For the Soul of Rafael

by Marah Ellis Ryan

"He is paralyzed by the fear that I may give some old proofs of things to the alcalde. Oh, Victorio is all right. He knows two Indian sailors who will say nothing. They need to get away, and want a chance. We will bind and gag the others and put them ashore. It is all settled. The saints be thanked that I know boats and the coast!"

Bryton scarcely knew whether to think the plan a wild fancy or an actual fact. The whole scheme of life those days was so filled with the strange and tragic, that all the echoes of laughter and the tinkle of guitars in the corridors could not even temper it.

At sunset Rafael Arteaga rode a dripping horse into the plaza, and shouted cordial responses to the chorus of greetings awaiting him. All the day he had been in the saddle. "On business," was the only explanation to Don Eduardo and Doña Maria. To his wife he had offered none, nor spoken since the scene in the chapel. But he was in high good spirits, gay and eager.

He came direct to Bryton's room with a fine air of delight that he was on his feet again. Even to Padre Libertad, whom he had so fervently cursed the day before, he was at last gracious. When told by Ana that the padre was on his journey south either at once or early in the morning, he gave her some gold pieces to bestow upon him for his church or his order: priests always had all sorts of ways to use money. Padre Libertad accepted the alms gratefully, and exchanged for them a blessing.

The sun was gone, and men, and women too, were riding in from outlying ranches. The Indians and Mexicans were trooping to the plaza to watch the gay caballeros and dark-eyed ladies in the dresses of their grandparents. Raquel Arteaga, dressed in simple black, with white undersleeves and white chemisette of silk, stood in the corridor for a while and greeted her earlier guests, while her husband dressed. All the people were on the west side of the plaza, where the dancing was to be. Bryton could see her there surrounded by the gay people, almost nunlike with the strings of black pearls around her throat as sole ornament, and in the braids of her hair the white stars of the odorous jasmine, thrust there by Ana, to break the severity of her garb. Her eyes burned like purple stars, and the pink color crept, in spite of herself, to her cheeks, and stayed there. Somewhere, she knew, one man was watching her, and each moment the terror grew that some of their many friends would bring him to her and make it impossible for him to refuse to come.

Several times she caught the eyes of Ana regarding her curiously. It was the first time she had ever seen Raquel surrounded by men and bandying compliments, and looking, for all her nunlike white and black, like a royal creature at a puppet show. And Ana had a sort of triumph in noting that the eyes of Doña Angela also wandered to her hostess in a sort of petulant amaze at the supremacy of her, when she chose to unbend and radiate graciousness in that manner. For Raquel jested and laughed at the pretty phrases of caballeros murmured in her ear. She refused a brooch of emerald for the Virgin in the chapel, in exchange for the jasmine in her hair. She promised two men to say a rosary for their aching hearts, and she allowed the older men to kiss her hands. One looking at her said:

"You are Mexico come to life to-night, señora. Always I have thought it. But to-night I see it with my own eyes. Mexico has always that glory of the opal fires at the heart."

Angela Bryton saw and heard, and her own childish appeal appeared all at once cheap and of tinsel. The pearls and brocades of the woman she hated seemed to scorch her flesh, and she felt the truth of the petulant words she had said to Rafael: that the pearls had been tossed to her with the indifference of a queen. The owner of the casket could afford to stand serene and gemless, with only the jasmine flower in her hair, and yet dominate.

A cold rage filled her as she realized what Raquel could mean to men if she cared. It would be as it was when they met first on the hill, always she would hold the middle of the road, if she was aroused to care. Up to that moment there had been a wild fancy of perhaps sailing away alone with the hastily gathered coin, and of stopping at no port for Rafael. She was half afraid of him and after all what could he do if she did elude him like that? But the sight of Raquel and her little court of admirers changed all that. The proud eyes should know all the humiliation one woman could cause another—all!

She looked for Rafael; at once she would tell him,—now, while the glory of the Mexican opal eclipsed the woman of the royal pearls! She was blind with anger to every other thing. But he had not yet appeared. He was dressing, and a gentleman came to claim her for a dance. The guitars were already sending harmonies through the open doors, and the people were gathering thick along the western corridors. The rest of the plaza and the inner court were deserted. Not even a pair of lovers strayed from the crowd as yet. Later, when the moon came up, they would gather courage, but the shadows of the corridors seemed eerie retreats at night to any but souls oblivious to the world.