The crowd meantime pressed so close that the man suffered for want of air, and begged to be removed. Several persons seized hold of him, and, lifting him from the floor, carried him out. The dark señorita followed close up, still pressing the fragments of her bloodstained dress to his wound.
Order was restored, and the music and dancing went on as if nothing had happened.
I had no desire to see any more of the evening amusements.
Next day I learned that the unfortunate man was dead. He was a stranger at San Luis, and refused to reveal his name, or make any disclosures concerning the affray. His last words were addressed to the woman, who clung to him with a devotion bordering on insanity. When she saw that he was doomed to die, the tears ceased to flow from her eyes, and she sat by his bedside with a wild, affrighted look, clutching his hands in hers, and ever and anon bathing her lips in the life-blood that oozed from his mouth.
"I loved you—still love you better than my life!"
These were his last words. A gurgle, a quivering motion of the stalwart frame, and he was dead!
At an examination before the alcalde, it was proved that the stabbing must have occurred before the affray became general. It was also shown that the young Mexican was unarmed, and had no acquaintance with the murdered man.
Who could have done it?
Was it the devil-woman? Was this a case of jealousy, and was the tall Texan the father of the murdered child?
Upon these points I could get no information. The whole affair, with all its antecedent circumstances, was wrapped in an impenetrable mystery. When the body was carried to the grave by a few strangers, including myself, the chief mourner was the half-breed woman—now a ghastly wreck. The last I saw of her, as we turned sadly away, she was sitting upon the sod at the head of the grave, motionless as a statue.