. But I knew it to be yours. Ah, in all these weeks I have taught your child how to hate you; I have plucked out that root of love; I have made more real the fancied wrongs of which she has accused you. Trifles! trifles! trifles all!—the murder of a supposed father, the torture of an old man, the death of a base lover,—yes, that Ruiz to whom from her birth you destined her. ”

“ Chinita hath been my child, and though she turn from me I will hear no evil of her. I will live or die for her!” The unwonted outburst ended in a sob, and before he could speak again, Doña Feliz had passed across the court, but—strange condescension!—she had seized his hand and pressed it to her lips, in irresistible homage to a devotion as pure and unselfish as that of the loftiest knight who ever drew sword in the cause of helpless innocence.
Pedro turned to his alcove dazed, stunned. To him it was as if a star should leave its place in heaven to touch the vilest clod upon the highway. ”

“ She realized for the first time the fascination that unlimited power over such elements must exercise over a mind given to daring, and uncontrolled by any moral principle. She thought of Chinita, and how her adventurous spirit would have exulted in such an adventure as this. As she gazed into the fire the very face of that fearless, enigmatic young nature seemed to rise before her, beautiful, passionate, yet with that capacity of endurance, which in a man might become cruelty, that capricious changeableness, which one moment dissolved in tears, and the next shone in a smile. ”

“ For months the name of José Ramirez had rung through the land in alternate shouts of triumph and joy and howls of execration. The prison doors had been thrown open, and hundreds of convicts had joined his ranks, ready to die for the man who had set them free,—not for gratitude, but in an excess of admiration for a spirit more lawless, more daring, than their own.
Chinita used to stand half aloof, and listen to these things, as wild rumors of them reached the hacienda, a burning pride glowing in her heart as she heard of deeds that made men tremble and stand aghast ”

“ The saints must have blinded me that I was so easily deceived upon your last visit; but you had always the power to mask your face at will.”
“Bah! every man has a dozen countenances at his command, if he but know how to summon them,” replied Ramirez, carelessly, “and a touch of art to fix their coloring, and twist the eyebrows or moustache. Why, even your mother was deceived! Where is she now? Ah! that woman was like Isabel herself; I swear she would have killed me, even when she seemed to love me most. It is the way of women, like serpents, to twine and sting at the same moment.” ”

“ In all the world there should be no other with such hair. Thou hast had good fortune, Pedro, to bring up such a child. She is an angel. Ah, it is as if I had seen her all my life! And thou hast a spirit to match thy face,” she added turning again to Chinita. “Thou canst not brook a wrong. Well, well! we will make common cause; and some day—soon, soon we will stand together before Leon Vallé with such a tale, such a revenge, that even he will sink before it. To think that after all these years, I shall turn against him the dagger with which he has pierced me!” ”

“ A livid face, in which were set eyes of lurid blackness, looked down upon him with satanic rage. The bulk that towered over him seemed colossal. “Mercy! mercy!” he ejaculated. “By all the saints I swear—”
“Let me pass!” hissed Planillos in a voice scarce above a whisper, but which in its intensity sounded in the ears of Pedro like thunder. “Villain, let me pass!” and he cast from him the terrified gate-keeper as though he were a child, and rushed out upon the sandy slope which lay between the great house and the village. ”

“ That the General José Ramirez had entered Tres Hermanos in a mood to seize any pretext to assume toward it and its people the rôle of an injured and desperate man, was to be seen at a glance. The very soldiers had already divined as much, and were leading their horses and mules to drink at the fountain, and invading the arbor and lower rooms; the sound of their jests and laughter was mingling with the crash of the great flower-pots, carelessly pushed from their stands, and the sharp crack of jars of the quaint black and gilded ware of Guadalajara, which ornamented the corridors. ”

“ Though ye women have no mercy, she’ll laugh at you all yet. The lads will not be blind, eh Pancho?”
“That they will not!” cried the lad Pepé, throwing a meaning glance at Pancho as if daring him to take up the cudgels in behalf of his old playfellow. “What care I who she is? She’s not the first who came into the world by a crooked road; and must all the women hint that it began at the Devil’s door because they can’t trace it back? Ay, they know enough ways to the same place.”
“Well said, young friend!” cried Tio Reyes with a hearty slap on the boy’s shoulder. ”

“ Yes, Chata, could I have found you to-day, you would have known all. Ask him what you like—it will please him. Oh, he is most considerate. Did he not show that by taking me into his confidence? Yes, yes, you are right; insist upon knowing all from him, and you shall tell me: who could understand, or sympathize so well? But as you love me and value the safety of Rafael, not a word to him or Doña Feliz.—Rosario! what an impatient one! What is there to see? If there is commotion in the street, keep back from the windows. Ay, who would have thought the troops would pass this way? ”

