DON MELCHIOR DÍAZ.
Don Melchior Díaz's name has several times already slipped from our pen; the reader has been introduced to him, but up to the present we have not yet positively explained who he is or in what way he succeeded in gaining the position he occupies in the Saldibar family. The moment has arrived to make this known, and acquaint the reader with certain events most important for a proper understanding of coming facts.
When Sotavento handed over to Don Aníbal de Saldibar the child saved from the general massacre of the Indian tribe, there was a fact which the majordomo passed over in silence. It was, that the lad whom he declared to have recovered from the Indians, had been simply confided to him by a white hunter, to whom he had scarce spoken, and who said to him at the same time as he handed him a bag of gold dust, which the majordomo did not think it necessary to mention either, as he doubtless preferred to appear thoroughly disinterested in his master's eyes—
"This child is born of white parents; one day he will be reclaimed; tell Don Aníbal to take the greatest care of him."
Sotavento scented a mystery under these hints, and in the prospect of some profit to be made at a later date, kept to himself the hunter's remarks, and told his master some sort of story, which the latter believed, through the slight importance he attached to it. The lad had, therefore, been unhesitatingly accepted by Don Aníbal, and brought up in the family for the first five years. The hacendero paid but little attention to him, amusing himself at times with his sallies, but taking very slight interest in him, and regarding him rather as a servant than as a member of the family destined to acquire considerable importance.
Don Aurelio, when he narrated to his companions the facts which caused Doña Emilia's insanity and the events that followed, had been unable to tell more than everybody knew, and comment on these events from his own point of sight. But a secret was kept in the inner circle of the family which Don Aníbal was more careful not to permit to transpire, and which, consequently, Don Aurelio was ignorant of. The secret was this: Doña Emilia was not cured; her madness still endured; still this madness had become, so to speak, intermittent, and only made its appearance at settled intervals; but then her attacks acquired such strength that they became irresistible, and any constraint placed at such a moment on the patient's volition would infallibly have caused her death.
Don Aníbal, as we have said, adored his wife. Several times he tried to calm her; he even went so far as to try and prevent her leaving the hacienda. But then such frightful scenes occurred; Doña Emilia fell into such horrible convulsions at the mere thought of not acting as she liked, that Don Aníbal was obliged to restore her liberty. Doña Emilia when these attacks came upon her became a lioness; she had but one thought, one purpose, to rush in pursuit of the Indians, and pitilessly massacre them. Singular anomaly of the human heart, especially in a mild, kind, timid woman, whom the slightest pain caused to faint, and who, in ordinary times, could not endure the sight of blood. Doña Emilia, whom, by the physician's express orders, Don Aníbal had not dared deprive of her daughter, had brought up her child in a hatred of the redskins, and seizing on her young imagination with that ascendency which mothers possess, had succeeded, if not in completely making her share her ideas, at least in obtaining from her a passive and absolute obedience.
Melchior, brought up, so to speak, haphazard at the hacienda, had, through the instinct of protecting innate in man, attached himself to Doña Diana, whom he saw sad, sickly, and suffering. Doña Diana, for her part, felt pity for the poor orphan, and from this mutual sympathy sprang a friendship which years had only consolidated by rendering it warmer. Don Aníbal and Doña Emilia both saw with pleasure this affection spring up between the children, though from different motives. Don Aníbal, who would not for anything in the world have thwarted his wife's ideas, saw with delight this boy grow up who, at a given moment, might become her defender and safeguard in her mad expeditions against the Indians; while Doña Emilia, reasoning from an entirely different point of view, though she attained the same result, saw in him a devoted and most useful ally in these same expeditions.
The result of this tacit understanding between husband and wife was that the boy, at first abandoned to his instincts, was watched with greater care, brought up as he deserved to be, and at last gradually regarded as a member of the family. Let us hasten to add that Don Melchior was in every respect deserving of the kindness shown him. He was a thoughtful, earnest lad, with an honest heart and firm will, who could thoroughly appreciate all that was done for his future well-being.
When the boy became a man, he was taken naturally into Doña Emilia's intimacy, and associated in all her plans. Don Aníbal, delighted at this result, and trusting in the young man, whose good sentiments he had reason for believing he knew, felt relieved from a heavy burden; and when his wife, attacked by one of her fits, attempted one of her hazardous excursions, he saw her start with less terror, as he felt convinced that she had a devoted defender by her side. But a thing happened which neither husband nor wife had foreseen. The two young people, brought up side by side, living constantly together, accustomed to interchange their most secret thoughts and ideas, passed by an imperceptible incline, without either perceiving or suspecting it, from friendship to love. Love in these two young, ignorant hearts, which were pure from any wrong sentiment, must necessarily be deep, irresistible, and produce the effect of a thunderbolt.