XXI.
Leon Vallé had not parted from his sister in declared hostility, yet months passed before she heard directly from him. But this was not to be wondered at, as letters were necessarily sent by private carriers, and it was not to be expected that in the adventurous excitement of his life he should pause to send a mere salutation over leagues of desolate country.
Meanwhile the prevailing anarchy of the time crept closer and closer to the hacienda limits. Bandits gathered in the mountains and ravaged the outlying villages, driving off flocks of sheep or herds of cattle, lassoing the finest horses, and mocking the futile efforts of the country people to guard their property. The name of one Juan Planillos became a terror in every household; yet one by one the younger men stole away to strengthen the number of his followers and share the wild excitement of the bandit life, rather than to wait patiently at home to be drafted into the ranks of some political chieftain whose career raised little enthusiasm, and whose political creed was as obscure as his origin. “The memory is confused,” says an historian, “by the plans andpronunciamientosof that time. Men changed ideas at each step, and defended to-day what they had attacked yesterday. Parties triumphed and fell at every turn.” The form of government was as changeable as a kaleidoscope, and only the brigand and guerilla seemed immutable. Whatever the politics of the day, their motto was plunder and rapine; and their deeds, so brilliant, so unforeseeable, offered an irresistible attraction to the restless spirits of that revolutionary epoch.
Though Doña Isabel Garcia, like all others, was imbued with the military ardor of the time, the brilliant reputation that her brother was winning in distant fields, though in harmony with her own political opinions, horrified rather than dazzled her. She shuddered as she heard his namementioned in the same breath with that of the remorseless Valdez, or the crafty and bloody Planillos; yet she was glad to believe his incentive was patriotism rather than plunder, and when at last a messenger from him reached her with the same old cry for “Money! money! money!” she responded with a heaping handful of gold,—all she had been able to accumulate in the few months of his absence. Don Gregorio however, vexed by recent losses and harassed by constant raids from the mountain brigands, sent a refusal that was worded almost like a curse; and ashamed of her brother, annoyed by and yet sympathizing with her husband, Doña Isabel felt her heart sink like lead in her bosom, and for the first time her superb health showed signs of yielding to the severe mental strain to which she had been so long subjected.
June had come again; the rainy season would soon begin, and Don Gregorio, suddenly thinking that the change would benefit his wife, suggested that they should pass some months in the city. The roads were threatened by highwaymen, yet Isabel was glad to go, and even to incur the novelty of danger. Her travelling carriage was luxurious, and with her little girls immediately under her own eye, with an occasional glimpse of the four-year-old Norberto riding proudly at his father’s side in the midst of the numerous escort of picked men, she felt an exhilaration both of body and mind to which she had long been a stranger.
The travelling was necessarily slow, for the roads were excessively rough, and the party had at sunset of the first day scarcely left the limits of the hacienda and entered the defile which led to the deeper cañons of the mountains, wherein upon the morrow they anticipated the necessity of exercising a double vigilance. Not a creature had been seen for hours; the mountains with their straggling clumps of cacti and blackened, stunted palms seemed absolutely bereft of animal life, except when occasionally a lizard glided swiftly over a rock, or a snake rustled through the dry and crackling herbage. Caution seemed absurd in such a place where there was scarce a cleft for concealment, yet the party drew nearer together, and the men looked to their arms as the cliffs became closer on either side and so precipitous that it seemed as though a goat could scarcely have scaled them.
They had passed nearly the entire length of this cañon, and the nervous tension that had held the whole party silent and upon the alert was gradually yielding to the glimpse of more open country which lay beyond, and on which they had planned to camp for the night, when suddenly the whole country seemed alive with men. They blocked the way, backward and forward; they hung from the cliffs; they bounded from rock to rock, on foot and on horse, the horses as agile as the men. Amid the tumult one man seemed ubiquitous. All eyes followed him, yet not one caught sight of his face; the striped jorongo thrown over shoulders and face formed an impenetrable disguise, such as the noted guerilla chief of the mountains was wont to wear. Suddenly there was a cry of “Planillos! Planillos!” amid the confusion of angry voices, of curses, and the clanking of sabres and echo of pistol-shots. Don Gregorio found himself driven against the rocks, a sword-point at his throat, a pistol pressed to his temple, his own smoking weapon in his hand.
Immediately the shouts ceased, and before the smoke which had filled the gorge had cleared, the travellers found themselves alone, with two or three dead men obstructing the road. Don Gregorio had barely time to notice them, or the blank faces of his men staring bewildered at one another, when a cry from Doña Isabel recalled him to his senses, and he saw her rushing wildly from group to group. In an instant he was at her side. “Norberto! where is Norberto?” both demanded wildly, and some of the men who had caught the name began to force their horses up the almost inaccessible cliffs, and to gallop up or down the cañon in a confused pursuit of the vanished enemy.
