His horse, with a small head and legs fine as spindles, was splendidly accoutred: las armas de agua and the zarapé fastened to the croup, and the magnificent anquera adorned with steel chains, completed a caparison of which we can form no idea in Europe.
Like all Mexicans of a certain class when travelling, the stranger was armed from head to foot; that is to say, in addition to the lasso fastened to the saddle, and the rifle laid across the saddle-bow, he had also by his side a long sword, and a pair of pistols in his girdle, without reckoning the knife whose silver inlaid hilt could be seen peeping out of one of his boots.
Such as we have described him, this man was the perfect type of a Mexican of Sonora ever ready for peace or war, fearing the one no more than he despised the other. After bowing politely to Tío Lucas he took the cards the latter offered him, and shuffled them while looking around him.
"Ah!" he said, casting a friendly glance to the lepero, "you're here, gossip Cucharés?"
"At your service, Don Martial," the other replied, lifting his hand to the ragged brim of his beaver.
The stranger smiled.
"Be good enough to cut for me while I light my pajillo."
"With pleasure," the lepero exclaimed.
El Tigrero, or Don Martial, whichever the reader may please to call him, took a gold mechero from his pocket, and carelessly struck a light while the lepero cut the cards.
"Señor," the latter said in a piteous voice.
"Well?"
"You have lost."
"Good. Tío Lucas, take a hundred ounces from my purse."
"I have them, your excellency," the banker replied. "Would you please to play again?"
"Certainly, but not for such trifles. I should like to feel interested in the game."
"I will cover any stake your excellency may like to name," the banker said, whose practised eye had discovered in the stranger's purse, amid a decent number of ounces, some forty diamonds of the purest water.
"H'm! Are you really ready to cover any stake I name?"
"Yes."
The stranger looked at him sharply.
"Even if I played for a thousand gold ounces?"
"I would cover double that if your excellency dares to stake it," the baker said imperturbably.
A contemptuous smile played for the second time on the horseman's haughty lips.
"I do dare it," he said.
"Two thousand ounces, then?"
"Agreed."
"Shall I cut?" Cucharés asked timidly.
"Why not?" the other answered lightly.
The lepero seized the cards with a hand trembling from emotion. There was a hum of expectation from the gamblers who surrounded the table. At this moment a window opened in the house before which Tío Lucas had established his monte table, and a charming girl leant carelessly over the balcony, looking down into the street.
The stranger turned to the balcony, and rising in his stirrups,
"I salute the lovely Anita," he said, as he doffed his hat and bowed profoundly.
The girl blushed, bent on him an expressive glance from beneath her long velvety eyelashes, but made no reply.
"You have lost, excellency," Tío Lucas said with a joyous accent, which he could not completely conceal.
"Very good," the stranger replied, without even looking at him, so fascinated was he by the charming apparition on the balcony.
"You play no more?"
"On the contrary, I double."
"What!" exclaimed the banker, falling back a step in spite of himself at this proposition.
"No, I am wrong; I have something else to propose."
"What is it, excellency?"
"How; much have you there?" he said, pointing to the table with a disdainful gesture.
"Why, at least seven thousand ounces."
"Not more? That's very little."
The spectators regarded with a stupor, mingled with terror, this extraordinary man, who played for ounces and diamonds as others did for ochavos. The girl became pale. She turned a supplicating glance to the stranger.
"Play no more," she murmured in a trembling voice.
"Thanks," he exclaimed, "thanks, Señorita; your beautiful eyes will bring me a fortune. I would give all the gold on the table for the súchil flower you hold in your hand, and which your lips have touched."
"Do not play, Don Martial," the girl repeated, as she retired and closed the window. But, through accident or some other reason, her hand let loose the flower. The horseman made his steed bound forward, caught it in its flight, and buried it in his bosom, after having kissed it several times.
"Cucharés," he then said to the lepero, "turn up a card."
The latter obeyed. "Seis de copas!" he said.
"Voto a brios!" the stranger exclaimed, "the colour of the heart we shall win. Tío Lucas, I will back this card against all the gold you have on your table."
The banker turned pale and hesitated; the spectators had their eyes fixed upon him.
"Bah!" he thought after a minute's reflection, "It is impossible for him to win. I accept, excellency," he then added aloud.
"Count the sum you have."
