TIGRE
“YES, I’ve a power over animals. Look at Tigre there! But the old women in Micas say I’ve found one wild thing I’ll never tame.”
“And that, señor?” asked Muella.
“My young and pretty wife.”
She tossed her small head, so that her black curls rippled in the sunlight, and the silver rings danced in her ears.
“Bernardo, I’m not a parrot to have my tongue slit, or a monkey to be taught tricks, or a jungle cat to be trained. I’m a woman, and—”
“Yes—and I am old,” he interrupted bitterly. “Look, Muella—there on the Micas trail!”
“It’s only Augustine, your vaquero.”
“Watch him!” replied Bernardo.
Muella watched the lithe figure of a man striding swiftly along the trail. He was not going to drive cattle up to the corrals, for in that case he would have been riding a horse. He was not going toward the huts of the other herders. He faced the jungle into which ran the Micas trail.
Surely he could not be on his way to Micas! The afternoon was far advanced and the village many miles away. No vaquero ever trusted himself to the dangers of the jungle at night. Even Augustine, the boldest and strongest of Bernardo’s many herders, would scarcely venture so much. Yet Augustine kept on down the trail, passed the thatched bamboo fence, went through the grove of palms, and disappeared in the green wall of jungle.
“He’s gone!” cried Bernardo. “Muella, I sent Augustine away.”
She saw a dull red in her husband’s cheeks, a dark and sinister gleam in his eyes; and her surprise yielded to misgiving.
“Why?” she asked.
“He loved you.”
“No! No! Bernardo, if that’s why you sent him away, you’ve wronged him. Of all your vaqueros, Augustine alone never smiled at me—he cared nothing for me.”
“I say he loved you,” returned Bernardo hoarsely.
“Bernardo, you are unjust!”
“Would you lie to me? I know he loves you. Girl, confess that you love him. Tell it! I won’t bear this doubt another day!”
Muella stood rigid in his grasp, her eyes blazing the truth that her lips scorned to speak.
“I’ll make you tell!” he shouted, and ran to a cage of twisted vines and bamboo poles.
As he fumbled with the fastening of a door, his brown hands shook. A loud purr, almost a cough, came from the cage; then an enormous jaguar stepped out into the sunlight.
“Now, girl, look at Tigre!”
Tigre was of huge build, graceful in every powerful line of his yellow, black-spotted body, and beautiful. Still, he was terrible of aspect. His massive head swung lazily; his broad face had one set expression of brute ferocity.
The eyes of any jaguar are large, yellow, cold, pale, cruel, but Tigre’s were frightful. Every instant they vibrated, coalesced, focused, yet seemed always to hold a luminous, far-seeing stare. It was as if Tigre was gazing beyond the jungle horizon to palm-leaf lairs which he had never seen, but which he knew by instinct. And then it was as if a film descended to hide their tawny depths. Tigre’s eyes changed—they were always changing, only there was not in them the life of vision; for the jaguar was blind.
Bernardo burst into rapid speech.
“The taunting old crones of Micas were right when they said I could not tame the woman; but I’ve tamed every wild creature of the Taumaulipas jungle. Look at Tigre! Who beside Bernardo ever tamed a jaguar? Look! Tigre is my dog. He loves me. He follows me, he guards me, he sleeps under my hammock. Tigre is blind, and he is deaf, yet never have I trained any beast so well. Whatever I put Tigre to trail, he finds. He never loses. He trails slowly, for he is blind and deaf, but he never stops, never sleeps, till he kills!”
Bernardo clutched the fur of the great jaguar and leaned panting against the thatch wall of the cage.
“I’ll soon know if you love Augustine!” he went on passionately. “Look here at the path—the path that leads out to the Micas trail. See! Augustine’s sandal-prints in the dust! Now, girl, watch!”
He led Tigre to the path and forced the nose of the beast down upon Augustine’s footmarks. Suddenly the jaguar lost all his lax grace. His long tail lashed from side to side. Then, with head low, he paced down the path. He crossed the grassy plot, went through the fence, along the trail into the jungle.
“He’s trailing Augustine!” cried Muella.
She felt Bernardo’s gaze burning into her face.
“Tigre will trail him—catch him—kill him!” her husband said.
Muella screamed.
“He’s innocent! I swear Augustine does not love me! I swear I don’t love him! It’s a horrible mistake. He’ll be trailed—ah, he’ll be torn by that blind brute!” Muella leaped back from her husband. “Never! You jealous monster! For I’ll run after Augustine—I’ll tell him—I’ll save him!”
She eluded Bernardo’s fierce onslaught, and, fleet as a frightened deer, she sped down the path. She did not heed his hoarse cries, nor his heavy footsteps.
Bernardo was lame. Muella had so little fear of his catching her that she did not look back. She passed the fence, sped through the grove, and entered the jungle.