When the death-shriek of Mahletonkwa startled the dwellers in the Casa Sanchez, the sound was so strange, so unearthly, that they sprang to their feet in terror. What new ill had fallen upon the village! That could be no human cry. It seemed to their terrified imaginations that some evil spirit from the other world had come to add a crowning horror to their troubles.
"It is the devil," they murmured, crossing themselves with trembling prayers—"the devil has come to carry away el defunto. Que los Santos nos ayuden."
But when the blood-curdling shriek was followed by a succession of rapid pistol-shots and the cries of those who fell before the American's unerring aim, they knew that it was a conflict of a more earthly sort. The men snatched up their arms and dashed out of the house, ready for attack or defence, and were followed to the door by the trembling women, while Stephens's dog darted away on his master's trail.
This last alarm was too much for Manuelita. Her nerves were still quivering from the terrors of her own captivity, and now fears for her deliverer overwhelmed her. She knew the American was at the store,—he was surely killed; the blow that had threatened them had fallen at last, not on the family but on their friend. She tried to run, but her trembling limbs refused to bear her, and she sank to the ground in a passion of sobs; brave she could be for her own danger, but not for him, not for the man who had just left her, whose eyes had told her a secret she hardly let herself guess.
She raised her head and heard the shuffling of feet, and the sound of subdued voices came nearer to her. In the doorway appeared her father, anxious and flurried. "Hasten, sister," he called in a loud half-whisper to her aunt, "hasten and make a bed in the room across the patio for a wounded man. The Navajos are on the war-path, and an American has been hurt."
"Who is it?" asked his sister, answering him in the same excited half-whisper, as the ominous shuffling steps of Rocky's bearers reached the outside of the door and paused. "Is he dying? Quick there, Juana, run and bring bedding; fly!"
Manuelita's heart seemed to stop beating as she listened for the answer.
"I know not who he is. They say he is a friend of Don Estevan's. He had but just arrived from Santa Fé. There is a doctor of the American soldiers with him. Mahletonkwa stabbed him in the lung."
Manuelita tried to ask, "And what of Don Estevan?" but her dry lips refused to speak the words. Her father answered the unspoken question.
"Don Estevan is like a raging lion. He has killed Mahletonkwa and half his band already, and he is chasing the rest. Ah, what a fighter! They say he fired off his pistol like lightning, and left the savages lying all around like dead dogs in a heap as if a thunderbolt from heaven had struck them. Ah, what a fighter! The young men are all galloping after to help him."
"He is not wounded himself?" They were already in the room across the patio preparing it for the wounded man, and it was the voice of Manuelita that asked this question. Her tongue had found speech at last.
"Well, it is not known precisely," said Don Nepomuceno. "He started off after them like fury, and so did the two young Sandovals, and then there was more firing out on the plain, but it is not certain as yet what happened there. The doctor of the American soldiers wished to place the wounded Americano with us at once, and I did not wait. Ah, here they are, bringing him through the court. This way, Señor el Doctor. Here is the room for him. Is he much hurt?"
"Pretty bad," replied the doctor in Spanish, which he knew that Rocky, who was still conscious, did not understand. "But we shall see. With proper nursing there should be a good chance for him yet."
With gentle hands Rocky was laid upon the couch arranged for him, and attended to by the doctor and the women-folk, while Don Nepomuceno, in his eagerness to be of service, succeeded only in getting in everybody's way and making a wholly unnecessary fuss.
"Run, Juana, run. Bring a bowl with water for the doctor; cold water, mind you—hot, did you say, Doctor?—hot water, then, Juana, hot from the fire. And a towel, a clean towel, child—two towels; and be quick, quick! How slow you are!"
Rap, rap, rap, came loud, imperative knocks upon the outer door of the house, which had been made fast again after the limp form of Rocky had been brought inside. Don Nepomuceno flew to open it himself.
"Hush, hush! Who is there? Eh? What? Another man hurt? Ave Maria purisima, I hope it is not Don Estevan." His fingers fumbled with the bolts in his haste to unbar. "No, you say, not him. Who is it, then? One of the Sandovals shot with an arrow. And you wish for the doctor of the American soldiers to come and cure him? Come in, then, come in,"—the door opened as he spoke,—"come in and speak to the doctor yourself. Poor young Sandoval; an arrow right through his shoulder, you say. And Don Estevan was not hit? Oh, he killed the Indian that shot young Sandoval, did he? Ah, what a lion of a man! What a fighter indeed!" and bursting with this fresh piece of news he ran across the patio to tell the doctor that his services were in request for another patient.