"That is unnecessary, Señor; there are nine thousand four hundred and fifty gold ounces."1
At the statement of this formidable amount the spectators gave vent to a mingled shout of admiration and covetousness.
"I fancied you richer," the stranger said ironically. "Well, so be it then."
"Will you cut this time, excellency?"
"No, I am thoroughly convinced you are going to lose, Tío Lucas, and I wish you to be quite convinced that I have won fairly. In consequence, do me the pleasure of cutting, yourself. You will then be the artisan of your own ruin, and be unable to reproach anybody."
The spectators quivered with pleasure on seeing the chivalrous way in which the stranger behaved. At this moment the street was thronged with people whom the rumour of this remarkable stake had collected from every part of the town. A deadly silence prevailed through the crowd, so great was the interest that each felt in the dénouement of this grand and hitherto unexampled match. The banker wiped the perspiration that beaded on his livid brow, and seized the first card with a trembling hand. He balanced it for a few seconds between finger and thumb with manifest hesitation.
"Make haste," Cucharés cried to him with a grin.
Tío Lucas mechanically let the card fall as he turned his head away.
"Seis de copas!" the lepero shouted in a hoarse voice.
The banker uttered a yell of pain.
"I have lost!" he muttered.
"I was sure of it," the horseman said, still impassible. "Cucharés," he added, "carry that table and the gold upon it to Doña Anita. I shall expect you tonight you know where."
The lepero bowed respectfully. Assisted by two sturdy fellows, he executed the order he had just received, and entered the house, while the stranger started off at a gallop; and Tío Lucas, slightly recovered from the stunning blow he had received, philosophically twisted a cigar, repeating to those who forced their consolations upon him,
"I have lost, it is true, but against a very fair player, and for a good stake. Bah! I shall have my revenge some day."
Then, so soon as the cigarette was made, the poor cleaned-out banker lighted it and walked off very calmly. The crowd, having no further excuse for remaining, also disappeared in its turn.
CHAPTER II
DON SYLVA DE TORRÉS
Guaymas is quite a new town, built somewhat from day to day according to the fancy of the emigrants, and hence no regular lines of streets have been maintained. However, we had better mention here that, with the exception of a few houses to which that name may be fairly given, all the rest are frightful dens, built of mud, and deplorably dirty.
CHAPTER II
DON SYLVA DE TORRÉS
Guaymas is quite a new town, built somewhat from day to day according to the fancy of the emigrants, and hence no regular lines of streets have been maintained. However, we had better mention here that, with the exception of a few houses to which that name may be fairly given, all the rest are frightful dens, built of mud, and deplorably dirty.
In the Calle de la Merced, the principal, or to speak more truthfully, the only street in the town (for the others are only alleys), stood a one-storied house, ornamented with a balcony, and a peristyle supported by four pillars. The front was covered by a coating of lime of dazzling whiteness, and the roof was flat.
The proprietor of this house was one of the richest mineros in Sonora, and possessor of a dozen mines, all in work; he also devoted himself to cattle breeding, and owned several haciendas scattered over the province, the smallest of which was equal in size to an English county.
I am certain that, if Don Sylva de Torrés had wished to liquidate his fortune, and discover what he was really worth, it would have realised several millions.
Don Sylva had come to live in Guaymas some months back, where he ordinarily only paid flying visits, and those at lengthened intervals. This time, contrary to his usual custom, he had brought his daughter Anita with him. Hence the entire population of Guaymas was a prey to the greatest curiosity, and all eyes were fixed on Don Sylva's house, so extraordinary did the conduct of the hacendero appear.
Shut up in his house, the doors of which only opened to a few privileged persons, Don Sylva did not seem to trouble himself the least in the world about the gossips; for he was engaged in realising certain projects, whose importance prevented him noticing what was said or thought of him.
Though the Mexicans are excessively rich, and like to do honour to their wealth, they have no idea of comfort. The utmost carelessness prevails among them. Their luxury, if I may be allowed to employ the term, is brutal, without any discernment or real value.
These men, principally accustomed to the rude life of the American deserts, to struggle continually against the changes of a climate which is frequently deadly, and the unceasing aggressions of the Indians, who surround them on all sides, camp rather than live in the towns, fancying they have done everything when they have squandered gold and diamonds.
