Don Ramon suddenly cut short the colloquy by angrily closing the curtains, and hiding himself from our sight.
During the whole scene I had great difficulty in controlling my countenance. I could perceive that the Mexican laboured under a similar difficulty. There was a laughing devil in the corner of his keen eye that required restraint; and I thought once or twice either he or I should lose our equanimity. I certainly should have done so, but that my heart and eyes were most of the time in other quarters. As for the Don, he was playing an important part; and a suspicion of his hypocrisy, on the minds of some of the leather-clad greasers who listened to the dialogue, might have afterwards brought him to grief. Most of them were his own domestics and retainers, but not all. There were free rancheros among them—some who belonged to the pueblita itself—some, perchance, who had figured in pronunciamentos—who voted at elections, and styled themselves citizens. The Don, therefore, had good reasons for assuming a character; and well did the old gentleman sustain it.
As he drew the curtain, his half-whispered “Adios capitan!” heard only by myself, sounded full of sweetness and promise; and I felt rather contented as I straightened myself in the saddle, and issued the order for rieving his cattle.
Chapter Nine.
“Un Papelcito.”
Wheatley now rode after the troop, with which Holingworth had already entered the corral. A band of drivers was speedily pressed into service; and with these the two lieutenants proceeded to the great plain at the foot of the hill, where most of Don Ramon’s cattle were at pasture. By this arrangement I was left alone, if I except the company of half-a-dozen slippered wenches—the deities of the cocina—who, clustered in the corner of the patio, eyed me with mingled looks of curiosity and fear.
The verandah curtains remained hermetically closed, and though I glanced at every aperture that offered a chance to an observing eye, no one appeared to be stirring behind them.
“Too high-bred—perhaps indifferent?” thought I. The latter supposition was by no means gratifying to my vanity. “After all, now that the others are gone out of the way, Don Ramon might ask me to step inside. Ah! no—these mestizo women would tell tales: I perceive it would never do. I may as well give it up. I shall ride out, and join the troop.”