“Yes,” thought Ashley; “these Mexicans fortunately know how to coin a plausible tale as well for a good cause as for a bad one.”
They saw that Don Rafael, placing Chata on his horse before him, had turned in the direction of the hacienda, and was signalling to the vaqueros lingering in uncertainty at the gate.
“They will be here in a few moments, Señor,” said Doña Feliz, calmly. “We must lock the gates and conceal the keys. You must be found outside of, not within, these walls.”
Ashley assented, and within a few moments, and in silence, their necessary task was accomplished. Doña Feliz then led the way toward the village, walking rapidly as though impelled by the agitation of her thoughts or a desire to escape question. Ashley kept pace with her with some effort, though the chill which had come with the grayness of evening over the landscape revived and strengthened him. The breeze was whistling in the tall corn in the fields as they passed them; the cattle were lowing in the yards; the distant sound of horses’ feet was beginning to be heard; the riders like gray columns were seen approaching. Ashley laid his hand upon the arm of Doña Feliz. She turned and looked at him. His face was to her a volume of reproach and question. Her voice broke forth in a great sob.
“Ashley! Ashley!” she exclaimed, “do you not comprehend that a vow stronger than death controls me? Ask me nothing, but follow the indications which the good God—Fate—Providence—has given you. The time may come—for strange things are happening in our land—when I may be free once more. Now I may only watch and wait and pray. Ah! what hard tasks for a woman such as I am! But I have vowed; I cannot retract!”
“You are wrong!” cried Ashley. “How strange that a woman of so much intelligence, of a conscience so pure, can suffer herself to be led by the spurious customs and traditions that pride and priestcraft together have fastened upon her people! But your very reticence, Doña Feliz, confirms my beliefs. I will go as you recommend, as my own judgment urged me, to follow the clew I have so unexpectedly obtained. Do not think that a vulgar and wolfish desire for vengeance alone actuates me; but justice must be done. Even for Chata’s sake, this man must not be suffered to continue his course unchecked.” He would have added more, but Gabriel and Pancho, the vaqueros, came galloping up with vivas and cries of welcome.
“Praised be our Holy Mother, and all the saints!” exclaimed one. “Don Rafael told us you were safe. Who would have thought the Señora and the niña Chatita would have found you no farther away than deaf and blind Refugio’s? Ay, Doña Feliz, without seeking, finds more than will a dozen unlucky ones, though they have spectacles and lanterns to aid them. In the name of reason, Don ’Guardo, how happened your nag to throw you and gallop back thus? He is manageable enough with any of us—” and there was a suspicion of irony in the solicitude of the horseman, which did not escape Ashley as he answered,—
“To-morrow you shall have the whole tale. These roads of yours are no place for a man to linger on alone. But for the present, remember I have a wound not too well healed, and am more anxious for supper than for recounting adventures.”
“Ah! ah! he was stopped on the road by banditti,—and has escaped.” The vaqueros regarded Ashley with vastly increased respect. Their numbers were augmented as they neared the hacienda; and when the party reached the gates, wild rumors of Ashley’s prowess were already flying from mouth to mouth.
Ashley did not present an imposing figure as he passed in between the crowds of admiring women; but he served to turn their thoughts from the unprecedented appearance of Chata, which was but unsatisfactorily explained by Don Rafael’s ready fiction that she and Doña Feliz had been piously visiting at the hut of old Refugio, and that upon the arrival of Ashley there, the young girl had hastened to meet her father, and give him news of the American’s safety.