The Mystery of The Barranca
CHAPTER XIV
For two weeks thereafter Seyd held fast to his work, suppressing withiron firmness successive vagrant impulses which urged a second visit toSan Nicolas. Then having proved to himself his perfect indifferencetoward Francesca, he rode down one day--strictly on business--to ask DonLuis's assistance in obtaining more men and mules.
"I shall return this evening," he arranged with Conscience, startingout.
He had forgotten, however, to make allowance for the probable action of,in legal verbiage, the party of the second part, for upon his arrival hereceived from Francesca as stiff a lecture on his folly in leaving theother day in half-dried clothes as ever fell from the lips of an anxiousmother. Upon it, too, Don Luis set the stamp of his heavy approval.
"One may do it in the high altitudes, senor, but here in the tropicssuch carelessness leads to the fever. This time we shall not let youforth till properly fed and dried."
Now while a girl's acceptance of flowers, candy, and other favors maymean anything or nothing, no sooner does she begin to concern herselfwith a man's health and clothes than the affair becomes serious, for itclearly proves that she has been touched in the mother instinct, whichforms the basis of woman's love. In his masculine ignorance of thisfundamental truth, however, Seyd gave her solicitude a sisterlyinterpretation, and congratulated himself upon the fact that theiracquaintance was established at last on such solid ground. Agreeing withhimself that it would be the worst of taste for him to disturb a purelyfriendly relation with any reference to the squalid tragedy of hismarriage, he continued silent.
It is to be feared, also, that several subsequent visits were based uponrather frivolous excuses. In the next month he carried down to SanNicolas the news of at least a dozen cases of destitution through thefloods, and when, for some inexplicable cause, deliveries of hismaterial at the railroad suddenly ceased he plunged head over heels intothe relief work which had been instituted under Don Luis's direction.Sometimes alone, more often with Francesca and Tomas, he rode up anddown the valley hunting out the sufferers. And it was on one of thesejourneys that the fates which dog insincerity laid bare his pretense.
It came--his awakening--a week or so after a sudden fall of the floodsforetold the end of the rains. Though the river still ran wide of itsbanks, most of the ranches with intervening patches of jungle had comeagain to the surface; and, riding through one of the latter on his wayto San Nicolas, Seyd overtook Francesca and Tomas.
"Is it not good to see the fields again?" she greeted him. "The cropswill be late this year, but Don Luis says that the yield will be all thericher because of the flood. But the jungle! The poor jungle! It hasbeen swept clean of shrubs and flowers."
It did look most forlorn. Shorn of its luxuriance, the orchids and wildflowers, and all the tide of vegetation which usually flowed everywherein waves that rose and tossed a froth of green creepers into the tops ofthe tallest trees, the jungle was now a fat black marsh littered withbejucos which lay in twisted masses like drowned snakes. Edged withdraggled grass, still others hung down from the trees, writhing darklyin the wind that had sprung up in the last hour. Taken in all, it wasweird, gruesome, a fit setting for the tragedy that lay waiting for themamid the roots of a dead ceiba just ahead. Twisted back and forth by thestorms of the last month, the tree now stood in a hole of mud, ripe andready for the gust that snapped the rotten tap root just as Francescawas riding by.
Without noise the tree inclined, reaching out huge arms above her head.So silently it fell that Francesca never saw it at all, and Seyd, whowas riding just behind her, received first warning from the sudden swingof a bejuco across his eyes. Leaning over his horse's neck, he lashedher beast across the quarters. Almost unseated by the wild forwardplunge of her beast, the girl recovered her seat and looked back just intime to see him knocked out of the saddle. Had he been struck by one ofthe main branches, thick as a barrel, both he and his horse had surelybeen crushed down into the mud beyond need of other burial. But thoughhe had gained almost from under, even a twig strikes a shrewd blow afterdescribing a three-hundred-foot arc, and he lay in the mud under hereyes, white and still, with an ugly bruise showing across his brow.
"Tomas! Tomas! Ride thou for help!"
Crying it, she leaped from her horse, sank beside Seyd in the mud, andlifted his head into her lap. With water from a pool which was soakingher skirt she laved the bruise with one hand, intently studying hisface; and when, some minutes later, he gave no sign of life, her darkanxious eyes blazed with a sudden passion of fear. Gathering his head inagainst her bosom, she rocked back and forth with passionate murmurs:"Oh, he is dead! He is killed--for me!" But though, if told of it, hewould have sworn that such treatment would really have brought him backfrom the dead, he neither felt, saw, nor heard the soft cradling arms,burning black eyes, the broken murmurs in English and Spanish.
He did feel her lips when, stooping suddenly, she kissed the bruise,because it happened just as her lowered face hid the first quiver of hiseyelids. Also he felt the unconscious embrace and saw the deep blushwhich told that she knew he had felt her kiss. But she did not try toavoid his gaze. From the midst of her blushes she answered it with thebravery of love, discovered and unafraid.
