Be that as it may, her unexpected and erratic performance caused an echoing panic to sweep over the other passengers. Even the bandoleros felt the contagion. Cursing excitedly, two of them started to pursue the golden-haired girl, while the third, Rafael Perez, standing near Quesada, raised his carbine and screamed hoarsely:
"Come back here, you outrageous minx!"
The crowd, momentarily free from the dread of the bandoleros, had commenced an insensate shouting and milling. Now, had Perez fired off the carbine, the whole hold-up might have ended then and there for the bandoleros in an inglorious headlong rout. The passengers, already out of thrall to the salteadores, would have risen in tumultuous, uncontrollable fury at this firing on a defenseless woman.
But Jacinto Quesada rose to the crisis and saved the situation. Excited though he was, he sprung toward Perez, tore the carbine from his hands and, pointing it at the crowd, shouted imperiously to his men:
"Back, you fools, to your stations! Guard these people. Shoot any that break away! And don't mind the girl! I'll bring her back—I, and no one else!"
Presto! and the bandoleros were back in their old positions, their carbines sweeping the crowd. The imminent danger of stampede was dissipated. The discipline of dread again prevailed.
Handing the carbine back to Perez, Jacinto Quesada started after the girl. She had fled without aim, without purpose, he thought, like a frightened doe that cares not where she flees so long as she flees from the huntsmen. Her panicky flight would do little good, however; a sort of trap was the stalled train, not a refuge and sanctuary.
The girl was just about to open the door of one of the third-class coaches and fling herself therein when, all at once, she cast back a look, first at her tall blond mustached husband, then at Quesada. Strangely, her glances seemed to have become preposterously mixed. It was a look of dread and loathing she threw back toward her husband; and a look of entreaty and beseeching she sent toward the pursuing bandolero!
With his long mountaineer's legs, Jacinto Quesada sprinted to the train. Hardly had the door of the third-class carriage closed behind the golden-haired girl than he was at that door. Open he flung it and in he burst.
"Felicidad! Felicidad, querida mia, my darling! It is I, Jacinto—Jacinto Quesada! You have naught to fear from me. And if you had told me that he, the Frenchman, was your husband, I would not have robbed him. Porvida! everything taken already shall be given him back. And as for you, dear Felicidad—"