Chata and Chinita: A Novel

by Laura Preston

Doña Isabel wore before the world the same impassive face as ever, but at night the demon powers of remorse and intolerable anxiety wrought cruel havoc with its beauty. It was impossible too for her to conceal utterly the suspicion and distrust with which Ruiz inspired her; and the influence which through Chinita mainly he had for a brief period acquired, both over Doña Isabel and the troops, and which at best had been looked upon as a privilege he should yield later with his authority to Gonzales, began to wane rapidly. Dissatisfaction and mutinous threatenings were manifested on every hand, and the position of Ruiz but for the presence of Doña Isabel would have been absolutely untenable; and a crisis was evidently imminent, when the long desired leader suddenly appeared to relieve the tension of the situation, and to awaken a frenzy of enthusiasm for the cause, which had been at the point of abandonment.

It was with intense relief that Ruiz himself greeted the appearance of Gonzales, unexpected though it was, and incomprehensible the means by which he had obtained information that had led him so completely to alter his plans. That the American was concerned in the matter Ruiz did not doubt, though he could imagine no clew to his motives, the conviction being still in the mind of the baffled officer of Chinita’s indifference to Ashley, and of her flight to Ramirez.

It was with amazement and alarm that Gonzales witnessed the ravages of time and care upon the once beautiful and stately Doña Isabel. The very excess of joy with which she welcomed him seemed weak and pitiful. He had been detained long upon the way from El Toro by a series of petty annoyances, such as the bad state of the roads and a succession of trifling skirmishes with the enemy, resulting in burdening the march with the care of the wounded; and thus the loss of Chinita had become to Doña Isabel by the time of his arrival an assured fact. With tears of anguish she told him of the ingratitude of the child she loved, though she carefully concealed the fact that she supposed her to be other than one of the class of people from whom she had taken her; and with this explanation only Gonzales could not enter fully into her grief, or accept the fact that the loss of her protégée was indeed the entire cause of her anguish. Had she not mourned for years as he had the living entombment of her daughter Herlinda? Had not the sight of him revived in her mind the keenness of her woe?

Doña Isabel was ill both in body and in mind; worn out with anxiety and the fatigues of travel, the reaction occasioned by the appearance of Gonzales was doubtless too great for her enfeebled powers. To his extreme embarrassment and anxiety he found himself charged with the unexpected responsibility of the care of a lady of much social consequence, and one personally extremely dear to him, who was stricken with an illness that demanded the most efficient attendance and complete isolation from disturbing influences. Added to the present necessity of gaining the confidence of the disorganized troops, and of continuing the march with the most unrelaxing vigilance, the situation thus became most onerous to the young commander,—not the less so because of the presence of a man he had thwarted and displaced, and whom it was necessary to keep in view and perhaps conciliate.

Upon the next night after the arrival of Gonzales, when Ruiz with seeming cordiality though with relief and rage contending in his mind had yielded his command, he strode to the outskirts of the camp, and smoking or rather forgetting to smoke a cigarette, mentally reviewed with bitter disappointment the perplexing and conflicting events that had led to so utter an overthrowal of his carefully concocted schemes. With the rapidity and excitement of his thoughts, his pace increased as though he was striving to tread down his mortification while he was preparing therefor a speedy and certain revenge.

The thought of this was chiefly directed toward Chinita. But for her flight Ruiz doubted not his position would have been so firmly assured that he would have been enabled to carry out his schemes. Thus he had hoped to find himself at the head of a force which in the event of final victory would have recommended him to the highest honors in the gift of Juarez, or at any rate assured him against the vengeance of Ramirez. To treachery time had added actual hatred of the man who had befriended him, and whose evil deeds, while he professed to abhor them, he would have rejoiced to have courage and address to imitate, and of whom he still held a superstitious dread, which had once been absolute awe.

It maddened the recreant follower of Ramirez to think of Chinita in the power of such a man. That day the last wild escapade of the lawless adventurer, the torture of Pedro, had in some way reached the ears of Ruiz and destroyed a lingering hope he had cherished that the girl, proud and hard though he believed her, had in some impulse of affection gone to her foster-father,—a thought that he had not even hinted to Doña Isabel, for with petty spite he refrained from uttering that which he imagined might give relief to her long agony. He imagined how Chinita, who doubtless had seen through his double dealing, would make it contemptible by her scorn, and ridiculous with her irony; and how Ramirez would, after listening to her account of him rise his sworn enemy: Ruiz had witnessed such scenes. No; return to Ramirez was impossible. Besides, that chieftain’s ultimate defeat was certain: the Liberal cause was strengthening every hour. Ramirez must have lost his former keenness to follow thus a losing venture. Ruiz began to console himself by thoughts of how, though only in a subordinate part, he should assist in the discomfiture of the proud general and that of the girl who loved him,—for the ignoble youth was incapable of believing hers to be the love of a mere unreasoning child, though to a purer heart her words would have a thousand times declared her enthusiasm to be but a fanatical admiration, untouched by a tinge of passion. The maddening jealousy that had raged in the heart of Ruiz since he had learned of the flight of Chinita, and had rendered him incapable of a sustained effort to renew the ambitious projects so fatally shaken, now flamed up with cruel intensity; and yet he loved her. At that moment he would have liked to throttle her, yet would have recalled her to life with words of passionate love and burning kisses.

As he pondered, he struck his breast with his clinched hand. “Caramba!” he muttered, “is all lost? Is there no way to overset this miserable favorite of the Señora? Maria Sanctissima! who is that?” His hand like a flash passed to his pistol.

“Hist!” said a voice. “It is I, Fernando. I have not a moment to spare. I have tried to gain a way to thee for an hour or more. I know all that has passed. Fool! thou shouldst have raised the battle-cry for Ramirez before this Gonzales reached thee; there were men with thee who would have sustained thee well!”

“Bah! a man has opinions,” answered Ruiz, coolly, recognizing the voice; “and if Ramirez still chooses to fight for the priests, that is no argument for my being as mad. I tell you plainly, Father, I am tired of playing a boy’s part; you will hear of me yet as something more than the lieutenant of Gonzales.”