THE STRANGER.
Father Seraphin and Don Pablo we left bearing the wounded man to the missionary's lodging. Although the house to which they were proceeding was but a short distance off, yet the two gentlemen, compelled to take every precaution, employed considerable time on the journey. Nearly every step they were compelled to halt, so as not to fatigue too greatly the wounded man, whose inert limbs swayed in every direction.
"The man is dead," Don Pablo remarked, during a halt they made on the Plaza de la Merced.
"I fear so," the missionary answered, sadly; "still, as we are not certain of it, our conscience bids us to bestow our care on him, until we acquire the painful conviction that it avails him nought."
"Father, the love of one's neighbour often carries you too far; better were it, perhaps, if this wretch did not come back to life."
"You are severe, my friend. This man is still young—almost a boy. Trained amid a family of bandits, never having aught but evil examples before him, he has hitherto only done evil, in a spirit of imitation. Who knows whether this fearful wound may not offer him the means to enter the society of honest people, which he has till now been ignorant of? I repeat to you, my friend, the ways of the Lord are inscrutable."
"I will do what you wish, father. You have entire power over me. Still, I fear that all our care will be thrown away."
"God, whose humble instruments we are, will prove you wrong, I hope. Come, a little courage, a few paces further, and we shall have arrived."
"Come on then," Don Pablo said with resignation.
Father Seraphin lodged at a house of modest appearance, built of adobes and reeds, in a small room he hired from a poor widow, for the small sum of nine reals a month. This room, very small, and which only received air from a window opening on an inner yard, was a perfect conventual cell, as far as furniture was concerned, for the latter consisted of a wooden frame, over which a bull hide was stretched, and served as the missionary's bed; a butaca and a prie-dieu, above which a copper crucifix was fastened to the whitewashed wall. But, like all cells, this room was marvellously clean. From a few nails hung the well-worn clothes of the poor priest, and a shelf supported vials and flasks which doubtless contained medicaments; for, like all the missionaries, Father Seraphin had a rudimentary knowledge of medicine, and took in charge both the souls and bodies of his neophytes.
The father lit a candle of yellow tallow standing in an iron candlestick, and, aided by Don Pablo, laid the wounded man on his own bed; after which the young man fell back into the butaca to regain his breath. Father Seraphin, on whom, spite of his fragile appearance, the fatigue had produced no apparent effect, then went downstairs to lock the street door, which he had left open. As he pushed it to, he felt an opposition outside, and a man soon entered the yard.
"Pardon, my reverend father," the stranger said; "but be kind enough not to leave me outside."
"Do you live in this house?"
"No," the stranger coolly replied, "I do not live in Santa Fe, where I am quite unknown."
"Do you ask hospitality of me, then?" Father Seraphin continued, much surprised at this answer.
"Not at all, reverend father."
"Then what do you want?" the missionary said, still more surprised.
"I wish to follow you to the room where you have laid the wounded man, to whose aid you came so generously a short time back."
"This request, sir—" the priest said, hesitating.
"Has nothing that need surprise you. I have the greatest interest in seeing with my own eyes in what state that man is, for certain reasons which in no way concern you."
"Do you know who he is?"
"I do."
"Are you a relation or friend of his?"'
"Neither one nor the other. Still, I repeat to you, very weighty reasons compel me to see him and speak with him, if that be possible."
Father Seraphin took a searching glance at the speaker.
He was a man of great height, apparently in the fullest vigour of life. His features, so far as it was possible to distinguish them by the pale and tremulous moonbeams, were handsome, though an expression of unbending will was the marked thing about them. He wore the dress of rich Mexican hacenderos, and had in his right hand a magnificently inlaid American rifle. Still the missionary hesitated.
"Well," the stranger continued, "have you made up your mind, father?"
"Sir," Father Seraphin answered with firmness, "do not take in ill part what I am going to say to you."
The stranger bowed.
"I do not know who you are; you present yourself to me in the depths of the night, under singular circumstances. You insist, with strange tenacity, on seeing the poor man whom Christian charity compelled me to pick up. Prudence demands that I should refuse to let you see him."
A certain annoyance was depicted on the stranger's features.
