“Oh, can it be so—could it be so?” she faltered, as she raised a hand to hold back the tears.
An hour later Robles was in the little Mexican churchyard, scattering the rose blooms gathered by his daughter Merle on the graves of the dead relatives whose names she would never know as such. Already there were the flowers that Tia Teresa had that morning brought—a garland of white arum lilies around the cross that marked the sleeping place of Rosetta, wreaths of rich red carnations on the tombstone inscribed with the father’s and the mother’s names.
And now on the turf beneath the memorials Don Manuel, with lingering fingers, dropped the roses here and there, as if to rest with their beauty and their fragrance on the forms of his beloved dead. The last bloom fluttered to the ground. Then, standing erect, hands upraised, no words uttered, but with the unspoken words none the less reverberating through his very soul, he vowed once again the vendetta which he had sworn on the identical spot thirty long years before.
When he turned to leave the tiny hamlet of the dead, a wonderful transformation had come over his countenance. The placid calm was gone; the fierce fire of implacable hatred and unswervable resolve burned in his eyes. He had bidden adieu to all the softer things in this life. His sole concern now was with the enemy whom he had marked down for death that night.
CHAPTER XXXV—At Comanche Point
BEN THURSTON, during the afternoon, seated in his big armchair, had first nodded over a newspaper and then dropped off to sleep. He was awakened by a touch on the shoulder—rudely awakened, for he jumped to his feet, and in a dazed way glared at the disturber.
“Excuse me,” apologized Leach Sharkey, “but I want to remind you that this is the afternoon when we are to meet that old Portugee I told you about.”
“I need no reminder,” was the gruff reply. “I am ready to start when you are. By the way, what’s the fellow’s name?”