"Would to God she had been spared!" answered the Captain, his voice choking with emotion. Yet each felt as they gazed on her upturned face, whose expression was rather that of sleep than of death, that she was better off thus; for what did life hold for her?
XXXVI
For most men death ends all things, but for those whose souls are illumined by the unquenchable flame of faith, death is but the beginning of life.
The news of the tragedy, following swift upon that of Juan Ramon's death, spread like wildfire, fairly taking the people's breath away, and throwing the community into a tumult of excitement. Not since the days when the victorious American armies had entered Mexico and laid waste the land, had there been such a commotion in the old town.
The community was shaken to its center. What would happen next? Old women paused in the midst of their chatter and, crossing themselves, said an extra ave as a protection against the Evil One; for no one knew who would be taken next.
Don Felipe Ramirez, the handsomest and wealthiest and most influential man in Chihuahua, dead—at the hand of a woman—an Indian!
Most people admitted that he had merited death. That his end was a just punishment for his misdeeds, but then, had it not been for the woman who had wrecked his life, how different his end might have been!
Juan Ramon would be missed for a day at the gaming tables, but the beautiful American Señorita—why should she have paid the price of blood? It was too much. The popular outburst was tremendous, quite beyond Padre Antonio's influence or control. The evil and tragedy which the witch seemed to draw with her in her train far outweighed the good she had accomplished since her advent in the town. And if the grand Señor, Captain Forest, of an alien race, still chose to remain in the place, why, let him look to his personal safety if he still set store upon his life.
Such was popular sentiment, and out of the countless maledictions that were heaped upon the dark woman and the man she had bewitched, there grew that sullen and ominous silence of presentiment like that preceding a storm, and which boded but one end to them both—death.
José and Dick were the first to apprise the Captain of the true state of affairs, although he had not remained insensible to the threatening looks and dark, sullen faces that greeted him on every hand.