A few days later the troops had left Tres Hermanos, and Ashley Ward stood in the silent graveyard on the mountain side, pushing back with his foot the loose sand his tread had disturbed, as it threatened again and again to cover the rude wooden cross upon which his eyes were fixed. It bore the name of his murdered cousin, faint yet distinct, preserved by the sand, for the wind had soon prostrated it after Chinita’s shallow replanting. The words seemed to Ashley to call to him aloud from the dust of his kinsman; in the hot sunshine their spell was as potent as though a ghostly voice had spoken at midnight. For the first time, something more intense than the desire to satisfy conscience by proving that he wronged no rightful heir in entering upon property which would have been John Ashley’s had he lived, arose in his mind. The absolute reality of his cousin’s death for the first time seemed to become an overwhelming conviction; and with it came memories of the young and daring man whom he had in childhood held in wondering admiration. And as he stood within sight of the spot where the brilliant young life had ended in a bloody tragedy, a deep wave of sorrow surged over his soul, and from its depths, as from the loose sands of the wind-levelled grave, appeared to rise a cry for vengeance.
Though not till now had Chinita’s charge that he be taken to the American’s grave been carried out, the message from Doña Isabel, which Pepé had not failed to deliver, had reached him some days before, and had been supplemented by a visit from Don Rafael. Although a certain fascination had inclined Ashley to linger still at Tres Hermanos, he had so little hope of adding to the information he had already gained of his cousin’s life,—there seemed so little possibility that the marriage which John Ashley had intimated had taken place, could ever have been more than a mere sentimental dedication of the lovers one to the other, in which they deemed themselves man and wife in the sight of God, but which in the sight of man was a mere illicit connection, to be condemned or ignored,—that he had not dared to present himself before the haughty mother of the one Herlinda whom he suspected to have been the object of his cousin’s passion, and to insult her with questions or insinuations that would cast a doubt upon her daughter’s purity and a stain upon the fame of the house of Garcia, which even the blood of John Ashley and his own added thereto would be insufficient to wash away.
The young man had decided then to accept the order of dismissal, so delicately conveyed in the intimation that by accepting the escort of the troops as far as they might proceed toward Guanapila, he would not only reach a point whence in all probability he might in safety proceed to that city, but that he would thus render a favor to Doña Isabel, who was minded by the same opportunity to withdraw from the hacienda,—her presence there being liable to act as a lure to either party, who might after seizing her person levy a ransom upon the family which even their large resources would be severely strained to meet.
Although the fiction was maintained that her assistance of the Liberal cause was involuntary, it was readily surmised that Doña Isabel Garcia was in reality seeking to avoid the vengeance of the Conservatives, while their forces were so demoralized and scattered that she might hope to reach Guanapila, which was then occupied by a patriot guard, before the tide of the war should turn and bring the army of the Church again to the fore en masse,—collected by the clarion cry of fanaticism, and lavishly rewarded from the hoards of silver and gold drawn from the vaults into which for generations had been drained the prosperity and the very life-blood of the peasantry.
Ashley Ward had been struck with admiration of the woman who thus dared the dangers of the road,—to which she had been no stranger. He had felt something of the chivalrous enthusiasm of a knight of old, as he joined the irregular band which by daylight had gathered upon the sandy plain before the straggling village. The soldiers had fallen into march with something like order, with Ruiz at their head,—for once with an anxious face, for he felt that the die was cast, and that he had raised up for himself an enemy whom it would be mad temerity to face, and hopeless to attempt to conciliate. The baggage-mules were driven by the leathern-clad muleteers, who even thus early had begun their profane adjurations to the nimble-footed beasts, that listened with quivering ears thrown back in obstinate surprise at every unwonted silence. The women who had come from other villages had laughed and chided their unruly infants, as they arranged and rearranged their baskets of maize and vegetables upon the panniers of their donkeys, if they were fortunate enough to possess any, or upon their own shoulders if they were to walk; and those who were for the first time leaving their birthplace to follow the fortunes of husband or sweetheart, had burst into loud lamentations. Ashley had been glad to find these changed to laughter, however, before they were well past the broken wall of the reduction-works; which they skirted, entering upon the bridle-path which led across the hill, where the rough heaps of sand showed through the scattered cacti, and where, by the rude wooden crosses, he now for the first time learned lay the village graveyard.
