Ah, devoted youth! had thy guardian angel veiled her face that night? Oh, if but at the last moment thy light foot would wake the echoes and rouse the sleepers, already muttering in their dreams, as if conscious that the dawn was near. But nothing happened; the whole world seemed wrapped in oblivion as he bent over the gate-keeper, and with some familiar touch aroused him. He stooped to put on his spurs, as Pedro opened the postern, and instantly stepped forth, while the gate-keeper proceeded to replace the fastenings. But as the man turned nervously, with the sensation of an unexpected presence near him, he was absolutely paralyzed with dismay. A livid face, in which were set eyes of lurid blackness, looked down upon him with satanic rage. The bulk that towered over him seemed colossal. “Mercy! mercy!” he ejaculated. “By all the saints I swear—”
“Let me pass!” hissed Planillos in a voice scarce above a whisper, but which in its intensity sounded in the ears of Pedro like thunder. “Villain, let me pass!” and he cast from him the terrified gate-keeper as though he were a child, and rushed out upon the sandy slope which lay between the great house and the village. He was not a moment too soon. In the dim light he caught sight of the lithe figure of the foreigner, as he passed rapidly over the rough ground skirting the village, the better to escape the notice of the dogs, which, tired with baying the moon, had at last sunk to uneasy slumbers.
Planillos looked toward the moon, and cursed its rapid waning. The light grew so faint he could scarce keep the young man in sight, as he approached a tree where a dark horse was tied, which neighed as he drew near. Planillos clutched his dagger closer; would the pursued spring into his saddle, and thus escape, at least for that night? On the contrary, he lingered, leaning against his horse, his eyes fixed on the white walls of the house he had left. All unconscious of danger, he stood in the full strength of manhood, with the serene influences of Nature around him, his mind so rapt and tranced that even had his pursuer taken no precaution in making his approach from shrub to shrub, concealing his person as much as possible, he would probably have reached his victim unnoticed. Within call slept scores of fellow-men; behind him, scarce half a mile away, rose the walls and chimneys of his whilom home; not ten minutes before he had said, “I shall be as safe on the road as in your arms, my love!” He was absolutely unconscious of his surroundings, lost in a blissful reverie, when with irresistible force he was hurled to the ground; a frightful blow fell upon his side,—the heavens grew dark above him. Conscious, yet dumb, he staggered to his feet, only to be again precipitated to the earth; the dagger that at the moment of attack had been thrust into his bosom, was buried to the hilt; the blood gushed forth, and with a deep groan he expired.
All was over in a few moments of time. John Ashley’s soul, with all its sins, had been hurled into the presence of its Judge. The self-appointed avenger staggered, gasping, against the tree; an almost superhuman effort had brought a terrible exhaustion. Every muscle and nerve quivered; he could scarcely stand. Yet thrusting from him with his foot the dead body, he thirsted still for blood. “If I could but return and kill that villain Pedro,” he hissed; “if his accursed soul could but follow to purgatory this one I have already sent! But, bah! a later day will answer for the dog! Ah, I am so spent a child might hold me; but,” looking toward the mountains, “this horse is fresh and fleet. I shall be safe enough when the first beam of the morning sun touches your lover’s lips, Herlinda.”
The assassin glanced from his victim toward the house he had left, with a muttered imprecation; then, trembling still from his tremendous exertions, he approached the steed, which, unable to break the lariat by which it had been fastened, was straining and plunging, half-maddened, after the confusion of the struggle, by the smell of blood already rising on the air.
Planillos possessed that wonderfully magnetic power over the brute creation which is as potent as it is rare, and which on this occasion within a few moments completely dominated and calmed the fright and fury of the powerful animal, which he presently mounted, and which—though man and horse shook with the violence of excitement and conflict—he managed with the ease that denoted constant practice and superb horsemanship. With a last glance at the murdered man, whom the darkness that precedes the dawn scarce allowed him to distinguish from the shrubs around, he put spurs to the restive steed, and galloped rapidly away.
III.
It is not to be supposed that this bloody deed occurred entirely unsuspected. Pedro, the gate-keeper, lay half-stunned upon the stones where he had been cast by the man who called himself Planillos, and listened with strained ears to every sound. No indication of a struggle reached him, but his horrified imagination formed innumerable pictures of treacherous violence, in which one or the other of the men who had left him figured as the victim. He dared give no alarm; indeed, at first he was so unnerved by terror that he could neither stir nor speak. At length, after what appeared to him hours but was in reality only a few minutes, he heard the shrill neigh of the horse and the sound of rearing and plunging, followed by the dull thud of retreating footsteps and shrill whistles in challenge and answer from the watchmen upon the hacienda roof, who, however, took no further steps toward investigating what they supposed to be a drunken brawl which had taken place, almost out of hearing and quite out of sight, and which therefore, as they conceived, could in no wise endanger the safety or peace of the hacienda.
Their signals, however, served to arouse Pedro, who shaking in every limb, his brain reeling, his heart bursting with apprehension, crawled to the postern, and after many abortive efforts managed to secure the bolts. He then staggered to the alcove in which he slept, and searching beneath the sheepskin mat which served for his bed, found a small flask of aguardiente, and taking a deep draught of the fiery liquor, little by little recovered his outward composure.
For that night, however, sleep no more visited his eyes; and he spent the hour before dawn in making to himself wild excuses for his treason, in wilder projects for flight, and in mentally recapitulating his sins and preparing himself for death; so it can readily be imagined that it was a haggard and distraught countenance that he thrust forth from the postern at dawn, when with the first streak of light came a crowd of excited villagers to the gate, to beat upon it wildly, and with hoarse groans and cries to announce that Don Juan had been found murdered under a mesquite tree.