Don Gregorio alone retained his presence of mind; though night was closing in and the horses were wearied by a day’s travel, not a moment was lost in dispatching couriers to the city for armed police and to the hacienda for fresh men and horses, and the return to Tres Hermanos was immediately begun. Sometime during the morning hours they were met by a party from the hacienda, and putting himself at the head of his retainers Don Gregorio led them in search of his son, while Doña Isabel in a state bordering upon distraction proceeded to her desolated home.
Her first act was to send a courier to her brother. No one knew the mountains as he did, and in her terrible plight she was certain he would not fail her. But her haste was needless, for information reached him from some other source, and within a few days he was at the head of a party of valiant Garcias, who had hastened from far and near to the rescue of their young kinsman.
In all the country round the abduction of Norberto Garcia was called “the abduction by enchanters,”—so sudden had been the attack, so complete the disappearance of the victim. Beyond the immediate scene no trace remained of the act,—it seemed that the very earth must have opened to swallow the perpetrators; and yet day by day proofs of their existence were found in letters left upon the very saddle crossed by the father, or upon the pillow wet with the tears of the mother, demanding ransom which each day became more exorbitant, accompanied by threats more and more ingenious and horrible.
Such seizures, though rare, were by no means unprecedented, and such threats had been proved to be only too likely to be fulfilled. As days went by the agony of the parents became unbearable, and Don Gregorio’s early resolution to spend a fortune in the pursuit and punishment of the robbers rather than comply with their demands, and thus lend encouragement to similar outrages, began to yield before the imminent danger to the life of his son; and to Doña Isabel it seemed a cruel mockery that her brother and the young Garcias should urge him to further exertion and postponement of the inevitable moment when he must accede to the imperious demands of the outlaws.
The family were one evening discussing again the momentous and constantly agitated question, when Doña Feliz appeared among them with starting eyes and pallid cheeks, bidding Don Gregorio go to his wife, from whose nerveless hand she had wrested a paper, which Leon seized and opened as the excited woman held it toward him. Don Gregorio turned back at his brother-in-law’s exclamation, and beheld upon his outstretched hand a lock of soft brown hair, evidently that of a child. It had been severed from the head by a bloody knife. It was a mute threat, yet they understood it but too well. Every man there sprang to his feet with a groan or anoath. Such a threat they remembered had been sent to the parents the very day before the infant Ranulfo Ortega had been found dead not a hundred yards from his father’s door. Did this mean also that the last demand for ransom had been made, and the patience of Norberto’s abductors was exhausted?
Don Gregorio clasped his hands over his eyes, and reeled against the wall. Leon sprang to his feet, pale to his lips, his eyes blazing. Julian Garcia picked up the hair which had fallen from Leon’s hand; the others stood grouped in horrified expectancy. Doña Feliz stood for a moment looking at them with lofty courage and determination upon her face.
“What,” she cried, “is this a time for hesitation? The money must be paid, the child’s life saved. Vengeance can wait!” She spoke with a fire that thrilled them, and though they spoke but of the ransom, it was the word “vengeance” that rang in their ears, and steeled Don Gregorio to the terrible task that awaited him.
That night the quaint hiding-places of the vast hacienda were ransacked, and many a hoard of coin was extracted from the deep corners of the walls, and the depths of half-ruinous wells. Doña Isabel saw treasures of whose existence she had never heard before, but had perhaps vaguely suspected; for through the long years of anarchy the Garcias had become expert in secreting such surplus wealth as they desired to keep within reach. Large as was the sum brought to light, it barely sufficed to meet the demands of the robbers; yet it was a question how such a weight of coin was to be conveyed by one person to the spot indicated for the payment of the ransom and delivery of the child,—for it had been urgently insisted upon that but one man should go into the very stronghold of the bandits.
At daybreak, having refused the offer of Leon Vallé to go in his stead, Don Gregorio mounted his horse and set out on his mission. He knew well the place appointed, for he had been in his youth an adventurous mountaineer, and more than once had penetrated the deep gorge into which, late in the afternoon, he descended, bearing with him the gold and silver. As he entered the “Zahuan del Infierno” he shuddered. Not ten days before he had passedthrough it, followed by a dozen trusty followers, in search of his child, and had discovered no trace of him; now he was alone, weighted with treasure, sufficient sensibly to retard his movements and render him a rich prize for the outlaws he had gone to meet. Once he fancied he heard a step behind him; doubtless he was shadowed by those who would take his life without a moment’s hesitation. Yet he pressed on, obliged to leave his horse and proceed on foot, for at times the cliffs were so close together that a man could barely force his way between them.