"_Querido_, I had thought thee dead."
In the wonder of it, the foolish, tender wonder, Seyd, on his part,forgot all else. Perhaps the delicate brain plexuses which govern memorywere still stunned, leaving his mind clean as a new slate till somestimulus should presently rewrite upon it the pretty, common face of hiswife. Conscious only of this new bursting love, he reached up at hermurmur and pulled her face down to his. Then it came, the stimulus. Withthe powerful association of some other kiss, the moist clinging of herlips started the wheels of memory, but, remembering, he did not desist.For simultaneously there had burst upon him a vision of love, roundedand complete, with the perfect fullness which satisfies every instinctand need. Already he had felt that at every point her personality metand complemented his, and in the fullness of the realization his wholebeing rose in rebellion against that other tie. He was kissing her withfurious abandon when she suddenly broke away.
"Oh, I wonder if he saw us?"
Looking quickly up, he saw Tomas returning through the trees. "I don'tknow," he reassured her, "but I'll find out. If he did--just leave himto me."
After Tomas, but at a safe distance, came three peons whom he had calledfrom the nearest rancho, also a _mozo_ who had been sent out from the_meson_ to overtake and deliver a letter to Seyd.
"If you'll permit me?" he asked. But his head still swam; and when hetried to read it the angular chirography danced under his eyes,describing such curious antics that he was driven at last to ask heraid.
It was from Peters, the station agent, and announced the arrival of aconsignment of American provisions; and, as Billy had been condemned tostraight Mexican diet for the last two weeks, the news called for Seyd'sinstant return. While the soft voice was reciting its content heoscillated between mixed feelings of chagrin and relief, for after itslong sleep outraged Conscience was now working overtime. He felt like ahypocrite when she spoke.
"You are still weak. You must not go."
"I'm afraid that I shall have to."
"But suppose that you are taken ill on the way?"
"The _mozo_ will be with me--anyway, I'm all right."
Though she looked disappointed, she gave way when he explained Billy'sneed; the more readily, perhaps, because she felt within her thestirrings of the feminine instinct to hide and brood over her newhappiness all alone. The feeling even formed her speech. "The poor senorThornton! He must be very lonely over there all by himself, and he mustbe fed. I shall not mind--for a few days. You have given me--so much tothink about. But then--you will come?"
He groaned inwardly at the thought of that which their next meetingentailed, and had it been possible he would have preferred to make openconfession there and then. As it was not, he let her ride away with herown clear happiness undimmed, unconscious of
the stab inflicted by herlast tender whisper.
"Surely I shall come," he had answered; and, after mounting his horse,he sat and watched her ride away among the trees. When, with a partingwave, she disappeared, his sun went out, yet through his bitter feelinghe remembered his promise.
"Tomas!" He called the _mozo_ back. Ignorant of just how much the fellowhad seen, he tried him out with the Spanish proverb, "'The saints aregood to the blind.'"
At the sight of the five-peso note in Seyd's hand the _mozo's_ whiteteeth flashed in a knowing grin. "_Si_, senor," he answered in kind,"neither do flies enter a closed mouth." And, pocketing the note, hegalloped after his mistress, leaving Seyd to go his own way.
It was not pleasant, either, the path that Seyd pursued the next fewdays. Going back to the inn, following the mules out to and back fromthe railroad, crossing and recrossing the river with Billy's supplies,fits of rebellion alternated with moods of black self reproach.
"If you had declared yourself in the beginning she would never havegiven you a second thought."
Up to the moment when he turned his horse's head once more toward SanNicolas, a few days later, this formed the text of his musings; and ifhe winced when the gold of the hacienda walls broke along the greenfoothills it was not in pity for himself. If it would have freed herfrom pain he would have hugged his own with the savage exultance of aflagellant. But too well he knew that in these things there is novicarious atonement, and the face that he carried into the San Nicolaspatio was so grim and sad that it provoked Don Luis's comment.
"Senor, you are sick? Before she left Francesca told us of the accident.'Tis plain that you are not yet recovered."
"Before she--left?"
Out of feeling in which surprise and relief struggled with bitterdisappointment Seyd's question issued. At Don Luis's answer despairrolled over all.
"_Si_, senor. She is gone to Europe--for a year."
Through his amazement and despair Seyd felt the justice of the stroke.As yet, however, the smart was too keen for submission. In open mutinyonce more against the scheme of things, he repeated the phrase, "Gone?To Europe?"
"_Si_," Don Luis nodded. "Our kinswoman, the senora Rocha, mother ofSebastien, has been ailing for a great while, and now goes to Europe forspecial doctoring. As she speaks only our own tongue, she could notjourney alone, and, like the good girl that she is, Francesca consentedto accompany her."