Ramirez kissed the hand of the unconscious Chata, and turned away. For once he had executed an act of extreme self-denial, yet amid it all his crafty mind foresaw how he might use it to his advantage.
The exit from the city was readily effected, but Ramirez did not proceed many miles unrecognized after mounting his horse at the hut where he had left it. The man who spoke his name unhesitatingly, though in a cautious voice, was Reyes. He gave the General unwelcome tidings. Gonzales had joined forces with those of Tres Hermanos. He had risked the attack and occupation of El Toro, and it was conjectured would attempt the march to the Capital itself, round which the audacious Juarez was from his stronghold in Vera Cruz directing the concentration of the Liberal forces.
Ramirez ground his teeth in rage. “I have been delayed and hampered by that girl,” he cried. “Could I but have gone straight to Ruiz, he would not have dared defy me. As it is—”
“As it is,” interrupted Reyes, “all is not yet lost. I have still to see Ruiz,—he is not my son if it is impossible to convince him upon which hot plate the cake is best toasted.”
The conference of the two men lasted but a few moments. They had been so accustomed in their long intercourse to treat of subjects of which one was as well informed as the other, and upon the course to be taken at the present time they were so well agreed, that they parted with no attempt at explanation, but simply after a few words of instruction had been given by Ramirez to the other.
“Tell him,” the chief said finally, “I am ready to fulfil my word; and if Ruiz be anxious to see her, let him risk as much for love as I have done. She is at the house of Doña Carmen Velasquez in Guanapila; and tell him as surely as he is my godson and your son he shall be shot as a traitor if he fails me in this affair. Good-by for a time; good news or bad news, my blood is up for a desperate venture now. It cannot be that after all these years luck is turning against me at last.”
“It did that years ago when you stabbed the American,” thought Reyes as they parted; “it was that that weighted the scale. That accursed foreigner who is here to avenge him has upset all our plans for misleading Gonzales. With both together Ramirez has fearful odds against him, which even with the help of Ruiz and his men he may find it hard to combat. But how in heaven’s name has the General his daughter with him? Caramba! I have often wondered how he would relish that drunken freak of mine! Faith, I did not care to try his temper to-night by many questions. Well, who would have thought he would have kept in the same mind for so many years! To think of his striving to give her the family training at this late date! Ah, ah, ah! it is more likely to mar than to make her. If Fernando is of my mind he will wait in such a matter for no pruning and training, but pluck the flower while it is within his reach, thorns and all.”
With which poetic simile, Tio Reyes rode on well pleased on his errand to the young Ruiz, while Ramirez, proceeding rapidly in the opposite direction, regained within the hour his enthusiastic but disorderly horde.
XL.
Vain would be the attempt to describe the consternation of Doña Isabel when she awoke at early dawn, and felt about her that peculiar stillness—a stillness that seems absolutely tangible—which indicates the abstraction of the element of humanity from the associations about us, and is especially impressive when that loss is utterly unexpected.