"Something wrong with Felicidad?" from Morales.
"Yesterday," said Quesada, "my mother died. She had long grieved for my father, but we fear it was not grief alone which killed her. We fear, senores," and his voice lowered—"we fear cholera!"
CHAPTER XXI
The cabalgadores started in horror and a kind of personal fear. Explained Quesada with grave composure:
"In this autumnal season of sudden weather changes, it is forever scaling these hills, the cholera, and skulking into the pueblos in the night. When the rain sweeps down, muddying our water and making howling torrents of the dog trails, we cannot descend the sierras for the fruits of the plains; we must subsist on our few scanty vegetables; and the impure water and the poor, changeless diet bring on the plague. When the sun breaks through the squalls and fogs, the abrupt alteration of damp and dry stony heat aggravate the conditions. Therefore, whenever one of us dies in this season and there is no doctor to tell us exactly why that one died, we instantly think of the cholera.
"It was thus in my mother's case. The only doctor near here who will journey up these perilous goat paths and moaning gorges to help the poor serranos, is the hidalgo doctor, Don Jaime de Torreblanca y Moncada, a grandee of Spain and Felicidad's own father. We sent one of the villagers for him, but he was away looking for Felicidad and for his stolen money. And my mother died. It may be nothing, senores; it may be the dread cholera; but at least, mis caballeros, I have warned you."
Questioningly, almost with haughty challenge, he looked at Morales. The matador hesitated. He glanced at his cuadrilla. Whether because of the privations they had suffered, or because of the pale light from the chance moonbeams, or because of an inconcealable revulsion and dread, the faces of the bullfighters looked blanched and sharply haggard. The matador turned for moral aid to the American.
Carson was engrossed in a perplexity of thought. Was this but an obstacle suddenly contrived and cunningly put in their way to cause them to take the bandolero's word on its face value, without seeking further to ascertain the facts about the girl? Quesada had left himself room to crawl out. It might be nothing, he had said, or it might be a noxious pestilence. It could always prove to be nothing.
"We will risk the chance," decided the American with determination. "We will go with you to your barrio."