"It looks to me," said Doctor Benton to himself, as, after doing all he could for Rocky's comfort, he hurried with the messenger towards the house where young Sandoval was lying, "at this rate, it looks to me as if I was going to get more surgical practice in San Remo in a day than I'm likely to see at Fort Wingate in a month."
The slow hours passed, and the hot midday sun blazed down on the village; even the dogs retreated indoors to find a cool corner, and the hens retired from scratching on the dust-heaps; the place seemed asleep, save where a few anxious watchers kept their faces steadily turned towards the mirage that flickered over the plain, towards the horizon beyond which the young men had disappeared. The shaded room where Manuelita sat by Rocky's couch was cool and silent and restful, but there was no rest in the girl's dark eyes; their liquid depths burnt with a dark fire, and the scarlet spot on her cheeks, and the feverish start she gave at the slightest sound outside the door showed that she was not the impassive and self-controlled sick-nurse that Doctor Benton fondly imagined he had discovered, by some Heaven-sent miracle, in this remote corner of New Mexico. But whatever inward fire burnt in her eyes and fevered her cheeks, her hand never faltered in its task of fanning the sick man, and her ear noted his slightest breath. Yet, with the curious double consciousness that comes to us when the nerves are tense with strain, she was all the time far away—riding, riding, riding at speed over the dusty levels of the Agua Negra valley, up through the pine-clad gorges of the sierra, seeking everywhere for the form of a tall, fair-haired man—no, Madre de Dios, not for his corpse, not for that! ah, no! some instinct would tell her, some kindly angel would whisper to her, if that were true. But no, that could not be. He was alive, he was dealing death with that terrible rifle of his to the foe; like an avenging whirlwind he was sweeping from the face of the earth those savages who had carried her off, who had tried to murder her brother, who had murdered that poor solitary prospector,—ay, and who could say how many more? Merciful saints, what had they all not suffered from them! And now a deliverer had been sent to them by Heaven, a very St. Jago, like their own fair-haired saint, with his bright armour, in the chapel.
And while she dreamed, and while her hand moved mechanically with the fan, her ear was still alert, and it brought its tidings. There was a murmur in the air, a movement without; the village stirred, and there were sounds far off. She heard a shout, several shouts, a shot—ah heavens, not a shot again!—yes, numbers of shots, mingled with vivas and cries of joy; it was a lively feu de joie, like that from the procession on the feast day of St. Jago himself. The shouts came nearer, they would waken her patient—oh, she must look one moment.
And, in truth, when she looked out it was a sight to see. The little plaza had fairly gone off its head with excitement; the women wrapped in their rebosos, and eager hurrying children, and grey-bearded men, too old now for work or fight, and unkempt, barefooted peons, all bustling and crowding together in one place, laughing and crying at once, and asking questions to which nobody made answer; and in the centre a party of mounted caballeros, their silver buttons and spurs glinting in the bright sunshine, shouting and firing off pistols, and yelling as if they were possessed.
"Peace, peace, amigos," the voice of Don Nepomuceno was heard crying amid the babel of tongues; "a moment's peace, I pray you. This is pure madness." But no one heeded his words.
"Viva! viva!" yelled the young men; "here he is, behold him, the guerrero Americano, the slayer of the Indians." And in the middle of them, his left arm in a sling, bloodstained, dishevelled, and in rags, sat Stephens on his mare; his brain was reeling; the intense energy that had possessed him in the hour of the fight had gone, and left him a worn and weary man.
Manuelita's heart leapt at the sight of him. He was alive and, though wounded, he was able to sit his horse; his hurts, then, could not be desperate.
"Peace, peace, amigos," reiterated Don Nepomuceno. "See you not that Don Estevan is weary to the death? Santisima Virgen! but you forget that he is wounded, too; yes, and look how the very clothes have been torn from his back.—Dismount, then, Don Estevan, and let me help you. Come inside, and you shall be attended to instantly." His eye fell upon the Indian boy beside him. "Here you, Felipe, run to the house of the Sandovals and see if the American doctor is there still, and tell him that there is yet another patient for him to attend to here. This way, Don Estevan. Excuse me, friends, you will not go till you have taken a cup of wine with me, but I must see to Don Estevan first. Ah, no noise now, for the sake of the sick man within. My house is purely a hospital now. Angels of grace! but what agitation, what events! This way, Don Estevan, if you please. Patience, friends. By your leave, I beg the silence of one little moment. Sister, sister, bring a change of clothes for Don Estevan; his are all torn to pieces in the fight; bring my best clothes, my feast-day clothes, out of the great chest in the inner room. Hurry, hurry! And water to wash the blood from him. Bring water, Juana; fly!"