Pepé had ridden sullenly by his side. He had been sent back with a sharp reprimand from the station he had taken among the mounted servants who surrounded the carriage of Doña Isabel, Ruiz in petty tyranny refusing him so honorable a place. A glance from Chinita had been the deepest reproof of all; and as he pondered upon it, certain words which she had uttered, and which he had hitherto forgotten, had come into his mind. As they neared the graveyard his eye caught Ward’s, and suddenly laying his hand upon the bridle of the American’s horse, he had muttered,—
“Señor, she thinks I have forgotten all her wishes; but there is not even one so foolish that I scorn it. Turn aside but for a moment, Señor,—here where the adobe has fallen, your horse can scramble through the wall. Follow me, they will not miss us before we can reach our places again. Caramba! Don Fernando watches me as a cat watches a mouse. Here, Señor,—never mind the women. Stupids! how they herd their donkeys together, when they might have the whole hillside to pick their own paths on! Patience! Let us wait a little, Señor! Ah,” he reflected, as they remained silent and motionless, “there is the spot. I have never forgotten it since I followed her through the rushes down there by the stream, and scratched my face in the tuñas, darting behind them that she should not see me. I was not half so tired as Chinita was though, when she sat down to rub sand upon her smarting hands, and fell asleep with the sun beating upon her head. I wonder if she ever thought it was I who covered her face with her ragged reboso,—she wears one of silk now, as clean and soft as a dove’s breast,—or that I lay behind the big pipes of the flowering organ-plant as she turned over the fallen cross which her hand struck against, and read the name and age of the American who had been murdered years before? Who ever would have thought—for I hated her then if I did follow her, as she maddens me now with her soft eyes and her mocking smile—that I should be bringing here the man who perhaps is just the handsome, woman-maddening demon they say that other was, and at her will too? Ave Maria Purissima! what God wills the very saints themselves may not say No to,—much less a poor peasant like Pepé Ortiz.”
These thoughts, perhaps scarcely in the order in which they are set down, passed through the mind of Pepé, as lingering until the straggling procession had passed, he emerged from the shade of such an organ-plant as had once sheltered him years ago, and taking his bearings with unerring eyes, beckoned to Ashley,—who had waited within touch of his hand, and whose heart had begun to beat suffocatingly, though he knew that it was utterly improbable that anything more important than the mound that covered the body of his cousin would meet his eye,—and led the way to the most wind-swept and desolate portion of that paupers’ acre, and presently stooping where the ground was sunken rather than heaped, turned with some effort the half-buried cross, and exposed to Ashley’s view the name from which his own had been derived.
The young man gazed at it in a sort of fascination, actually spelling the letters over and over. He felt as if a part of himself must be buried there. His eyes burned; the glaring sunshine leaped and quivered above the ill-carved letters, distorting and confounding them. His heart beat violently; every sense but that of hearing seemed to fail him, and every sound upon the air became a weird, mysterious voice,—blood crying unto its kindred blood.
This deep emotion fixed the indifferent and wandering eye of Pepé, who, holding the bridles of the horses, stood near, impatient to be gone, yet intending to watch out of sight the last stragglers; for it was with a double purpose he had turned aside to point out the grave of the American,—first, perhaps, to gratify the seemingly jesting wish of Chinita; and then to seize the opportunity to turn his fleet steed into the narrow bridle-path which led to mountain villages, where he shrewdly suspected Pedro might be found, or at least be heard of. He had promised to carry the message of Chinita to Pedro, and would have set forth upon the very night she had charged him with it, but until mounted by Ruiz’s command had found it impossible to provide himself with a horse, without which it was hopeless for him to attempt his quest. To escape the discipline of the ranks, he had induced Ashley to retain him as his servant, feeling no scruple at his intended abandonment. As his eye rested upon the pale and excited countenance of Ashley, Chinita’s words, with which she had bade him taunt him, flashed into his mind; yet he forbore to utter them, saying presently in a tone of concern,—