With a sharp dig of the spur his horse sprang half-way across the road, a black, prancing shadow against the glare of light. She saw the rider fling up one arm, and bring down the stinging quirt on the animal's flank; the next instant, with a bound, they were swallowed up in the darkness. A moment she leaned against the shack, nerveless, half fainting from reaction, her face deathly white. Then she inhaled a long, deep breath, gathered her skirts closely within one hand, and plunged boldly into the black alley.
CHAPTER XIII
TWO WOMEN
Mercedes stood in the shade of the towering hillside, the single beam of light shining from an uncurtained window alone faintly revealing her slenderness of figure in its red drapery. No other gleam anywhere cleft the prevailing darkness of the night, and the only perceptible sound was that of horses' hoofs dying away in the distance. The girl was not crying, although one of her hands was held across her eyes, and her bosom rose and fell tumultuously to labored breathing. She stood silent, motionless, the strange radiance causing her to appear unreal, some divinely moulded statue, an artist's dream carven in colored stone. Suddenly she sprang backward from out that revealing tongue of light and crouched low at the angle of the house, not unlike some affrighted wild animal, her head bent forward intently listening. There was a plainly perceptible movement in the gloom, the sound of an approaching footstep and of rapid breathing, and finally a shadow became visible. The watcher leaped to her feet half angrily.
"Ah! so eet vas you, señorita!" she exclaimed, her voice betraying her emotion,—"you, who come so dis night. Sapristi! vy you follow me dis vay? By all de saints, I make you tell me dat! You vant him, too? You vant rob me of all thing?"
The visitor, startled by this sudden challenge, stood before her trembling from head to foot with the nervous excitement of her journey, yet her eyes remained darkly resolute.
"You recognize me," she responded quickly, reaching out and touching the other with one hand, as if to make certain of her actual presence. "Then for God's sake do not waste time now in quarrelling. I did not make this trip without a purpose. 'He,' you say? Who is he? Who was it that rode away from here just now? Not Farnham?"
Mercedes laughed a trifle uneasily, her eyes suddenly lowered before the other's anxious scrutiny.
"Ah, no, señorita," she answered softly. "Eet surprises me mooch you not know; eet vas Señor Brown."