She shuddered, and laid down quickly the knife she had lifted from beside her plate, and glanced away when she found him regarding her.
“It has been long weeks since I was trusted as you are trusting me here,” she continued quietly. “See! On my wrists were chains at first.”
“And this Marto Cavayso did that?” demanded Kit as she showed her scarred slender wrist over which Valencia had wept.
“No, it was before Cavayso––he is a new man––so I think this was when Conrad was first helping to plan me as an insane woman and have me put secretly to prison, but some fear struck José Perez, and that plan would not serve. In the dark of night I was half smothered in wraps and put in an ox-cart of a countryman and hauled north out of the city. Two men rode as guard. They chained me in the day and slept, traveling only in the night until they met Cavayso and his men. After that I remember little, I was so weary of life! One alcalde asked about me and Cavayso said I was his wife who had run away with a gypsy fiddler, and he was taking me home to my children. Of what use to speak? A dozen men would have added their testimony to his, and had sport in making other romance against me. They were sullen because they thought I had jewels hid under my clothes, and Cavayso would not let them search me. It has been hell in these hills of Sonora, Señor Pajarito.”
“That is easy to understand,” agreed Kit wondering at her endurance, and wondering at the poise and beauty of her after such experience. There was no trace of nervousness, or of tears, or self-pity. It was as if all this of which she told had been a minor affair, dwarfed by some tragic thing to which he had no key.
“So, Conrad was in this plot against you?” he asked, and knew that Tula, standing back of his chair had missed no word. “You mean the German Conrad who is manager of Granados ranches across the border?”
“Señor, I mean the beast whose trail is red with the blood of innocence, and whose poison is sinking into the veins of Mexico like a serpent, striking secretly, now here, now there, until the blood of the land is black with that venom. Ay! I know, señor;––the earth is acrawl with the German lizards creeping into the shining sun of Mexico! This so excellent Don Adolf Conrad is only one, and José Perez is his target––I am the one to know that! A year ago, and Don José was a man, with faults perhaps; but who is perfect on this earth? Then came Don Adolf riding south and is very great gentleman and makes friends. His home in Hermosillo becomes little by little the house of Perez, and little by little Perez goes on crooked paths. That is true! First it was to buy a ship for coast trade, then selling rifles in secret where they should not be sold, then––shame it is to tell––men and women were sold and carried on that ship like cattle! Not rebels, señor, not prisoners of battle,––but herdsmen and ranch people, poor Indian farmers whom only devils would harm! Thus it was, señor, until little by little Don Adolf knew so much that José Perez awoke to find he had a master, and a strong one! It was not one man alone who caught him in the net; it was the German comrades of Don Adolf who never forgot their task, even when he was north in the States. They needed a man of name in Hermosillo, and José Perez is now that man. When the whip of the German cracks, he must jump to serve their will.”
“But José Perez is a strong man. Before this day he has wiped many a man from his trail if the man made him trouble,” ventured Kit.
“You have right in that, señor, but I am telling you it is a wide net they spread and in that net he is snared. Also his household is no longer his own. The Indian house servants are gone, and outlaw Japanese are there instead. That is true and their dress is the dress of Indians. They are Japanese men of crimes, and German men gave aid that they escape from justice in Japan. It is because they need such men for German work in Mexico, men who have been taught German and dare not turn rebel. Not an hour of the life of José Perez is free from the eyes of a spy who is a man of crimes. And there are other snares. They tell him that he is to be a governor by their help;––that is a rich bait to float before the eyes of a man! His feet are set on a trail made by Adolph Conrad,––He is trapped, and there is no going back. Poison and shame and slavery and death have come upon that trail like black mushrooms grown in a night, and what the end of the trail will be is hid in the heart of God.”
“But your sympathy is with those women in slavery there in the south, and not with the evil friend of José Perez?” asked Kit.