"And now," said the prospector, when the misunderstanding between them had been thus settled, "the morning star is up, and it will be dawn directly. We must take the body down to San Remo that it may be buried by his own people."
He went out to the meadow and brought up the horse and put the saddle on him. With no small difficulty they lifted the corpse on to it and made it fast there, and then, with Felipe at the horse's head, and Stephens holding the sad burden in place, they made their way back to the trail, and so down once more from the sierra to the village.
CHAPTER XXVII AULD ACQUAINTANCE
The sun was already well up in the eastern sky when the strange funeral procession entered San Remo. The news of the event spread like wildfire, and friendly hands were ready to aid Stephens in lifting down the dead man's corpse at the door of what yesterday had been his home, while kind-hearted women full of sympathy went into the house to break the tidings to her whose hearth was made desolate. Then a dreadful sound broke upon his ears; it was the cry of agony that told that the wife knew that she was a wife no more but a widow. It was a piercing cry, that wounded the hearts of all who heard it, for the ring of mortal pain was there.
Unaccustomed to all violent appeals to feeling, Stephens found this heart-rending wail unbearable. Duty to the dead claimed him no longer, and he must hurry away.
"Thanks, friends," he said to the Mexicans who had aided him to lift the body down, "a thousand thanks for your kindness in this aid. Adios, amigos, I must be going. Adios." He led the horse, now lightened of his burden, away from the door, Felipe following. He could not mount in the saddle which Death had just vacated; it seemed to him as if it would be a sort of sacrilege. That agonised cry of the bereaved woman haunted him still. Loathing Backus though he did, this evidence that to one soul, at least, in this incomprehensible world, he had been all in all, struck home to him. Likely enough the man had been good to her, scoundrel though he was; but what an amazing thing must be this bond of marriage that could thus link heart to heart, even when one of the pair was no better than a treacherous coward.
At Don Nepomuceno's he found Manuelita, but not alone. Not only were her aunt and Juana there—that was of course—but the visits of interested friends had not yet ceased, seeing that everyone naturally wanted to hear the exciting story from her own lips. And now it came the American's turn to entertain the company; while food was being hospitably prepared for him, he had to come in and sit down among the ladies, and give some account of what had befallen him while searching for the bones of the murdered prospector. He passed over Felipe's attempt on his life in silence and merely spoke of having met him at the old ruined pueblo, where they heard through the darkness the cry of the dying victim of the rattlesnake, and vainly endeavoured to help him to resist the fatal venom. He told the tale at length, and with a freedom and fulness of detail that surprised himself. But all the time there was one thing present before his mind, and that was the very thing that he could whisper no word of to the eager circle around him; it must be kept for one and one only; but ever as he talked his eyes sought those of the Mexican girl, not once but many times, and they spoke to her silently and ardently.