Chinita was cramped by long riding, and was fain to cling to her guide. She looked around her with a shudder. The wild solitude of the place was terrible. She feared to move, lest she should find herself face to face with death. Her head swam, the world turned black before her eyes; and in the midst a strange hand touched her own. A low laugh sounded on her ear,—it was that of a woman.
“Santa Maria!” she heard Pepé exclaim. “It is the Virgin of Guadalupe herself. It is then that we are too late to serve the poor padron!”
The low laugh sounded again,—there was in it more of madness than sanctity. Chinita, with superstitious fear and desperation, sought to wrench her hand from the hot clasp in which it was held. The close air of the entrance of the cave closed round her, as with persistent force she was drawn within; and with a scream of terror she fell fainting, overcome by the excitement and exertion of many hours, and by the unexpected apparition which had greeted her.
XXXVII.
The illness which attacked Doña Feliz upon the morning that Ashley Ward set forth from Tres Hermanos, was the first indication of an epidemic similar in character and force to that which had devastated the hacienda fifteen years before. Reminiscences of the time of the great sickness became the absorbing topic of conversation, until the care of the dying and the burial of the dead silenced all voices, and turned all thoughts to the overwhelming cares of the present.
At first with unspeakable remorse Chata attributed the illness of Doña Feliz to her unwonted exertion in walking to the reduction-works through the fierce sunshine, and to her grief and shame in discovering her, whom she believed to be her granddaughter, there in conversation with a stranger,—from whom a modest maiden would have shrunk in decent coyness, if not in fear. Chata’s heart burned with grief and remorse. She longed to throw herself upon her knees, and pour out her soul before the woman she held in such love and reverence that the thought of her distrust and displeasure was like a mortal wound in her heart. Yet she was forced to be silent, before the unconsciousness and delirium which for days and weeks overpowered the body and mind of the strong, though no longer youthful, woman.
It was some consolation to the distressed maiden that she was called upon, almost alone, to bear the labor and responsibility of the care of Doña Feliz. Don Rafael was almost helpless before his mother’s peril; the servants were terrified and incompetent. Soon Chata, in the incessant toil, almost ceased to think of the trials and perplexities of her own life, save to cry bitterly to herself that had she never known before that Doña Rita was not her own mother, the difference in her bearing at that crisis toward Rosario and herself would have betrayed the truth.
“Even Don Rafael,” she thought, “though he loves me, is content that I, rather than his own child, should risk the danger of the infected atmosphere.”
But in truth the alarmed and harassed man was capable of but little reflection or discrimination as to the actions of those about him. He gave no heed to the selfishness of his wife or Rosario, while he found Chata ever at Doña Feliz’s side, tireless, calm, unmurmuring, ministering with a rare ability, which even natural tact and long experience seldom combine to produce in such perfection, to the needs and comfort of the ever delirious patient. He grew speedily to have a perfect trust and faith in this ministering child; and though once, when for a little while his mother was silent, and the servants had fallen asleep, he opened his lips to question her, there was something in the imploring yet innocent gaze of those clear gray eyes before which he shrank, as Ashley Ward had done, powerless to utter a word that should indicate distrust.
“Perhaps my mother knows,—yes, doubtless she knew,” he said to himself, with a faint attempt to justify his silence. “Caramba! a man must have a black heart himself who could doubt the whiteness of so pure a soul!”