“Canalla!” laughed the captain, carelessly, “one or two are with us here, tied on their saddles. They will do well enough. Others lay down under bushes to shelter their cracked heads. But one there is, Señora, a foreigner, a mere boy, who was in the party by chance they say, just a boy’s freak,—but, my faith! he did a man’s portion of fighting, and has a wound to end a man’s life. He must die if he rides much farther lashed to his horse;” and the young soldier, half a bandit in lawlessness, and in his perplexed notions of honor, perhaps too, scarce free from blood-guiltiness, sighed as he added, “but this is no subject for a lady’s ear. Permit, Señora, that my troops and their belongings pass by, and you may then proceed in all peace and safety.”
“Thanks, Señor,” said Doña Isabel, adding half hesitatingly: “And the wounded youth,—a foreigner, I think you said?”
“By his looks and tongue, English,” answered the officer, with his hand to his hat as a parting salute. But Doña Isabel’s look stopped him.
“You pity this poor wounded creature,” she said, “and I can do no less. You are compelled to travel in haste, and the city—if that is your destination—is far distant.”
Doña Isabel spoke as if under some invisible compulsion and as against her will, and paused as if unable to utter the proposal that trembled on her lips; but the voluble young officer, with the eagerness of desire, divined what she would say, and so lauded the appearance and bearing of the wounded prisoner that to her own amazement Doña Isabel found herself making room for him in her carriage, much to the surprise of her maid Petra, who was mounted upon the led horse, which in thought her mistress had at first destined to the use of her unexpected guest.
However, when under the superintendence of Captain Alva and Tio Reyes the youth was transferred from his horse to the carriage, Doña Isabel saw at once that his strength was so nearly spent that even with most careful handling it was doubtful whether he would reach the hacienda alive. She shrank away as his fair young head was laid back upon the dark cushions, and his long limbs were disposed upon blankets and cushions, as much to avoid contact with that frame so evidently of alien mould as to give all the space possible to the almost unconscious sufferer. She scarce looked at him, as with effusive thanks Alva bade her farewell, but forced her eyes, though with no special interest or regret, upon the portion of her flocks that was driven bleating before her carriage, with mechanical kindness closing the window as the horned cattle, bellowing and pawing the dust, followed, and breathing a sigh of relief as the last of the revolutionary force rode by, and the sound of their noisy march grew fainter, and she realized that her own escort had fallen into their places around her carriage, the slow motion of which indicated that her interrupted journey was resumed.
For some time the thoughts of Doña Isabel were necessarily directed to her wounded guest. The wound in the shoulder had been bandaged with such skill and care as could be offered by the self-trained doctor of the rancho, for the nonce become army surgeon; and it would doubtless have done well but for exposure and fatigue, which had induced fever, in which the patient muttered uneasily and even at times became violently excited, looking at Doña Isabel with eyes of inexpressible brilliancy, catching her cool white hands in his own burning ones and calling her in endearing accents names which, though untranslatable by her, were sweet to her ear. Perhaps, they were those of mother or sister,—she almost longed to know. Later, when under her tendance and that of the grooms, who when she motioned for the carriage to be stopped often came to her assistance, he sank into uneasy slumber, she had opportunity to wonder at the impulse that had induced her to receive this stranger of a race, that whether American or English, she had long abjured, and to feel once more as she gazed upon his wan features something of the bitter detestation with which she had looked upon Ashley’s dead face.
Doña Isabel started; the thought had entered her mind just as they were emerging from the great chasm of rocks which gave entrance to the plain, and she saw once more the Eden from which she had been driven. The house was so far distant still that she caught, across the fields of tall corn, but a mere suggestion of its flat roofs and the square turrets at the corners of the encircling walls; but though more distant still, the tall chimney of the reduction-works rose clearly defined against the sky,—so clearly that she could see where a few bricks had fallen from the cornice, and how a solitary pigeon was circling it in settling to its nest. What a picture of solitariness! Doña Isabel groaned, and covered her face with her hand. It was as she had known it would be. The first objects to meet her gaze were those that could waken the darkest and bitterest memories. Why had she come? Oh that she could retrace the rough path that she had traversed!
The wounded man groaned; he was fainting. “Hasten, hasten!” she cried, “send Anselmo forward; bid them prepare a bed. The road is not so rough; let them drive faster!”
Thus Doña Isabel’s words belied the desire of her heart, for she could not by her own wish have approached her home too slowly. This boy was a stranger, not even brought thither by her will, as the other had been; yet as the other had driven her forth, this one was hastening her back. Was it fancy, or did the boy’s lips pronounce a name? No, no! it was but her excited imagination. No wonder! Did not the earth and sky, the wide circle of the hills, all cry out to her, “What hast thou done? Where is Herlinda?”