The carriage with its group of outriders now rapidly approached. “Ah! ah!” exclaimed Chinita, “the horses are plunging at the tree where the American was murdered. They say the creatures can always see him there, Señor. Ah, now they have passed; they come gayly, they come straight. It is not only the Señor Administrador and the servants, there are strangers too. I am glad! I am happy! I love to see new faces!”
“Be silent!” whispered Pepé, hurriedly; “all the world will hear if you sing so loud. Carrhi! the soldier sees you!”
It was true; though the villagers had been too intent upon welcoming the new-comers to heed Chinita, and the carriage flashed by so rapidly the inmates could have caught but a glimpse of color against the cold gray wall, a stranger in a travel-stained uniform started as his eyes fell upon her, and checked his horse so suddenly that it reared.
“The Virgin of our native land!” he muttered in a sort of patriotic and admiring wonder. “Ah, what a beautiful creature!” he added, as the girl he had for a moment classed as a saint sprang from her niche to the bench and thence to the ground, and darted through the crowd to the inner court,—where by this time the carriage had stopped and its inmates were descending.
Ashley sank upon the bench with a sudden access of weariness. Pedro, oblivious of his vicinity, crouched rather than sat beside him. The gatekeeper’s nerves doubtless were weak. The carriage that had driven into the court was the same in which Herlinda Garcia had departed years before; as it dashed by him he could have sworn he saw her face framed in the window. He had seen, as had Chinita, the sad and gentle countenance of Chata. Grief reveals strange likenesses.
When Chinita reached the carriage door, she found it blocked by the descending travellers and those who welcomed them. Doña Rita was so slow in carefully placing her feet from step to step, and paused so often to answer salutations, that there was ample time for the young officer to reach the spot and extend a hand to Rosario who followed her. Her blushes and coy smiles; the air with which she drew back and with which, with a little shriek, she pulled her dress over her tiny foot lest it might be seen; the soft glances which she threw from beneath her long lashes,—formed a pretty piece of by-play, quite intelligible to all beholders, but for that time certainly quite thrown away upon the stranger.
Ten minutes before, to have held for a few brief minutes the tips of Rosario’s fingers would have been to him ecstasy. Now he was scarcely conscious that they were within his own, and his eyes were fixed upon Chinita as she stood breathlessly waiting for Chata. Never in his life, he thought, had he seen such a face. The changeable yet ever radiant expression was like the dazzle of warm sunshine through scented leaves; the shimmer of rebellious hair was a divine halo, though the sparkle of the dusky eyes declared a daring soul more fit for earthly adventure than ethereal joys.
Rosario’s eyes followed his gaze. She had heard the strange tale of Doña Isabel’s intervention in the fate of the waif. She had wondered whether the high-born lady could have seen anything in the girl’s face that attracted her; and that moment more decidedly than ever she answered “No,” yet realized that here was a face to bewitch men. She tossed her head and passed on. Doña Feliz stopped her to embrace her, and meanwhile the two early playmates met.
“Life of my soul!” cried Chinita. “How I have longed for you! Did you not see me perched in the niche of the wall? Ay, how Doña Isabel would frown if she knew!”
“I saw only the tall, fair man,” answered Chata in a low voice. She was pale and trembled: “I thought first it was the ghost of the American. Oh God, what a shock!”