IV
THERE seemed no failing of the endurance of this primitive giant, but his great frame had wasted away until it was a mere hulk. Owing to his value now to the hacienda, Yaqui was given rations in lieu of the ball of soggy bread; they were not, however, what the Indian needed. Montes at last won Yaqui’s gratitude.
“Señor, if Yaqui wanted to eat it would be meat he needed,” said the chief. Then Montes added meat to the wine, bread, and fruit he secretly brought to the Indian.
When Montes began covert kindnesses to the poor Yaqui slaves the chief showed gratitude and pathos: “Señor Montes is good—but the sun of the Yaquis is setting.”
Perez in his triumphant arrogance evidently derived pleasure from being magnanimous to the man he instinctively knew was his rival.
One day at the hacienda when Montes rode up to meet Donna Isabel and Dolores he found them accompanied by Perez and his parents. Almost immediately the young officer suggested gayly:
“Señor, pray carry Dolores off somewhere. My father has something to plan with Donna Isabel. It must be a secret from Dolores. Take her a walk—talk to her, señor—keep her excited—make love to her!”
“I shall be happy to obey. Will you come, señorita?” said Montes.
If they expected Dolores to pout, they were mistaken. Her slow, sleepy glance left the face of her future husband as she turned away silently to accompany Montes. They walked along the palm-shaded road, out toward the huge, open, sunny space that was the henequen domain.
“I hate Perez,” she burst out suddenly. “He meant to taunt you. He thinks I am his slave—a creature without mind or heart. Señor, make love to me!”
“You will be his slave—soon,” whispered Montes bitterly.
“Never!” she exclaimed passionately.
They reached the end of the shady road. The mill was silent. Montes saw the Indian standing motionless close at hand, in the shade of the henequen racks.
“Dolores, did you mean what you just said?” asked Montes eagerly.
“That I will never be Perez’s slave?”
“No; the other thing you said.”
“Yes, I did,” she replied. “Make love to me, señor. It was his wish. I must learn to obey.”
With sullen scorn she spoke, not looking at Montes, scarcely realizing the actual purport of her speech. But when Montes took her in his arms she started back with a cry. He held her. And suddenly clasping her tightly he bent his head to kiss the red lips she opened to protest.
“Let me go!” she begged wildly. “Oh—I did not—mean—Montes, not so! Do not make me—”
“Kiss me!” whispered Montes hoarsely, “or I’ll never let you go. It was his wish. Come, I dare you—I beg you!”
One wild moment she responded to his kiss, and then she thrust him away.
“Ah, by the saints!” she murmured with hands over her face. “Now I will love you more—my heart will break.”
“Dolores, I can’t let Perez have you,” declared Montes miserably.
“Too late, my dear. I am to be his wife.”
“But you love me, Dolores?”
“Alas! too true. I do. Oh, I never knew how well!” she cried.
“Let us run away,” he implored eagerly.
Mournfully she shook her head, and looking up suddenly she espied the Yaqui. His great burning cavernous eyes, like black fire, were fixed upon her.
“Oh, that terrible Yaqui,” she whispered. “It is he who watches us at the bull fights—Let us go, Montes—Oh, he saw us—he saw me—Come!”
Upon their return to the house the old Don greeted them effusively. He seemed radiant with happiness. He had united two of the first families of Yucatan, which unison would make the greatest henequen plantation. The beautiful señorita had other admirers. But this marriage had unusual advantages. The peculiar location and productiveness of the plantations and the obstacles to greater and quicker output that would be done away with, and the fact that Lieutenant Perez through his military influence could work the fields with peon labor—these facts had carried the balance in favor of the marriage. The old Don manifestly regarded the arrangement as a victory for him which he owed to the henequen, and he had decided to make the wedding day one on which the rich product of the plantation should play a most important part.
“But how to bring in the henequen!” he concluded in perplexity. “I’ve racked my brain. Son, I leave it to you.”
Young Perez magnificently waved the question aside. Possessing himself of his fiancée’s reluctant hand, he spoke in a whisper audible to Montes. “We planned the wedding presents. That was the secret. But you shall not see—not know—until we are married!”
Montes dropped his eyes and his brow knit thoughtfully. Later, as a peon brought his horse, he called Perez aside.
