San Isidro

by Mrs. Schuyler Crowninshield

"We start for the coast this afternoon. Do not try to rescue her. I have a force of brave men who will protect me from any number that you may bring. We have colinos and escopetes in plenty. Your case is hopeless. You dare not attack me on land; you cannot attack me on the water."

Don Gil dashed the paper on the floor and ground savagely beneath his heel the signature "Rafael Escobeda."

"It is true," he said, shaking his head. "It is true; I am helpless!"

With a perplexed face and knitted brow he went into the outer room, closed the entrance door and took a flat bar of iron from its resting-place against the wall. This he fitted into the hasps at each side of the door, which were ready to receive it. Then he returned to the inner room, and secured the iron-sheathed door with two similar bars. After this was done, he looked somewhat ruefully at his handiwork. "The cage is secure," he said, "if I but had the bird."

Silencio opened the door which connected the office with the main part of the house. He closed and locked it behind him, and proceeded along a passage so dark that no light crept in except through the narrow slits beneath the eaves. When he had traversed this passage, he opened a further door and emerged at once into the main part of the house. Here everything was open, attractive, and alluring. Here spacious apartments gave upon broad verandas, whose flower boxes held blooms rare even in this garden spot of the world. Here were beauty and colour and splendour and glowing life.

Don Gil threw himself down in a hammock which stretched across a shady corner. Through the opening between the pilotijos, he could see the wooded heights in the distance, those heights beyond which Troja lay, Troja, which held his heart and soul. What to do? To-night she would set sail for the government town in the toils of Escobeda, her self-confessed betrayer and barterer—set sail for that hateful place where her worse than slavery would begin. The person to whom she was to be sold—none the less sold because the price paid did not appear on paper—was possessed of power and that might of which Escobeda had spoken in his letter—that might which makes right. He could give countenance to speculators and incorporators, he could grant concessions for an equivalent; into such keeping Escobeda, with his devil's calculation, was planning to deliver her—his Raquel, his little sweetheart. That she loved him he knew. A word and a glance are enough, and he had received many such. A note and a rose at the last festin, where she had been allowed to look on for a while under the eye of her old duenna! A pressure of her hand in the crowd, a trembling word of love under her breath in answer to his fierce and fiery ones!

The cause for love, its object does not know nor question. The fact is all that concerns him, and so far Silencio was secure. And here was this last appeal from the helpless girl! They had started by this time perhaps. Don Gil looked at the ancient timepiece which had descended from old Don Oviedo. Yes, they had started. It was now twenty minutes past six; they needed but two hours to ride to the Port of Entry. The steamer would not sail until between nine and ten o'clock. Very shortly Escobeda's party would cross the trocha, which at that point was a public highway. It ran through the Palmacristi estate, and neared the casa on the south. Could he not rescue her when they were so near? There were not three men within the home enclosure. The others had gone direct to their huts and ranchos from their work in the fields. He could not collect them now, and if he could, of what use a skirmish in the road? Escobeda was sure to ride with a large force, and a stray shot might do injury to Raquel herself. No, no! Some other way must be thought of.

Silencio arose, passed quickly through the casa and entered the patio. He ran up the stairs which ascended from the veranda to the flat roof above. He stood upon the roof, shading his eyes with his hand, and straining his vision to catch the first sight of Escobeda and his party of cut-throats. He was none too early. A cloud of dust on the near side of the cacao grove told him this, and then he heard the jingling of spurs and the sound of voices. A group of some thirty horsemen swept round the curve and came riding into full view. In their center rode a woman. She was so surrounded that by no effort of hers could she break through the determined-looking throng. One glance at those cruel faces, and Silencio's heart sank like lead.

The woman was gazing with appealing eyes at the Casa de Caoba. Silencio was not near enough to distinguish her features, but her attitude was hopeless and appealing, and he knew that it was Raquel the moment that he discovered her.

Suddenly she drew a handkerchief from her bosom and waved it above her head. There was something despairing and pitiable in her action. Silencio whirled his handkerchief wildly in the air. He was beside himself! Escobeda turned and struck the girl, who dropped her signal hand and drooped her head upon her breast.