"You are right, father," he answered; "appearances are against me. Unfortunately, the explanation you demand from me justly would make us lose too much precious time, hence I cannot give them to you at this moment. All I can do is to swear, in the face of Heaven, on that crucifix you wear round your neck, and which is the symbol of our redemption, that I only wish well to the man you have housed, and that I am this moment seeking to punish a great criminal."
The stranger uttered these words with such frankness, and such an air of conviction, his face glistened with so much honesty, that the missionary felt convinced: he took up the crucifix and offered it to this extraordinary man.
"Swear," he said.
"I swear it," he replied in a firm voice.
"Good," the priest went on, "now you can enter, sir; you are one of ourselves; I will not even insult you by asking your name."
"My name would teach you nothing, father," the stranger said sadly.
"Follow me, sir."
The missionary locked the gate and led the stranger to his room, on entering which the newcomer took off his hat reverently, took up a post in a corner of the room, and did not stir.
"Do not trouble yourself about me, father," he said in a whisper, "and put implicit faith in the oath I took."
The missionary only replied by a nod, and as the wounded man gave no sign of life, but still lay much in the position he was first placed in, Father Seraphin walked up to him. For a long time, however, the attention he lavished on him proved sterile, and seemed to produce no effect on the squatter's son. Still, the father did not despair, although Don Pablo shook his head. An hour thus passed, and no ostensible change had taken place in the young man's condition; the missionary had exhausted all his stock of knowledge, and began to fear the worst. At this moment the stranger walked up to him.
"My father," he said, touching him gently on the arm, "you have done all that was humanly possible, but have not succeeded."
"Alas! No!" the missionary said sadly.
"Will you permit me to try in my turn?"
"Do you fancy you will prove, more successful than I?" the priest asked in surprise.
"I hope so," the stranger said softly.
"Still, you see I have tried everything that the medical art prescribes in such a case."
"That is true, father; but the Indians possess certain secrets known only to themselves, and which are of great efficacy."
"I have heard so. But do you know those secrets?"
"Some of them have been revealed to me; if you will permit me, I will try their effects on this young man, who, as far as I can judge, is in a desperate condition."
"I fear he is, poor fellow."
"We shall, therefore, run no risk in trying the efficacy of my superior remedy upon him."
"Certainly not."
The stranger bent over the young man, and regarded him for a moment with fixed attention; then he drew from his pocket a flask of carved crystal, filled with a fluid as green as emerald. With the point of his dagger he slightly opened the wounded man's closed teeth, and poured into his mouth four or five drops of the fluid contained in the flask. A strange thing then occurred; the young man gave vent to a deep sigh, opened his eyes several times, and suddenly, as if moved by supernatural force, he sat up and looked around him with amazement. Don Pablo and the missionary were almost inclined to believe in a miracle so extraordinary did the fact appear to them. The stranger returned to his dark corner. Suddenly the young man passed his hand over his dank forehead, and muttered in a hollow voice:—
"Ellen, my sister, it is too late. I cannot save her. See, see, they are carrying her off; she is lost!"
And he fell back on the bed, as the three men rushed towards him.
"He sleeps!" the missionary said in amazement.
"He is saved?" the stranger answered.
"What did he want to say, though?" Don Pablo inquired anxiously.
"Did you not understand it?" the stranger asked of him.
"No."
"Well, then, I will tell you."
"You!"
"Yes, I; listen! That lad wished to deliver your sister!"
"How do you know?"
"Is it true?"
"It is; go on."
"He was stabbed at the door of the house when she sought shelter."
"What next?"
"Those who stabbed him wished to get him out of the way, in order to carry her off a second time."
"Oh, that is impossible!"
"It is the fact."
"How do you know it?"
"I do not know it, but I can read it plainly."
"Ah!" Don Pablo exclaimed in despair, "my father—let us fly to my sister's aid!"
The two gentlemen rushed from the house with a presentiment of misfortune. When the stranger found himself alone with the wounded man, he walked up to him, wrapped him in his cloak, threw him over his shoulders as easy as if he were only a child, and went out in his turn. On reaching the street, he carefully closed the door, and went off at a great rate, soon disappearing in the darkness. At the same instant the melancholy voice of the sereno could be heard chanting—
"Ave Maria purísima! Los cuatro han dado! Viva Méjico! Todo es quieto!"[1]
What irony on the part of accident was this cry after the terrible events of the night!
[1] Hail, most pure Mary! It has struck four. Long live Mexico! All is quiet.