Just as the last rays of daylight pierced the gloomy abyss, at a sudden turn in the narrowest part of the gorge Don Gregorio saw standing two armed men, placed in such a position that the head of one overtopped that of the other, while the features of both were shadowed though made the more forbidding by heavy black beards, which it occurred to him later were probably false and worn for the purpose of disguise. At the feet of the foremost was placed a child; and though he restrained the cry that rose to his lips, the tortured father recognized in him his son,—but so emaciated, so deathly pale, with such wild, startled eyes, gazing like a hunted creature before him, yet seeing nothing, that he could scarcely credit it was the same beautiful, sensitive, highly-strung Norberto who had been wrested from him but a short month before.
At the sight the father felt an almost irresistible impulse to precipitate himself upon those fiends who thus dared to mock him; but even had his hands been free to grasp the pistol in his belt, to have done so would have been to bring upon himself certain death. As it was he could but look with blind rage from the bags of coin he carried to the brigands who stood like statues, the right hand of the foremost laid upon the throat of the trembling boy. Even in that desperate moment Don Gregorio noticed that the hand was whiter and more slender than the hands of common men are wont to be; the nails were well formed and well kept, though there was a bruise or mark on the second one, as though it had met some recent injury. He was not conscious at the time that he noticed this, but it came to him afterward. The foremost man did not speak; it was the other who in a soft voice, as evenly modulated as thoughto words of purest courtesy, bade the Señor Garcia welcome, and thanked him for his prompt appearance.
“Let us dispense with compliments,” said Don Gregorio, huskily. “Here is the money you have demanded for my child. I know something of the honor of bandits, and as you can gain nothing by falsifying your word, I have chosen to trust in it. Here am I, alone with the gold,” and he poured it out on the rock at the child’s feet,—“count it if you will;” and he put out his hand and laid it upon the child’s shoulder. As he did so his hand touched the brigand’s, and both started, glaring like two tigers before they spring; but at that moment Norberto bounded over the scattered heap of coin and into his father’s arms.
As he felt that slight form within his grasp the father reeled, and his sight failed him; a voice presently recalled him to his senses, and glancing up he saw the two men still standing motionless, with their pistols levelled upon him and the child.
“The Señor will find it best to withdraw backward,” said the bandit; “there is not space here for me to have the honor of passing and leading the way, and it is even too narrow for your grace to turn. You will find your horse at the entrance to the gorge; it has been well cared for. Adios, Señor, and may every felicity attend this fortunate termination of our negotiations.”
“I doubt not there will,” cried Don Gregorio, though in a voice of perfect politeness, “for I swear to you I will unearth the villains who have tortured and robbed me, and give myself a moment of exquisite joy with every drop of life-blood I slowly wring from them. You have my gold, and I have my child, and now—Vengeance!”
Gregorio Garcia knew so well the peculiar ideas of honor among bandits as well as the spirit of his countrymen that perhaps he was assured that no immediate risk would follow this proclamation. The word “vengeance” rang from cliff to cliff, yet the bandits only smiled mockingly and bowed, waving a hand in token of farewell, as with what haste he might he withdrew. A turn in the gorge soon hid them from his sight, and staggering through the darkness, he hastened on with his precious burden, feeling that Norberto had fainted in his aims.
It was near midnight when Don Gregorio reached the hacienda, and needless is it to attempt to describe the joy of the mother at sight of her child, though Norberto, after one faint cry of recognition, laid his head upon her breast with a long shuddering sigh, which warned her that his strength and courage had been so overtaxed that they were, perhaps, destroyed forever.
As days passed, it seemed evident that the mind of the boy was suffering from the shock. The male relatives who during the absence of Don Gregorio had mostly dispersed to find, manlike, some distraction a-field, returned one by one to embrace him; but he turned from each with unreasoning fear and aversion, unable to distinguish between them and the strangers in whose hands he had been held a prisoner. At some of them he gazed as if fascinated, especially at his Uncle Leon; and when by any chance the latter touched him he would burst into agonizing wails, which ceased only when his father held him closely in his arms, whispering words of affection and encouragement.
Before many days it became evident that Norberto was dying. There was a constant, low, shuddering cry upon his lips, “He will kill me!—he will kill me if I tell!” and the horrified father and mother became convinced that Norberto knew at least one of his captors, and that deadly fear alone prevented him from uttering the name. They entreated him in vain; and one night the end of the tortured life drew near, and Norberto’s wailing cry was still.