Like a man in a dream Stephens got off his horse and entered the house. The Navajo bondmaid hastened in answer to her master's call and brought water to wash the blood of her kinsfolk from the hands of the American. Passively he submitted himself to her care, and to that of Don Nepomuceno, who attended to him with bustling little airs of proprietorship, as if the prospector were his own private property, his own victorious gamecock who had won the main for him and beaten everything in the pit. He was so pleased with his office and proud of his guest that he hardly noticed how unlike the American was to his alert and masterful, everyday self. The transformation effected, he joyfully ushered him into the living-room. "Dinner, sister, dinner," he called out; "a feast, we must have a feast. Andrés, some wine. Here is the key. Some of the wine of El Paso from the farthest cask. We must drink a health to-day."
But as he placed Stephens on the divan it struck him suddenly that the American looked strange. His face was white and drawn, and there was a dull, abstracted look in his eyes.
"Ah, my dear friend, you are overdone; you are worn out with your heroic deeds. One little moment only, and you shall dine."
"You are very kind," said Stephens, sinking down on the soft seat, "but I couldn't eat, thank you,—not yet."
"Ah, my poor head," cried the Mexican, "how I forget things; you are so anxious for your friend doubtless. But he is doing well, very well, I do assure you. He speaks of you; he says you are a millionaire,—that you have found the silver mine of the Indians. Oh yes, you shall see him when he wakes. My daughter is taking charge of him now. Yes, and the other wounded man, young Sandoval, is doing well too. There is no need of any anxiety. You must rest; yes, rest, and eat and drink and be merry!"
Stephens seemed to rouse himself with a great effort. "Don Nepomuceno," he spoke with a dull, thick, voice, "I don't think I can stay now. I had ought to go right back to the pueblo. There's some more business I have; there's a girl there, the cacique's daughter—"
"Ah, what need to remember her!" cried the Mexican with a sudden flash of irritation. "Of course I have heard—but what do mere Indians matter? Between ourselves, what does all that amount to? Nothing, absolutely nothing." He snapped his fingers with contempt, as if to brush it all away.
"Yes, but look here, Don Nepomuceno, business is business. I've undertaken to run her show, and I'm bound to see it through. I took her away from her father because he was half-murdering her, and I want to see her safe married to this cub of mine here,—what's his name? I shall forget my own next,—oh yes, Felipe, that's it, of course—to see her married to Felipe. I'd better get it done right away, else I might forget, you know"; he looked around vaguely with an incoherent half-laugh, checked himself with an effort, and collected himself again. "If there was a padre handy, how about doing it here?—" He broke off confusedly.
Don Nepomuceno looked puzzled.
"But why trouble over these matters now? Any time will do for those Indians. But if you wish it, certainly I will send to the pueblo. You cannot go; you are overwearied. You want this girl to come here? But no; I have a better plan. The padre is here in San Remo to-day, as it happens; let us send him there, and you shall be troubled no further by her."
Even Stephens's dulled brain could not but notice something odd in the Mexican's tone. "Oh, Lord," he groaned internally, "they all give me the name of it!"
"See here, Don Nepomuceno. I guess that Backus has been talking some about me. He's dead, but I've got to say it—he was a darned liar, anyway; and he knew nothing about this business but what he invented for himself. She's not my girl. I'm not that sort of a man." He stopped abruptly.
"Assuredly not," assented the Mexican with eager courtesy. "You say so, and that is enough for us; though, indeed, we are ourselves not always so scrupulous in these matters."
"Felipe bolted with her," said the brain-weary man, going over past events almost mechanically; "her father took her from him; I took her from her father, and I've promised to give her over to Felipe. He's a plumb idiot, but if she likes him that's her lookout. My business is to see them married and make it all square. When I take any business in hand, I can't rest till I get it done. I'll take you to witness, Don Nepomuceno; I'll give them ten cows and calves on the shares to set 'em up in housekeeping."
