“Enough—I accept your wager. Any one else may have their trial,” continued Vizcarra, addressing the crowd. “I shall replace the dollar whenever it is taken up—only one attempt, remember!”
Several made the attempt and failed. Some touched the coin, and even drew it from its position, but no one succeeded in lifting it.
At length a dragoon mounted on a large bay appeared in the list, who was recognised as the Sergeant Gomez. He was the same that had first come up with the bull, but failed to fling him; and no doubt that failure dwelling still in his thoughts added to the natural gloom of his very sallow face. He was a man of large size, unquestionably a good rider, but he lacked that symmetrical shape that gives promise of sinewy activity.
The feat required little preparation. The sergeant looked to his saddle-girths, disencumbered himself of his sabre and belts, and then set his steed in motion.
In a few minutes he directed his horse so as to shave past the shining coin, and then, bending down, he tried to seize it. He succeeded in lifting it up from the ground; but, owing to the slight hold he had taken, it dropped from his fingers before he had got it to the height of the stirrup.
A shout, half of applause and half of disapprobation, came from the crowd. Most were disposed to favour him on Vizcarra’s account. Not that they loved Colonel Vizcarra, but they feared him, and that made them loyal.
The cibolero now rode forth upon his shining black. All eyes were turned upon him. His handsome face would have won admiration, but for its very fairness. Therein lay a secret prejudice. They knew he was not of their race!
Woman’s heart has no prejudice, however; and along that line of dark-eyed “doncellas” more than one pair of eyes were sparkling with admiration for the blond “Americano,” for of such race was Carlos the cibolero.
Other eyes than woman’s looked favourably on the cibolero, and other lips murmured applause. Among the half-brutalised Tagnos, with bent limbs and downcast look, there were men who dreamt of days gone by; who knew that their fathers were once free; who in their secret assemblies in mountain cave, or in the deep darkness of the “estufa,” still burned the “sacred fire” of the god Quetzalcoatl—still talked of Moctezuma and Freedom.
These, though darker than all others, had no prejudice against the fair skin of Carlos. Even over their benighted minds the future had cast some rays of its light. A sort of mysterious presentiment, apparently instinctive, existed among them, that their deliverers from the yoke of Spanish tyranny would yet come from the East—from beyond the great plains!