Don Rafael glanced around him warningly,—the room was full of strange faces, beginning to light with wondering curiosity at this strange conversation, so different in substance from that usual between the guerilla and his victims. This was no place in which to talk of women; yet Don Rafael himself desired to avoid a private interview with this man, while Ramirez on his part assumed an ostentatious air of having nothing to conceal,—nothing that he might be ashamed his followers should learn. He knew, in fact, that at that crisis, surrounded as he was by the most unscrupulous and desperate characters, the prestige of his mad career might be advantageously heightened rather than diminished, if he would keep his ascendency. Don Rafael read his thought, and lest in very hardihood his opponent should be led to accusations or revelations it would be impossible for him to leave unanswered, he began one of those long and desultory conversations that, while apparently frank and unstudied, are triumphs in the art of avoiding or concealing the real subject at issue.
Ramirez, well as he knew the tricks of the genuine ranchero, whether of the higher or lower grade, was himself for a time deceived,—for, with far less than his usual astuteness, he allowed himself to lapse into occasional denunciations, and to make demands of the administrador that increased the curiosity and interest of his listeners. These did not in any degree shake the constancy of Don Rafael, who, with the thought that the crisis of his life was approaching, crossed his arms upon his breast and fortified his courage with the remembrance of the vows by which he had pledged himself, and the less heroic satisfaction that he promised himself then in thwarting the plans of a man whose will had been as triumphant as it was insatiable.
Meanwhile, the tumult in the house increased. A wild rumor had spread that the General José Ramirez was by right the master of the place and all it contained. Some said he was the lover, others the brother, of Doña Isabel. At last, even the name by which he had been known there began to be shouted, though the sound of it was less popular than that by which he had won his way later to fame. Still, it gave a certain authority for license where there had been before a show of restraint; and a speedy assault was made upon the store-rooms and granaries, and even upon the inner chambers and courts, which contained nothing but furniture and ornaments,—useless to soldiers on the march, or even as booty for their wives and followers.
Ramirez listened to the tumult without attempting to interfere. Evidently his object was to break the resolution of Sanchez by an exhibition of the destructive and unscrupulous character of his followers. But Don Rafael never winced except once, when the cry of a woman pierced the apartment.
Ramirez heard it also. “Ah! it came from the kitchens, from some scullery-maid,” he commented after a moment. “Now, Don Rafael, you see and hear for yourself what a crew of devils I have with me,—just the riff-raff of the mountains, whom that cursed Pedro failed to wile away from me. Caramba! never was a surprise greater. It would not have happened but that like a fool I lingered near El Toro waiting for a chance to pounce upon Gonzales. Never let a private vengeance sway the judgment,” he added sententiously. “A thousand devils! It seems as if the hacienda were tumbling about our ears! Yet at a word I can stop it. Where is the money?”
“If the din never ceases till I reveal that,” answered Don Rafael, doggedly, “you will never have your revenge on Gonzales; for what I have sworn I have sworn. The flocks and herds I can’t defend; and what are a few hundred beeves or horses? But the money; no, by God! if Doña Isabel herself should command it, I would not suffer that another coin should touch your bloody hand!”
Ramirez started up with an oath. Involuntarily he glanced at his hand. It would not have surprised him to have seen it literally red,—and, strangely enough, the blood gushing from the fatal wound he had dealt the American, just from the arms of Herlinda, rather than that of his nephew or Don Gregorio, was that which presented itself to his mind. He walked the room in a new and undefinable excitement. The sight of Don Rafael, to whom the destruction of the property that was precious as his life seemed as nothing to the pleasure of baffling the man he abhorred of the money he believed absolutely necessary to his success in leading troops to encounter the well-reinforced and well-equipped Gonzales, revealed to him the hatred and horror in which he was held. Doubtless that of the servant was but a mere reflection of that of Doña Isabel.
Well, let them hate him with reason; let the wild mountaineers take their own sport unchecked. He heard one of the clerks, flying rather than running through the corridor, exclaim that Don Rafael must come, or there would be a famine in the place before the next harvest; that the great storehouses of maize had been forced open, and the contents scattered throughout the village for horses and men to tread under their feet; and that the very oxen and sheep were revelling in the abundance, liable to destroy themselves by very excess, even if the soldiers should fail to drive them before them.
Ramirez and the administrador glanced at each other. They had not spoken for many minutes, each feeling the other implacable, yet each perhaps believing that the wanton destruction would appeal to the other’s weaker or better nature. Ramirez grew crimson, almost black, with inward rage,—rage as great with those who were wreaking destruction on his sister’s house, as with this insignificant yet determined man who withstood it. Don Rafael was white as death, his lips blue, his eyes strained; again the cry of a woman sounded on the air! It came from above. He started toward the door. A dozen hands seized him. Ramirez turned upon him with his drawn sword.
“Where is my daughter?” he demanded in a voice of fury. “I will find a way to force the gold from you, but first my daughter,—where is she?”