Enriquez

“ It had one hundred and four verses, which Enriquez never spared me. I shuddered as in a pleasant, quiet voice the correct Miss Mannersley warbled in musical praise of the pellejo, or wineskin, and a eulogy of the dicebox came caressingly from her thin red lips. But the company was far differently affected: the strange, wild air and wilder accompaniment were evidently catching; people moved toward the piano; somebody whistled the air from a distant corner; even the faces of the geologist and doctor brightened. ”

“ When I arrived there I found Enriquez' pinto mustang steaming in the corral, and although I was momentarily delayed by the servants at the gateway, I was surprised to find Enriquez himself lying languidly on his back in a hammock in the patio. His arms were hanging down listlessly on each side as if in the greatest prostration, yet I could not resist the impression that the rascal had only just got into the hammock when he heard of my arrival.
“You have arrived, friend Pancho, in time,” he said, in accents of exaggerated weakness. “I am absolutely exhaust. ”

“ I have long time an ancestor of whom is a pretty story. One day in church he have seen a young girl—a mere peasant girl—pass to the confessional. He look her in her eye, he stagger"—here Enriquez wobbled pantomimically into the road—"he fall!"—he would have suited the action to the word if I had not firmly held him up. "They have taken him home, where he have remain without his clothes, and have dance and sing. ”

“ A few peons, in striped shirts and velvet jackets, were sunning themselves against a wall, and near them hung a half-drained pellejo, or goatskin water-bag. The air of absolute shiftlessness must have been repellent to Mrs. Saltillo's orderly precision, and for a moment I pitied her. But it was equally inconsistent with Enriquez's enthusiastic ideas of American progress, and the extravagant designs he had often imparted to me of the improvements he would make when he had a fortune. ”

“ If you refuse to comply with the injunctions of the king your uncle, you lose the crown of Sicily. No sooner had he thrown in this salutary hint, than he got away from the king, to prevent all possibility of a reply. Enriquez was left in a most embarrassing situation. A thousand opposite emotions agitated him at once. He was exasperated against Siffredi. To give up Blanche, was more than he could endure: so that, balancing his private feelings and the calls of public honor, he was doubtful to which side he should incline. ”

“ Presently he reappeared, and with him the lovely Consuelo—her dear eyes filled with an adorable anxiety.
“Yes,” continued Enriquez to his sister, with a confidential lowering of tone but great distinctness of utterance, “it is ever so with the American! He will ever make FIRST the salutation of the flower or the fruit, picked to himself by his own hand, to the lady where he call. It is the custom of the American hidalgo! My God—what will you? I make it not—it is so! Without doubt he is in this instant doing thees thing. That is why he have let go his horse to precede him here ”

“ And to tell the truth, as Enriquez and I fell back, although I had insisted upon still keeping hold of the end of the riata, it was a picture to admire. The petite figure of the young girl, and the graceful folds of her skirt, admirably harmonized with Chu Chu's lithe contour, and as the mare arched her slim neck and raised her slender head under the pressure of the reins, it was so like the lifted velvet-capped toreador crest of Consuelo herself, that they seemed of one race. ”

“ My wife Urania, she stand there, of a fear, of a tremble; she grasp, she cling to someone. The earth shake again; the door shut. I jump from my table; I shake and tumble to the door. I fling him open. Maravilloso! it is the room of my wife again. She is NOT there; it is empty; it is nothing!”
I felt myself turning hot and cold by turns. I was horrified, and—and I blundered. “And who was the other figure?” I gasped.
“Who?” repeated Enriquez, with a pause, a fixed look at me, and a sublime gesture. “Who SHOULD it be, but myself, Enriquez Saltillo?” ”

“ In the first impulse of discovery I walked quickly with it toward the gateway where Enriquez had disappeared, intending to restore it to him. He was just outside talking with a young girl. I started, for it was Jocasta—Miss Mannersley's maid.
With this added discovery came that sense of uneasiness and indignation with which we illogically are apt to resent the withholding of a friend's confidence, even in matters concerning only himself. It was no use for me to reason that it was no business of mine, that he was right in keeping a secret that concerned another—and a lady ”