“ As her child had said, “Death wipes out every wrong.” Only remorse, pity, love survive.
They buried them both—the two of that sad name Dolores—in the hacienda church. But one lies in a nameless grave, and the other is marked by one that recalls a vision of a beautiful girl, to whom a happier destiny should have brought the joys of life, and whose proud spirit should have conquered its cares; yet its perplexities, its conflicting passions, had made the pilgrimage so hard, so set with thorns, that she had been content—yes, thankful—to end it there: “Chinita.” ”

“ Chinita the foundling came forward calmly, though her skirt was in tatters, and her draggled scarf scarce covered her shoulders; but there was an air about her as if she had been dressed in imperial robes. “Ah!” she said quite calmly, “it is the smell of the blood that has startled your horse; they say no animal passes here without shying and plunging, since the American was killed!”
Ramirez glanced around him with wild eyes. “Oh, you cannot see him now,” cried the child; “that happened long ago. No, no, there is nothing here that will hurt you. ”

“ And so I long, Chata. Ah, thou knowest not what it is to be a nameless wretch, to be tossed from hand to hand, and have no share in the game but the dizzy whirling through the air. Pshaw! I would rather be dashed to pieces against the first wall than go through life with nothing but favor to rely on. I want a name, a place, a right. I will have them: even you, who are the daughter of the administrador, have those; and I—Well, I will not be simply Chinita, whom Doña Isabel makes a lady to-day, who was a child of the Madonna yesterday, and may be a beggar to-morrow. ”

“ Tell me,”—with her old gossiping habit,—“tell me, did the Señorita love the American? Was it for him she pined away; or because she was bewitched; or was it because the Señora would not let her marry the Señor Gonzales, but would send her to the convent to pray for the wicked Don Leon?“
“Quien sabe? Who knows?” answered Doña Feliz, in the non-committal phrase a Mexican finds so convenient. “It is not for us to chatter of the Señorita Herlinda. Peace be with her! and have a care how you mention her name to Doña Isabel.” ”

“ It maddened the recreant follower of Ramirez to think of Chinita in the power of such a man. That day the last wild escapade of the lawless adventurer, the torture of Pedro, had in some way reached the ears of Ruiz and destroyed a lingering hope he had cherished that the girl, proud and hard though he believed her, had in some impulse of affection gone to her foster-father,—a thought that he had not even hinted to Doña Isabel, for with petty spite he refrained from uttering that which he imagined might give relief to her long agony. ”

“ He breathed the name so low that even Doña Feliz did not hear it; she listened rather to the beating of the heart that seemed to repeat without cessation the name of one so loved and lost. “How strange it is, Rafael,” she said presently, “that I have such persistent, such mocking dreams, which against my reason, against all precedent, create in me the belief that all is not ended for Herlinda Garcia.”
Don Rafael looked at her musingly.
“There is a man called Juarez who has dreams such as yours,” he said; “but they are of the freedom of a race, not of one woman alone. ”

“ What that will awaken pity, unstained with blame, for that poor creature, so powerless in that land that her sisters, in others more blessed, perhaps, find it impossible to put themselves in imagination in her place even for a single moment? But the captive slave can writhe; woman, the pampered toy, may weep: and where woman was both (for even in Mexico a new era is dawning on her) , she could struggle and despair and die,—but, as Herlinda knew too well, in youth at least she could not assert her womanhood, and make or mar her own destiny. ”

“ I had reached the prostrate body as soon as he, and together we raised it up. Under the mask of bruises and blood and the dust of the roadway, I recognized the man I had been seeking,—Pedro Gomez.”
Pepé caught Chinita on his outstretched arm,—she had staggered as though struck by a heavy blow. Ashley sprang to her side in remorse,—he had spared her nothing in the recital; but she had not fainted. She raised herself slowly, and lifting her arms above her head, wrung her hands in speechless agony.
The man who had been murdered years before had been a shadow, a myth, in her mind. ”

“ These I plied in vain for news of Pedro, of Pepé, or even of the noted Ramirez himself. Each and every one seemed to have passed, and left not even a memory behind; though from these very ranchos and hamlets I knew Doña Isabel’s troops had been drawn, and that the followers of Ramirez were daily drawing more,—forcing those they could not persuade, laughing at the protestations of the women, and feeding the adventurous ardor of the men with tales of daring exploits and promises of plunder. ”

“ Thou wouldst not that he should do me a favor instead of thyself?”
“I would see him choked first with the wine in which he drinks a toast to thine eyes,” answered Pepé, hotly. “Señor Don ’Guardo and I are in the same mind about that; but it is not that he thinks thee a beauty,” he added hastily.
Chinita flushed and tossed her head proudly. “What matters it what Don ’Guardo thinks?” she said. “There could be nothing but ill luck in the favor of a man like that. Hast thou shown him the grave of the other American? ”

“ He is better than a new-found relation. It is he who will do a bidding and ask no reason for it; it is he—”
“What can I do for thee?” whispered Pepé, hoarsely. “Tell me, and thou shalt see whether I am a friend or no; and then Chinita thou wilt—”
“Sh-h!” interrupted Chinita, her finger again on her lip. “What does it matter to me who wins or loses in these senseless battles? Yet I wonder thou art not with Pedro; I would not have him sick or wounded, and alone,” and her eyes filled with tears. Pepé moved from foot to foot, and rubbed his shoulder against the wall uneasily. ”

