They travelled through dense forests of redwoods and pine, only the soft footfalls of the unshod mustang or the sudden cry of the wild-cat breaking the primeval silence. It was night when Doña Brígida abruptly dismounted, dragging Pilar with her. They were halfway up a rocky height, surrounded by towering peaks black with rigid trees. Just in front of them was an opening in the ascending wall. Beside it, with his hand on a huge stone, stood the vaquero. Pilar knew that she had nothing to hope from him: her mother had beaten him into submission long since. Doña Brígida, without a word, drove Pilar into the cave, and she and the vaquero, exerting their great strength to the full, pushed the stone into the entrance. There was a narrow rift at the top. The cave was as black as a starless midnight.
Then Doña Brígida spoke for the first time:—
"Once a week I shall come with food and drink. There thou wilt stay until thy teeth fall, the skin bags from thy bones, and thou art so hideous that all men will run from thee. Then thou canst come forth and go and live on the charity of the father to whom thou wouldst have taken a polluted priest."
Pilar heard the retreating footfalls of the mustangs. She was too stunned to think, to realize the horrible fate that had befallen her. She crouched down against the wall of the cave nearest the light, her ear alert for the growl of a panther or the whir of a rattler's tail.
II
The night after the close of school the Governor gave a grand ball, which was attended by the older of the convent girls who lived in Monterey or were guests in the capital. The dowagers sat against the wall, a coffee-coloured dado; the girls in white, the caballeros in black silk small-clothes, the officers in their uniforms, danced to the music of the flute and the guitar. When Elena Estudillo was alone in the middle of the room dancing El Son and the young men were clapping and shouting and flinging gold and silver at her feet, Sturges and Eustaquia slipped out into the corridor. It was a dark night, the dueñas were thinking of naught but the dance and the days of their youth, and the violators of a stringent social law were safe for the moment. A chance word, dropped by Sturges in the dance, and Eustaquia's eager interrogations, had revealed the American's indignation at the barbarous treatment of Pilar, and his deep interest in the beautiful victim.
"Señor," whispered Eustaquia, excitedly, as soon as they reached the end of the corridor, "if you feel pity and perhaps love for my unhappy friend, go to her rescue for the love of Mary. I have heard to-day that her punishment is far worse than what you saw. It is so terrible that I hardly have dared—"
"Surely, that old fiend could think of nothing else," said Sturges.
"What is she made of, anyhow?"
"Ay, yi! Her heart is black like the redwood tree that has been burnt out by fire. Before Don Enrique ran away, she beat him many times; but, after, she was a thousand times worse, for it is said that she loved him in her terrible way, and that her heart burnt up when she was left alone—"
"But Doña Pilar, señorita?"