“ During one of our riding excursions we were to secure the services of a Methodist minister in the adjoining county, and later that of the Mission padre [169-1] —when the secret was out. "I will gif her away," said Enriquez confidently, "it will on the instant propitiate the old fellow who shall perform the affair and withhold his jaw. A little chin-music from your oncle 'Arry shall finish it! Remain tranquil and forget not a ring! One does not always, in the agony and dissatisfaction of the moment, a ring remember. ”

“ But beside it, also, lay the crumpled black gold-embroidered riding-gauntlet that Enriquez had worn at the rodeo.
I thrust it hurriedly into my pocket, and ran back. As I passed through the gateway I asked a peon to send Enriquez to me. The man stared. Did I not know that Don Enriquez had ridden away two minutes ago?
When I reached the veranda, I handed the fan to Miss Mannersley without a word. "Bueno," said Don Pedro, gravely; "it is as well. There shall be no bones broken over the getting of it, for Enriquez, I hear, has had to return to the Encinal this very evening." ”

“ If we do not give our offspring that prominence before our visitors so common to the young wife and husband, it is for that reason solely; and this may account for what seemed the forgetfulness of Enriquez in speaking of it or pointing it out to you. And I think his action in calling you back to see it was somewhat precipitate. As one does not usually introduce an unknown and inferior stranger without some previous introduction, he might have asked you if you wished to see the baby before he recalled you.”
I looked from Urania's unfathomable eyes to Enriquez's impenetrable countenance. ”

“ For, after all, Enriquez was the scion of an old Spanish-Californian family, and in due time would have his share of his father's three square leagues, whatever incongruity there was between his lively Latin extravagance and Miss Mannersley's Puritan precision and intellectual superiority. They had gone to Mexico; Mrs. Saltillo, as was known, having an interest in Aztec antiquities, and he being utterly submissive to her wishes. ”

“ The deep redwood porch of the Mannersley parsonage, under the shadow of a great oak—the largest in the Encinal—was diapered in black and silver. As the women stepped upon the porch their shadows were silhouetted against the door. Miss Mannersley paused for an instant, and turned to give a last look at the beauty of the night as Jocasta entered. Her glance fell upon us as we passed. She nodded carelessly and unaffectedly to me, but as she recognized Enriquez she looked a little longer at him with her previous cold and invincible curiosity. ”

“ Martinez asked a ruffianly page, Enriquez, 'if I knew anybody in my country' (Murcia) 'who would stick a knife into a person.' Enriquez said, 'I will speak about it to a muleteer of my acquaintance, as, in fact, I did, and the muleteer undertook the business.' But later, hearing that a man of importance was to be knifed, Enriquez told Perez that a muleteer was not noble enough: the job 'must be entrusted to persons of more consideration.'
Enriquez, in 1585, confessed for a good reason; Perez had absurdly mismanaged the business. ”

“ But to my embarrassment Consuelo maintained a half scornful silence, and an inconsistent freshness of healthful indifference, as Enriquez approached her with an engaging smile. “Ah, yes, she have the headache, and the molligrubs. She will sit on the damp stone when the gentle dew is falling. I comprehend. Meet me in the lane when the clock strike nine! But,” in a lower voice, “of thees undress horse I comprehend nothing! Look you—it is sad and strange.”
He went off to fetch Chu Chu, leaving me and Consuelo alone. I do not think I ever felt so utterly abject and bewildered before in my life. ”

“ Oh, no! he is decidedly original. Heavens! yes."
I turned away in some discomfiture to join Enriquez, who was calmly awaiting me, with a cigarette in his mouth, outside the sala. Yet he looked so unconscious of any previous absurdity that I hesitated in what I thought was a necessary warning. He, however, quickly precipitated it. Glancing after the retreating figures of the two women, he said: "Thees mees from Boston is return to her house. You do not accompany her? I shall. Behold me—I am there." ”

