THE CONCEALMENT
It took a deal more running back and forth, and questioning and explaining, before I could come at any understanding of what had happened. And even when I had heard as much as any one knew it was strangely little—simply that a body of Mexican horsemen had swept out upon the guard from apparently all points of the compass, had overpowered them, leaving one dead and one of their own number wounded, and swept on. After they had gone it was discovered that the prisoner had vanished too. The cry had been that the horsemen had taken him; but some of the guard who had followed the riders a little way declared that he had not been among them, and one man insisted that he had seen Johnny Montgomery dart in at the door of one of the small houses on Jackson Street. This was immediately surrounded by police and searched, but nothing was discovered; and all the while I sat faint and trembling in the carriage, with a conviction that I ought to be horrified, and yet with an ungovernable feeling of relief. The only thoughts in my mind were, "He is safe!" and "He is free!" If only for a moment, at least it would be a moment!
Half an hour passed before the street could be cleared, and we could get across. Meanwhile in the fast-gathering dark, I kept hearing voices speaking with that stern ring they have when men are excited and talking among themselves, and hoofs of horses clattering off in the direction the Mexicans had taken.
Every moment my heart was in my mouth, lest suddenly should come the cry that Johnny Montgomery was found; but he seemed to have vanished as completely as if he had been made invisible; and presently a hateful thought crept into my mind: "What if it is the Spanish Woman who has played the enchantress?" The rumor was abroad that the sortie had been planned by some of Johnny Montgomery's friends—they were such wild fellows that their doing the thing would not seem extraordinary.
Yet the other explanation seemed so much more probable to me, so burningly evident. It came upon me with the shock of conviction, as if the Spanish Woman herself had whispered it in my ear, and I was afraid to look at any one lest he should read my thought in my conscious face. I kept my head bent and held my trembling lips tight, glad that the dark covered my agitations.
But later, at home, sitting on the edge of my bed, I told mother all about it. I did not form the words aloud, but when I sat there looking up at her pictured face I knew she understood every idea that went through my mind. My thoughts went back over the incidents of the trial. Each little separate memory struck the same note—the attempt to get him out of prison, the attempt to make way with witnesses, and finally this successful snatching of him from the law—it was the Spanish Woman who had been responsible each time, and now it was she. Oh, I understood now why Johnny Montgomery had smiled at me as I was giving my testimony! I had thought it had been to encourage me to go on, but it must have been a mere mockery, since he knew that, no matter what story I told, he was safe.
But, had he known it? When I recalled his white, set face I doubted. Yet at any rate, even in spite of him, she had saved him. He was gone, gone to her perhaps, and I was left with the mere comfort of having done what I thought was right. It was cold comfort when every feeling in me had been outraged by the doing, and now the forlorn doubt continually stirred as to the certainty that what I had done was right, if, as the Spanish Woman said, love was a woman's only virtue.
I was horrified to find myself, without apparent reason or any evident leading up to it, with that word on my lips. Love? Why, what had that to do with me? I looked in a fright at mother, as if I expected her to answer the question; but that timid look of hers seemed to have only a reflection of my own fear in it. With a sudden feeling of weakness and helplessness I hid my face in my hands.
From that moment I began to understand what father had meant the day he had said that I would need mother's picture now. It comforted me that she was there watching me and seeming to understand, never looking angrily at me no matter what foolish or frightening things I had to tell her, and there were so many in those days that followed—dreadful days for me! The very girls, my friends, even while with round, awed eyes they admired me for my heroic performance on the witness-stand, yet, for that very reason seemed to set me a little apart from themselves. And then the talk about the search for Johnny Montgomery, full of the cruel eagerness of men hunting a man!
The word had been that, of course, he would be retaken immediately. But the hours slipped away, and the days, and still there was no trace of him. The whole city was searched, and I discovered then that the Spanish Woman was far from escaping public suspicion. Detectives went in and out of her house, ransacking its remotest, most cunningly concealed places. She herself was closely questioned, but nothing could be elicited.