“Well, well, I never had no wife, but if I’d had I wouldn’t cared to have her choke me to death a-loving me, nor split my ears a-telling me of it,” commented “Forty-niner,” dryly.
At which Elsa’s screams instantly ceased, and she turned her attention upon him.
“Where is it, thief? Give it up, this minute! How could you rob me of my hard-earned money? That was to buy the mine–and the vein runs deep–for my little boy, my child! ’Twas Antonio Bernal, the great man, told us already of the deed you stole! But I believed him not–I. Now, give me my money, my money–money!”
Overcome by her own violent emotion, rather than by any opposition of poor Ephraim’s, her hands slid from his shoulders, which she had been shaking as if she would jingle the cash from his pockets, and her plump person settled limply against him for support.
“Hello, here, woman! This is a drop too much! Take the creature, Winkler, and find out if you can what in misery ails her. She’s clean out of her wits.”
Instinctively, Jessica had placed herself at the old sharpshooter’s side. He should feel that she did not believe this terrible accusation, which recalled to her, with painful significance, the parting words of Antonio Bernal as he had ridden away from her window that morning. These had practically accused him of stealing the missing deed, and now came Elsa with this talk of “money, money.” She brushed her hand across her eyes as if to waken herself from some frightful dream and then smiled up into Ephraim’s eyes, now bent inquiringly upon her. Dim as the light was, there was yet sufficient descending through the shallow shaft to reveal each troubled face to the other, and the old man’s own frightened at the confiding trust of his beloved pupil’s.
“Never mind her. Let her scream and loll around, if she wants to. What matters it? Little lady, am I or am I not a–a–that pizen thing she called me?”
“Never!”
“Then come on. Let’s get out of this.”
But he was not to be permitted to escape so easily. Elsa had now recovered her full strength and, oddly enough, her composure. She waved her husband toward the waiting car and he obeyed her gesture without protest, gently lifting Jessica into it, for she would not otherwise have been removed from Ephraim’s side.