“I’ve an idea,” he said confidentially. “Have Yaqui select the most perfect henequen fiber to make the most beautiful and perfect bale of henequen ever pressed. Have Yaqui place the wedding presents inside the bale before the final pressing. Then send it to Donna Isabel’s house after the wedding and open it there.”
Young Perez clapped his hands in delight. What a capital plan! He complimented Montes and thanked him and asked him to keep secret the idea. Indeed, the young lieutenant waxed enthusiastic over the plan. It would be unique; it would be fitting to the occasion. Perez would have Yaqui pick over and select from the racks the most perfect fibers, to be laid aside. Perez would go himself to watch Yaqui at his work. He would have Yaqui practice the operation of pressing, so at the momentous hour there could be no hitch. And on the wedding day Perez would carry the presents himself. No hands but his own would be trusted with those jewels, especially the exquisite pearls that were his own particular gift.
At last the day arrived for the wedding. It was to be a holiday. Yaqui alone was not to lie idle. It was to fall to him to press that bale of henequen and to haul it to the bride’s home.
But Perez did not receive all his gifts when he wanted them. Messengers arrived late and some were yet to come. He went to the mill, however, and put Yaqui to work at packing the henequen in the press and building it up. The Indian was bidden to go so far with the bale, leaving a great hole in the middle for the gifts and to have the rest of the fiber all ready to pack and press. Perez would not trust anyone else with his precious secret; he himself would hurry down with the gifts, and secretly, for the manner of presentation was to be a great surprise.
Blue was the sky, white gold the sun, and the breeze waved the palms. But for Montes an invisible shadow hovered over the stately Mendoza mansion where Dolores was to be made a bride. The shadow existed in his mind and took mystic shape—now a vast, copper-hazed, green-spiked plain of henequen, and then the spectral gigantic shape of a toiling man, gaunt, grim, and fire-eyed.
Montes hid his heavy heart behind smiling lips and the speech of a courtier. He steeled himself against a nameless and portending shock, waiting for it even when his mind scorned the delusion. But the shock did not come at sight of Señorita Dolores, magnificently gowned in white, beautiful, serene, imperious, with her proud, tawny eyes and proud, red lips. Nor when those sleepy strange eyes met his. Nor when the priest ended the ceremony that made her a wife.
He noted when Lieutenant Perez laughingly fought his way out of the crowd and disappeared. Then the unrest of Montes became a haunting suspense.
By and by the guests were directed out to the shaded west terrace, where in the center of the wide stoned space lay a huge white glistening bale of henequen. Beside it stood the giant Yaqui, dark, motionless, aloof. The guests clustered round.
When Montes saw the Yaqui like a statue beside the bale of henequen, he sustained the shock for which he had been waiting. He slipped to the front of the circle of guests.
“Ah!” exclaimed the old Don, eyeing the bale of henequen with great satisfaction. “This is the surprise our son had in store for us. Here is the jewel case—here are the wedding presents!”
The guests laughed and murmured their compliments.
“Where is Señor Perez?” demanded the Don as he looked round.
“The boy is hiding,” replied Donna Isabel. “He wants to watch his bride when she sees the gifts.”
“No—he would not be there,” declared the old Don in perplexity. Something strange edged into his gladness of the moment. Suddenly he wheeled to the Yaqui. But he never spoke the question on his lips. Slowly he seemed to be blasted by those great black-fired orbs, as piercing as if they had been lightnings from hell.
“Hurry, open the bale,” cried the bride, her sweet voice trilling above the gay talk.
Yaqui appeared not to hear. Was he looking into the soul of the father of Lieutenant Perez? All about him betrayed almost a superhuman intensity.
“Open the bale,” ordered the bride.
Yaqui cut the wire. He did not look at her. The perfectly folded and pressed strands of fiber shook and swelled and moved apart as if in relief. And like a great white jewel case of glistening silken threads the bale of henequen opened.
It commanded a stilling of the gay murmur—a sudden silence that had a subtle effect upon all. The beautiful bride, leaning closer to look, seemed to lose the light of the tawny proud eyes. Her mother froze into a creature of stone. The old Don, in slow strange action, as if his mind had feeble sway over body, bent his gray head away from the gaunt and terrible Yaqui. Something showed blue down under the center strands of the glistening fiber. With a swift flash of his huge black hand, with exceeding violence, Yaqui swept the strands aside. Then from his lips pealed an awful cry. Instead of the jewels, there, crushed and ghastly, lay the bridegroom Perez.
TIGRE