People shrugged their shoulders and smiled pityingly. “Poor soul, had she then doubted her son’s death?”
The news had reached Mrs. Ashley in an irregular way; the war had supervened, and particulars had been few and far from exact. But later, through some business house, inquiries had been made and some few books and almost worthless articles of clothing had been obtained from an alcalde, who swore they had been the dead man’s sole effects. Certainly the proofs had been irregular but sufficient. What could one expect from such a lawless set of uncivilized renegades, who knew nothing of civil or international law, and were bent on the sole task of exterminating one another? They smiled at the condition in the will, and pitied the poor woman who could thus hope against hope. Ashley Ward himself, the orphan nephew whom his aunt had loved with a jealous devotion, which at times wearied him by its suspicions and exactions, at first smiled also. But when Mary brought to him the fragments of three old letters to read, just as his mind was filled with plans for a career which the possession of ample wealth and leisure seemed to justify, and which in poverty he could never have dared aspire to, he grew thoughtful, moody at times,—then suddenly his own impetuous, generous self again.
“I will go to Mexico, Mary,” he said, “and bring you word of your brother’s life there. No doubts shall shake their spectre fingers at me in my prosperity, nor torment your loving and anxious soul.”
“Good, true cousin!” was all she answered. She perhaps did not realize what effect upon the prospects of Ashley the results of this journey might possibly have; they dawned upon her little by little as the days went by and no news came of him.
The daring traveller had been obliged to enter Mexico at some obscure point. The Liberal government under Juarez was installed at Vera Cruz; the Conservatives held the City of Mexico; and the length and breadth of the country was in a state of riot and ferment, torn and devastated by roving bands who changed their politics as readily as their encampments. Ashley’s journey through the Republic was like a passage over smouldering coals between two fires, and constant address and fearlessness were required to avoid collision with either faction,—his ignorance of the language and causes of contention perhaps serving him a good turn in making natural the indifference and absolute impartiality which he could never so successfully have assumed had his sympathies been ever so slightly biassed.
In the distracted state of the country it was almost a hopeless task to endeavor to trace the movements of an alien who had lived in it but a short time, and that years before. If any record had been made of the exact place and mode of John Ashley’s death, it certainly had been unofficial, and retained no place in the archives of either the Mexican or American government.
Ashley Ward was at first appalled by the unexpected difficulties that he encountered. Inquiries brought to his knowledge the existence of several haciendas bearing the name of Los Tres Hermanos; and these he successively visited, reserving to the last that which lay in the most isolated and mountain-begirt district,—a point which it seemed impossible could, amid wild and sterile surroundings, offer the panorama of beauty and fertility which the pen of his cousin had described. He would perhaps have abandoned his search, at least for that unpropitious time, but for a re-perusal of the first letter which contained neither news nor descriptions of importance, but in which was mentioned the fact that the writer had been offered employment by the family of Garcia. The owners of the distant hacienda of Tres Hermanos, Ashley Ward discovered, were called Garcia,—a name too common, however, to be any proof of identity, yet which seemed to make it worth his while to spend another month or more of precious time in the search, which in another country, with records of average exactness, would perhaps have been performed in one or two days.
The trip had been made as quickly as the excessively bad state of the roads at the rainy season would allow, and with but few divergences and delays; and the boundaries of the estate had been already passed when the young American and his servant were, in a merry rather than a savage humor, detained or rather actually captured by the redoubtable Calvo, who to amuse the leisure that hung rather heavily upon his hands invited the young American to ride in his company. In his broken but expressive English, the freebooter uttered such courteous phrases that the young man was quite unconscious that he was in fact a prisoner, and passed a not uninteresting day in exchanging political opinions, local and international, with the dashing chieftain,—who, while apparently absorbed in the novelty and pleasure of listening to the conversation of his involuntary guest, was mentally preparing the speech in which he should convey to him on the morrow the terms of ransom for himself and servant,—a likely fellow whom Calvo had more than half a mind to add to the number of his followers.
But the servant himself had no illusions as to the glory of fighting or the chances of booty, and sometime during the night in which they were encamped at the ranchito of El Refugio managed to elude the lax watchfulness of the troop, who had made a merry meal on freshly killed lambs and such other modest viands as Doña Isabel Garcia’s trembling shepherds could furnish, and without so much as a word of warning to the American had escaped,—bearing with him the small bag of necessaries of which he had charge, a pair of silver-mounted pistols, and a sum of money which Ward had been assured would in case of attack and capture be more secure in the possession of this “loyal and honest man” than in his own.
Ashley had barely had time to realize the defection of his servant, to suspect his actual position as a prisoner in the hands of the courteous but mercenary and implacable Calvo, and wrathfully to regret the ignorant trustfulness with which he had divided with the much lauded servant the risk of transporting his funds, retaining in his own hands perhaps not enough to meet the rapacious demands of his captors, when suddenly his meditations were interrupted by cries of confusion, shouts, the crack of rifles, the whizzing of balls, challenges and defiant yells, the shrieks of women, and the groans and appeals of the helpless shepherds,—followed by the sight of huts ablaze, of frightened flocks wildly bleating and rushing blindly under the very feet of the horses, which trampled them down, while their keepers, as bewildered as they, fell victims to the mad zeal and excitement of the opposing troops who had so unexpectedly met on that isolated spot.