"But certainly," exclaimed Don Nepomuceno, "your kindness is admirable. It is a deed of charity! It was but last time his Grace the Archbishop of Santa Fé was dining with my cousin that he spoke of the admirable goodness of Doña Mariana Chavez in giving dowers to poor maidens. And now you will be so rich with the profits of your mine that you may dower all the Indian maidens in the pueblo if you like. In truth, such a deed must be pleasing to the saints; it will fill our padre with admiration to hear of such a truly virtuous action, 'worthy of one of the pillars of our holy Church!'"
"Much more like the heavy father at the end of a play!" muttered Stephens perversely. "'Bless you, my children,' and down comes the curtain. I reckon I'm a bit young to play the part. Hang it all! I wish the old gentleman would stop."
Don Nepomuceno turned to the peon. "Here, Pedro, hasten; ride to the pueblo, and take the old woman along and fetch the girl,—Josefa, you say?—yes; go, then, and fetch her and tell her she is to be married at once. Say that those are the orders of the Americano. But first you can tell Rufino to go and find the padre—bid him hasten as dinner is served," he rubbed his hands exultingly as his sister and Juana brought in the long-desired feast, and Andrés appeared with an old flagon which he had filled with El Paso wine. Don Nepomuceno poured some into a glass and offered it to Stephens. "Drink, my friend, drink; you need it, and we will all drink a cup in your honour."
Stephens took the glass and looked with a grim smile at his own hand which held it. The hand was shaking like an old man's. "I guess I've about wore myself plumb out," he said. "You'd best let me go off to my own place and rest. I'm not good company just now."
"No, no, you mustn't go," cried the Mexican; "you shall rest in my house. We have more rooms than one. And behold, here is the American doctor now. In a good hour you come, Señor el Doctor. Sit you down, my friends, and eat. Sister, you and Andrés will entertain them while the doctor and I take care of Don Estevan." And he took his unresisting guest apart into a quiet room where Doctor Benton might examine his wounded hand. Gently the rude bandages were undone, and Manuelita was summoned from her post beside Rocky, who was now sleeping peacefully, to wait on a new patient.
Bravely she looked on while the doctor cleansed the wound and produced his curved needles and silk and sewed up the gash.
"You'll do all right so, I guess," said he to the prospector when he had finished. "You've got to keep quiet, you know, and knock off whiskey." ("Never touch it," growled Stephens, in an undertone.) "Right you are, stick to that,"—the doctor had a flask of old Bourbon himself in his pocket at the moment,—"worst thing out for inflammation. Well, you look as if you were in good hands here," he smiled as he spoke. "I am going back to the Sandovals now. It's a very interesting case that I've got over there. We don't get arrow-wounds very often nowadays." He folded up his surgical case with its wicked-looking little shining blades. "The stage has gone on to Wingate," he continued, "and they'll have to get along without me at the Fort for a day or two longer. I'll be back again here in the evening and have another look at you and at our friend Rocky. You needn't fret about him; the knife only just touched the lung; he's going to get over it all right, though at the same time I think we'd best not disturb him now."
"But you must not go till you have dined," cried Don Nepomuceno hospitably. "Do me the honour to come into the other room and join our friends there"; and the doctor yielded to the request readily enough.
Don Nepomuceno lingered behind him for a moment.
"Now you must repose yourself, Don Estevan. Here you will be undisturbed. Manuelita is going to sit by the door and sing to our guests, and there is nothing more reposeful than singing. Take your guitar, my daughter, and sit here and we can enjoy it as we take our dinner." He passed through the door as Manuelita slid the ribbon of her guitar over her shoulder and struck a chord.
She sang—who knows how the song had reached her?—words that had travelled far, and were first written in another tongue by a poet of another race, but when she heard them they seemed to tell her a whole sad and beautiful history in the two short verses, and she found the plaintive tune of an old ballad that suited them, and sung them often to herself. Now, called upon unexpectedly to sing, the favourite words were on her lips almost before she knew what they were—
"Solitario se alza un pino,
Del Norte en árida cumbre;
Duerme, y con blanca cubierta
Hielos y nieves le cubren.
"Sueña con una palmera
Que en el Oriente, allá lejos,
Se entristece sola y muda
En el ardiente desierto."
The notes mingled in the tired American's dreamy thoughts, and through his unstrung mind coursed strange fanciful applications of the poet's words—
"A lone pine stands in the Northland
On a bald and barren height;
He sleeps, by the snows enfolded
In a mantle of wintry white."
