She got up suddenly and paced the floor, her arms hugging her shoulders tight as if to keep from sobbing. He rose and stood watching, but uttered no word.
After a little she returned to the couch, and began to speak in a more even tone.
“There is so much to tell. Much happened. Conrad was driving José to do many things not at first in their plans. Also there was more drinking,––much more! It was Conrad made plans for the slave raids. He no longer asked José’s permission for anything; he gave command to the men and José had to listen. Only one secret thing was yet hidden from him, the hiding place of the guns from the north. José said if that was uncovered he might as well give up his ranchos. In his heart he could not trust Conrad. Each had a watch set on the other! Juan got his death because he made rendezvous with the German.
“That is how it was when the slave raid was made north of here, and the most beautiful Indian girl killed herself somewhere in this desert when there was no other way to escape the man;––the scar on the face of Conrad was from her knife. It was a bad cut, and after that there was trouble, and much drink and mad quarrels. Also it was that time Juan Gonsalvo was shot and died from it. Juana, his sister, came in secret for me while he could yet speak, and that was when–––”
She halted, closing her eyes as if to shut out some horror. He thought she shrank from remembrance of how the secret of Soledad was given to her, for Juan must have been practically a dead man when he gave it up. After a moment she went on in the sad tone of the utterly hopeless.
“I speak of the mad quarrels of those two men, Ramon, but it was never of that I had fear. The fear came each time the quarrel was done, and they again swore to be friends, for in the new ‘friend hours’ of drinking, strange things happened, strange wagers and strange gifts.”
Again she paused, and this time she lifted her eyes to Rotil.
“Always I hated the German. I never carried a blade until after his eyes followed me! He tried to play the prince, the great gentleman, with me––a girl of the hills! Only once he touched my hand, and I scoured it with sand afterwards while José laughed. But the German did not laugh,––he only watched me! Once when José was in a rage with me Conrad said he could make of me a great lady in his own land if I would listen. Instead of listening I showed him my knife. After that God only knows what he told against me, but José became bitter––bitter, and jealous, and spies always at my back!
“So Lucita and Mariano and I made plans. They were to marry, and we three would steal away in secret and cross the border. That was happiness to plan, for my life––my life was hell, so I thought! But I had not yet learned what hell could be,” she confessed drearily.
“Tell me,” he said very gently. Those who thought they knew “El Gavilan,” the merciless, would not have recognized his voice at that moment.