The Mexican houses are in evidence to prove the correctness of our opinion. With the exception of the inevitable European piano, which swaggers in the corner of every drawing room, you only see a few clumsy butacas, rickety tables, bad engravings hanging on the whitewashed walls, and that is all.
Don Sylva's house differed in no respect from the others; and the master's horses on returning to the stable from the watering place, had to cross the salón, all dripping as they were, and leaving manifest traces of their passage.
At the moment when we introduce the reader into Don Sylva's house, two persons, male and female, were sitting in the saloon talking, or at least exchanging a few words at long intervals.
They were Don Sylva and his daughter Anita. The crossing of the Spanish and Indian races has produced the most perfect plastic type to be found anywhere. Don Sylva, although nearly fifty years of age, did not appear to be forty. He was tall, upright, and his face, though stern, had great gentleness imprinted upon it. He wore the Mexican dress in its most rigorous exactness; but his clothes were so rich, that few of his countrymen could have equalled it, much less surpassed it.
Anita who reclined on a sofa, half buried in masses of silk and gauze, like a hummingbird concealed in the moss, was a charming girl of eighteen at the most, whose black eyes, modestly shaded by long velvety lashes, were full of voluptuous promise, which was not gainsaid by the undulating and serpentine outlines of her exquisitely modelled body. Her slightest gestures had grace and majesty completed by the ravishing smile of her coral lips. Her complexion, slightly gilded by the American sun, imparted to her face an expression impossible to render; and lastly her whole person exhaled a delicious perfume of innocence and candour which attracted sympathy and inspired love.
Like all Mexican women when at home, she merely wore a light robe of embroidered muslin; her rebozo was thrown negligently over her shoulders, and a profusion of jasmine flowers was intertwined in her bluish-black tresses. Anita seemed in deep thought. At one moment the arch of her eyebrows was contracted by some thought that annoyed her, her bosom heaved and her dainty foot, cased in a slipper lined with swan's down, impatiently tapped on the ground.
Don Sylva also appeared to be dissatisfied. After directing a severe glance at his daughter, he rose, and drawing near her, said,
"You are mad, Anita: your behaviour is extravagant. A young, well-born girl ought not, in any case to act as you have just done."
The young Mexican girl only answered by a significant pout, and an almost imperceptible shrug of the shoulders.
Her father continued,
"Especially," he said, laying a stress on each word, "in your position as regards the Count de Lhorailles."
The girl started as if a serpent had stung her, and fixing an interrogatory glance on the hacendero's immovable face, she replied,
"I do not understand you, my father."
"You do not understand me, Anita? I cannot believe it. Have I not formally promised your hand to the count?"
"What matter, if I do not love him? Do you wish to condemn me to lifelong misery?"
"On the contrary, I regarded your happiness in this union. I have only you, Anita, to console me for the mournful loss of your beloved mother. Poor child! You are still, thank Heaven, at that happy age when the heart does not know itself, and when the words 'happiness, unhappiness,' have no meaning. You do not love the count, you say. All the better your heart is free. When, at a later date, you have had occasion to appreciate the noble qualities of the man I give you as husband, you will then thank me for having insisted on a marriage, which today causes you so much vexation."
"Stay, father," the girl said with an air of vexation. "My heart is not free, and you are well aware of the fact."
"I know, Doña Anita de Torrés," the hacendero answered severely, "that a love unworthy yourself and me cannot enter your heart. Through my ancestors I am a Christiano Viejo; and if a few drops of Indian blood be mingled in my veins, what I owe to the memory of my ancestors is only the more deeply engraved on my mind. The first of our family, Antonia de Sylva, lieutenant to Hernando Cortez, married, it is true, a Mexican princess of the family of Moctecuhzoma, but all the other branches are Spanish."
"Are we not Mexicans then, my father?"
"Alas! My poor child, who can say who we are and what are we? Our unhappy country, since it shook off the Spanish yoke, has been struggling convulsively, and is exhausted by the incessant efforts of those ambitious men, who in a few years will have robbed it even of that nationality which we had so much difficulty in achieving. These disgraceful contests render us the laughing stocks of other people, and above all, cause the joy of our greedy neighbours, who with their eyes invariably fixed upon us, are preparing to enrich themselves with our spoils, of which they have pilfered some fragments already by robbing us of several of our rich provinces."
"But, father, I am a woman, and therefore unaffected by politics. I have nothing to do with the gringos."