"'A lone pine'—that's so, a lone pine like that one over the prospector's grave. I reckon if that lode there turns out all that Rocky said I'll have to call it Lone Pine. Suits me, too, the name does; I've always played a lone hand; ay, and I know what the barren mountain heights are, if any man ever did, and many's the time I've slept on them with the snow over me for a blanket—"
"He dreams of a lonely palm-tree
Afar in the morning land"—
"'He dreams of a palm-tree'—no, that's not me, after all. I haven't dreamt much. Yes, by thunder, I have though! I dreamt some up in the sierra. I dreamt a lot of queer things by that old cliff-dweller's fire I relit after I found the Lone Pine; I thought this whole New Mexican country here was asleep, and that maybe I was the man to wake her up. Ah, and I thought, too, that I must have been asleep myself to have played a lone hand so long when I needn't, when I might have had a woman's love, and got some joy and happiness into life instead of toughing it out in solitude. I believe I've been a blamed idiot."
He listened as in a trance to the throbbing, wailing strings, while the sweet voice of the girl sang the last verse a second time—
"He dreams of a lonely palm-tree,
Afar in the morning land,
Consumed with unspoken longing
In a waste of burning sand."
By Heaven! had she been alone too? He almost sprang up to call to her, but it seemed to him he could not move. He stood on a lonely height under the pine-tree; he looked down on the grave of the man who had died there alone, and far away in a vision he beheld San Remo and the Casa Sanchez; and he saw more—he saw Manuelita. He could not break the spell and stand beside her there. He had had his chance, and now it was too late. He had dreamt through the summer, and now the winter had come, and its icy fetters bound him fast. Immovable on his crag he could only dream—dream of the happiness that might have been his, and long for it with a passionate desire that seemed as if it could burst the very mountains to let him pass, and yet was powerless to bring him an inch nearer to the spot that he longed for. The numbness of despair came upon him, his bewildered thoughts sank deeper into dreamland, and the tired brain at last was steeped in all-restoring forgetfulness.
He awoke suddenly with a start, the room was empty; the subdued voices came to him through the open door, but the guests were gone. How long had he slept? For answer he saw the scarlet light of sunset glowing on the adobe wall across the patio.
He sprang up like a giant refreshed and looked around, while the memory of what had taken place began to come back to him. "I must have been here for hours and hours. Her singing was like a charm. But where has she gone to? I've got to find her again right away. Why on earth did I lie there like a log all this time? What have I been doing all day, anyhow?"
He looked at his bandaged left hand, and passed his right over his forehead, and as his brain cleared the whole of the morning's work came back to him like a flash.
"I had to kill them, but I hate to think of it now. It was a butcherly job. That's not the way I want to live. Yes, I hate it," he repeated, standing in the middle of the empty room. He felt an unreasoning repulsion when he thought of the light-minded crowd that had cheered him so wildly on his return from the slaughter, and had laughed and jested over it. "Killing men is a mighty serious matter, whatever they may think," he muttered gloomily, "but most of these folks don't see it in that light. She's different, though, and it's she that I want, and not her people. Now, how am I going to find her alone?"
As he stood there the faint whine of a dog caught his ear.
"Faro, old man! Think of my forgetting you and your wounds when there's no one to see after you but me! I must have been off my nut." He strode out through the door, and beheld in the adjoining room his dog snugly established on a pile of blankets with all the dignity of a spoilt invalid, and there, kneeling beside him, her glossy head bent over the bulldog's picturesquely ugly face, was Manuelita.
"I made the doctor of the soldiers look at him," she said, glancing up at the tall American with a shy laugh. "He was almost angry when I asked him, and said he was no doctor of dogs; but I made him do it;" and she gave another little laugh of triumph.
"I reckon you could make most people do what you say, señorita," he answered, but he did not echo her laugh. He stood there looking down at her, and as he looked a great peace seemed to descend upon him. The anger and the strain, the battle-fury and the revulsion that followed it, all seemed to pass away from his mind, and a reverent awe came over his soul as though he had entered into a sanctuary, a sanctuary where even his own honest love showed to him as earthly and selfish, whence every thought but one was banished, the thought of a woman inexpressibly gentle and good, with a tender heart for every living thing. With a sudden movement he caught her hand in his own, and hers so soft and innocent lay in his so lately red with enemies' blood.
He knelt on one knee, and bowed his head and lifted the captive hand to his lips.
"I am not fit to come near you," he said, "but unless I have you, I can never care for anything in the whole world again. I am an uncouth ruffian, I know; but if you will teach me, I will learn to be gentle in time. Will you try me?"
He turned his face to hers, her lips met his, and the compact was sealed.