“ Yet like an undercurrent beneath the flood of her thoughts flowed the idea of the new element that Doña Isabel was bringing with her. “A foreigner!” she muttered, as if she could scarce believe her words. “Can it be possible that the hand once stung can dally again with the scorpion? Ah, no! necessity wears the guise of heresy, but it is not possible that Doña Isabel can forget.”
She glanced around her; Chinita had disappeared. Doña Feliz saw her no more until the long-delayed carriage rolled into the court, when she descended to greet her mistress. ”

“ Doña Feliz and Pedro started as if they had been shot.
“I came to tell you she is coming,” continued the child. “I was out beyond the granaries, letting my fawn browse on the little hill, and as I was looking toward the gorge I saw a horseman coming, and far behind him was a carriage and many men. Is all ready?” and she glanced around her with the air of a prophetess. “Hark! the courier is in the court now. Doña Isabel will not be long behind him.”
Pedro hastened from the room with an exclamation of alarmed amazement. “Go, go!” cried Feliz. “You are too late!” ”

“ In so short a life the unfortunate girl could not have wandered far from heaven; yet for years there was one on earth who spent upon each day long hours of prayer and fasting at the tomb of her brother’s child,—to the memory and the name of Chinita uniting that of Leon, and embracing both in the undying love which looked beyond the grave for its perfection and its reward. At evening would come one older, but more peaceful than the mourner, to lead her home ”

“ The respite unnerved her, and she threw herself half fainting in a chair, as Herlinda seized the new-comer by the shoulders, gasping forth, “Feliz, Feliz, tell me! tell me it is not true! He is not dead! dead! dead!” her voice rising to a shriek.
“Hush! hush, Herlinda! O God, my child, what can this be to thee?” Doña Feliz shuddered as she spoke. She glanced at the closed window; the walls she knew to be a yard in thickness, yet she wished them double, lest a sound of these wild ravings should escape. ”

“ For less, stronger men than Pepé the ranchero have committed unimaginable crimes.
The next morning when they met in the court, Captain Ruiz stopped Pepé. “Tell her her wishes are law to me!” he said. “If she but love me, I—”
“Caramba!” cried Pepé, savagely. “Am I an old woman or a priest that I should carry your messages? She love you! she would needs have been born to lead apes, to love you.” And Pepé flung himself off in a rage, while the astounded Ruiz gazed after him in open-mouthed amazement. ”

“ Pepé rode steadily on for hours, picturing to himself his meeting with Pedro should he find him, or the quiet exultation of Chinita when she should hear that he had deserted the troops, or of the return of Don ’Guardo to the hacienda. In his heart he was not displeased that the American should be separated from Chinita, though it left her the more completely to the gallant care of Ruiz. He had comprehended instantly the emotion which had seized upon Ashley at his kinsman’s grave,—the instinct for revenge. ”

“ Adios, Niña! more beautiful than our patron saint! Adios, and joy be with thee!” And in the midst of such good wishes, as Herlinda still leaned from the window, a smile upon her lip, her hand waving a farewell, the carriage drove away and the people dispersed; leaving Pedro, the gate-keeper, standing motionless in the shadow of the great door-post, his eyes riveted on the sands at his feet, but seeing still the glance of agony, of warning, of entreaty, which had darted from Herlinda’s eyes, and seemed to scorch his own. ”

“ When his eyes fell upon the youth, a frown which darkened as with a palpable cloud his already rigid and pitiless face, overspread the countenance of Ramirez and made it absolutely terrible. Even to fallen angels the crime of ingratitude may seem the one damnable offence. In Ruiz, remembering the love and favor he had shown him, Ramirez held it so to be. This insignificant boy had compassed his ruin; his life seemed too poor a forfeit to condone the offence. The baffled, desperate, outraged chieftain cursed the fate which had cast the treacherous favorite into his power. ”

“ It seemed to her in her excitement as if, indeed, she had always known it.
“A word to the wise is enough,” said the man, mysteriously. “Keep your knowledge to yourself, but use it to your advantage. You were sent like a package to Doña Isabel years ago, but stopped by a clumsy messenger. She finds you in her path now; let her find something alive under the shabby coverings. God puts many a sweet nut in a rough shell, many a poison in despised weeds!”
“Oh!” cried Chinita, with a wicked little laugh, though even at that moment the chords of kinship thrilled, “I am but a weed to Doña Isabel, eh? ”

“ The ardent youth railed at the mocking chances that had combined to suffer Ramirez to escape him in the unpremeditated struggle in which they had clinched with a 298deadly enmity. In such a struggle he could have found himself the victor without remorse, or could have died without regret; but it was not in his nature to follow a man for blood. Yet neither could he shut his ears to that cry for vengeance, for justice, which seemed ringing through the sultry stillness,—the more importunate as the possibilities of their attainment shaped themselves in his mind. ”