The family was alone, except for the presence of Leon Vallé and a young cousin, Doctor Genaro Calderon, one of the numerous family connections; and those, with the Padre Francisco and Doña Feliz, were gathered around the bed of the dying child. The father in an agony of grief and vengeful despair stood at the head, and Doña Isabel, ghostlike and haggard from her long suspense and watching, was on her knees at the side, her eyes fixed upon the face of the child, when suddenly he opened his eyes in a wild stare upon Leon Vallé, who stood near the foot of the bed, and faintly, slowly articulated the same agonizing cry, “He will kill me if I tell!”
At that moment, as if by an irresistible impulse, Leon stretched out his hand and placed a finger on the lips ofthe dying boy. The eyes of Don Gregorio followed it; and then like a thunderbolt hurled through space he threw himself upon his brother-in-law, grappling his throat with a deathlike grasp. He had recognized the bruise upon the second finger of the white hand,—he had recognized the very hand. Recalled to life by the excitement of the moment, Norberto started up and exclaimed in a loud shrill voice, “Take him away! He cut my hair with his bloody knife! Oh, Uncle Leon, will you kill me?” and fell back in the death agony,—the agony that only the priest witnessed, for even Isabel turned to the mortal combat waged between her husband and her brother.
Don Gregorio was unarmed, but Leon had managed to draw a knife from his belt. The murderous dagger was poised for a blow, when a woman rushed between the combatants; Don Gregorio was flung bleeding upon the bed, Doña Feliz hurled into a corner of the apartment the dagger which she had grasped with her naked hand, and Leon Vallé rushed like a madman from the room. Before he could escape, however, he was seized, pinioned, and thrust like a wild beast into one of the solid stone rooms of the building. Don Gregorio was held by main force from accomplishing his purpose of taking the life of the unnatural bandit ere the bolts were shot upon him. He however gave immediate orders that messengers be despatched in quest of police; but by some misapprehension or intentional delay on the part of the administrador these messengers were detained till dawn, and just as they were about to set forth, a cry went through the house that the prisoner had escaped.
Gregorio Garcia rushed to the room, glanced in with wild, bloodshot eyes, and then with unrestrainable fury, sought out his wife, and grasping her arm cried in a voice as full of horror as of rage, “Traitress! You have set free the murderer of your child!”
She threw herself on her knees at his feet,—he never knew with what purpose, whether to confess her weakness or declare her innocence,—for Doña Feliz cast herself between them.
“It was I who set him free!” she exclaimed. “I love the Garcias too well to suffer them to be made a mockery of by the false mercy of such laws as ours. Think youthe idol of the bandits would be sacrificed for such a trifle as a child’s life? And you, Gregorio Garcia, would you, this fury passed, avenge your injuries in the blood of your wife’s brother, robber and murderer though he be? Leon has sworn to me to hide himself forever from the family he has disgraced, under another name in another land. He has the brand of Cain upon his brow,—God will surely bring his doom upon him!”
Doña Feliz spoke like a prophetess. The superb assurance upon which she had acted, setting aside all rights of man and relegating vengeance to the Lord, did more to reconcile Don Gregorio to the escape of his enemy than all further reflection, decisive though it was in convincing him that in the disordered and anarchical state of the country, the laws would have shielded rather than punished an offender so popular as was Leon Vallé. There was perhaps, too, a comfort in the hidden hope of personal vengeance with which he waited long months to learn the retreat of the man who had done him such foul wrong.
Meanwhile the exact facts of the case were never known abroad; and when at last it was rumored that Leon Vallé had been shot by a rival guerilla chief and hung to a tree placarded as a traitor and robber, there were few to doubt the story, or to make more than a passing comment on the hard necessities of war. There seemed so much poetic justice in it, that Gregorio Garcia, who was near the end of the disease contracted through exposure and mental agony, did not for a moment doubt it, and died almost content. Indeed, the circumstances were so minutely detailed by a servant who had followed Leon in his adventurous career and who dared to face the family in order to prove the death, that even Doña Isabel herself did not question it until long months afterward, when a petty scandal stole through the land. The lady of San Lazaro had disappeared,—whether of her own free will, whether in madness she had strayed, or whether she had been kidnapped, none could conjecture. No demand for ransom came, no tidings were ever heard of the peerlessly beautiful Dolores.
It was after that time that Doña Isabel began to demand tidings of all who came to her door, and a suspicion enteredher mind which became a certainty upon the night our story opened, but which no subsequent event had tended to confirm during the years that had passed since then.
This brief relation may serve to explain the strange emotions and experiences that made Doña Isabel what her full womanhood found her, and which with other events of her later life rendered possible and natural the bitter suspense and fear that held her the long night through, a watcher at the door of one who, as others had done, might find a means to pierce her heart and wound her pride, if not to awaken her deep and passionate affections.