“ In vain Enriquez and myself joined in earnest entreaty: the horse was hardly broken for even a man's riding yet; the saints alone could tell what the nervous creature might do with a woman's skirt flapping at her side! We begged for delay, for reflection, for at least time to change the saddle—but with no avail! Consuelo was determined, indignant, distressingly reproachful! Ah, well! if Don Pancho (an ingenious diminutive of my Christian name) valued his horse so highly—if he were jealous of the evident devotion of the animal to herself, he would—but here I succumbed! ”

“ Would I not have laughed had Urania, or even Enriquez himself, told me such a story?
As I reentered the hotel the clerk handed me a telegram. “There's been a pretty big shake all over the country,” he said eagerly. “Everybody is getting news and inquiries from their friends. Anything fresh?” He paused interrogatively as I tore open the envelope. The dispatch had been redirected from the office of the “Daily Excelsior.” It was dated, “Salvatierra Rancho,” and contained a single line: “Come and see your old uncle 'Ennery.” ”

“ And beside us was Enriquez—cheerful, alert, voluble, and undaunted.
“Eureka! I have found! We are all here! Eet is a leetle public—eh! a leetle too much of a front seat for a tete-a-tete, my yonge friends,” he said, glancing at the remains of Consuelo's bower, “but for the accounting of taste there is none. What will you? The meat of the one man shall envenom the meat of the other. But” (in a whisper to me) “as to thees horse—thees Chu Chu, which I have just pass—why is she undress? ”

“ He handed me a note written in pencil on a leaf from Miss Mannersley's sketchbook. It was in Enriquez' hand, and his signature was followed by his most extravagant rubric.
Friend Pancho: When you read this line you shall of a possibility think I am no more. That is where you shall slip up, my little brother! I am much more—I am two times as much, for I have marry Miss Boston. At the Mission Church, at five of the morning, sharp! No cards shall be left! I kiss the hand of my venerable uncle-in-law. ”

“ To this Enriquez answered roughly that if the Lord Antonio desired to make him kill a man, he should tell him so openly and by his own mouth, otherwise he would not kill anyone. Accordingly Pérez made an appointment at the "Casilla" one afternoon with Enriquez, according to the declaration of the same, and said, "As it is important that the secretary Escovedo should die, he had been instructed to give the poison the day that he was a guest, and in order to do so he must see and communicate with the said Diego Martinez, giving him his word and promise and friendship in all things. ”

“ She evidently had not tired of his extravagance, and yet I feel as puzzled by her manner as then. She rose and said: “I suppose you have a good deal to say to each other, and I will leave you by yourselves.” Turning to her husband, she added, “I have already spoken about the Aztec manuscript.”
The word brought Enriquez to his feet again. “Ah! The little old nigger—you have read?” I began to understand. “My wife, my best friend, and the little old nigger, all in one day. Eet is perfect!” ”

“ I consider it a proof of the superiority of masculine friendship that neither the subsequent desertion of the mustang nor that of the young lady ever made the slightest difference to Enriquez or me in our exalted amity. To a wondering doubt as to what I ever could possibly have seen in his sister to admire he joined a tolerant skepticism of the whole sex. This he was wont to express in that marvelous combination of Spanish precision and California slang for which he was justly famous. ”

“ The office was by no means the sinecure that in Spain it was supposed to be.
Experience had taught him the necessity of exacting obedience from the governed, respect from the officers, and of tolerating no bad example among the officials. To hold public office in Mexico, he declared, had come to be unbefitting an honest man. [52] Enriquez himself had done fairly well. He maintained at all times cordial relations with the oidores, and recommended the same course to his successor, to strengthen the hands of the government. [53] He fostered public instruction in every possible way. ”

“ Unvanquished philosopher! As we stood there looking at the flying landscape and sinking lesser hills, one by one the great snow peaks slowly arose behind them, lifting themselves, as if to take a last wondering look at the man they had triumphed over, but had not subdued.
THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ
When Enriquez Saltillo ran away with Miss Mannersley, as already recorded in these chronicles,* her relatives and friends found it much easier to forgive that ill-assorted union than to understand it. ”