"More than you can imagine, my child. I do not wish that at a given day the immense property my ancestors and myself have acquired by our toil should become the prey of these accursed heretics. In order to save it, I have resolved on marrying you to the Count de Lhorailles. He is a Frenchman, and belongs to one of the noblest families of that country. Besides he is a handsome and brave gentleman, scarcely thirty years of age, who combines the most precious moral qualifications with the physical qualities. He is a member of a powerful and respected nation which knows how to protect its subjects, in whatever corner of the world they may be. By marrying him your fortune is sheltered from every political reverse."
"But I do not love him, father."
"Nonsense, my dear babe. Do not talk longer of that. I am willing to forget the folly of which you were guilty a few moments back, but on condition that you forget that man, Martial."
"Never!" she exclaimed resolutely.
"Never! That is a long time, daughter. You will reflect, I am convinced. Besides, who is this man? What is his family? Do you know? He is called Martial el Tigrero. Voto a Dios, that is not a name! That man saved your life by stopping your horse when it ran away. Well, is that a reason for him to fall in love with you, and you with him? I offered him a magnificent reward, which he refused with the most supreme disdain. There is an end of it, then; let him leave me at peace. I have, and wish for, nothing more to do with him."
"I love him, father," the young girl repeated.
"Listen, Anita. You would make me angry, if I did not put a restraint on myself. Enough on that head. Prepare to receive the Count de Lhorailles in a proper manner. I have sworn that you shall be his wife, and, Cristo! It shall be so, if I have to drag you by force to the altar!"
The hacendero pronounced these words with such resolution in his voice, and with such a fierce accent, that the girl saw it would be better for her to appear to yield, and put a stop to a discussion which would only grow more embittered, and perhaps have grave consequences. She let her head fall, and was silent, while her father walked up and down the room with a very dissatisfied air.
The door was partly opened, and a peon thrust his head discreetly through the crevice.
"What do you want?" Don Sylva asked as he stopped.
"Excellency," the man replied, "a caballero, followed by four others bearing a table covered with pieces of gold, requests an audience of the señorita."
The hacendero shot a glance at his daughter full of expressiveness. Doña Anita let her head sink in confusion. Don Sylva reflected for a moment, and then his countenance cleared.
"Let him come in," he said.
The peon withdrew; but he returned in a few seconds, preceding an old acquaintance, Cucharés, still enwrapped in his ragged zarapé, and directing the four leperos who carried the table. On entering the saloon, Cucharés uncovered respectfully, courteously saluted the hacendero and his daughter, and with a sign ordered the porters to deposit the table in the centre of the apartment.
"Señorita," he said in a honied voice, "the Señor Don Martial, faithful to the pledge he had made you, humbly supplicates you to accept his gains at monte, as a feeble testimony of his devotion and admiration."
"You rascal!" Don Sylva angrily exclaimed as he took a step toward him "Do you know in whose presence you are?"
"In that of Doña Anita and her highly-respected parent," the scamp replied imperturbably, as he wrapped himself majestically in his tatters. "I have not, to my knowledge, failed in the respect I owe to both."
"Withdraw at once, and take with you this gold, which does not concern my daughter."
"Excuse me, excellency, I received orders to bring the gold here, and with your permission I will leave it. Don Martial would not forgive me if I acted otherwise."
"I do not know Don Martial, as it pleases you to style the man who sent you. I wish to have nothing in common with him."
"That is possible, excellency; but it is no affair of mine. You can have an explanation with him if you think proper. For my part, as my mission is accomplished, I kiss your hands."
And, after bowing once more to the two, the lepero went off majestically, followed by his four acolytes, with measured steps.
"See there," exclaimed Don Sylva violently, "see there, my daughter, to what insults your folly exposes me!"
"An insult, father?" she replied timidly. "On the contrary, I think that Don Martial has acted like a true caballero, and that he gives me a great proof of his love. That sum is enormous."
"Ah!" Don Sylva said wrathfully, "that is the way you take it. Well, I will act as a caballero also, voto a brios! As you shall see. Come here, someone!"
Several peons came in.
"Open the windows!"
The servants obeyed. The crowd was not yet dispersed, and a large number of persons was still collected round the house. The hacendero leant out and by a wave of his hand requested silence. The crowd was instinctively silent, and drew nearer, guessing that something in which it was interested was about to happen.
"Señores caballeros y amigos," the hacendero said in a powerful voice, "a man whom I do not know has dared to offer to my daughter the money he has won at monte. Doña Anita spurns such presents, especially when they come from a person with whom she does not wish to have any connection, friendly or otherwise. She begs me to distribute this gold among you, as she will not touch it in any way: she desires thus to prove, in the presence of you all, the contempt she feels for a man who has dared to offer her such an insult."
The speech improvised by the hacendero was drowned by the frenzied applause of the leperos and other assembled beggars, whose eyes sparkled with greed. Anita felt the burning tears swelling her eyelids. In spite of all her efforts to remain undisturbed, her heart was almost broken.
Troubling himself not at all about his daughter, Don Sylva ordered his servants to cast the ounces into the street. A shower of gold then literally began falling on the wretches, who rushed with incredible ardour on this new species of manna. The Calle de la Merced offered, at that moment, the most singular sight imaginable. The gold poured and poured on; it seemed to be inexhaustible. The beggars leaped like coyotes on the precious metal, overthrowing and trampling underfoot the weaker.
At the height of the shower a horseman came galloping up. Astonished, confounded by what he saw, he stopped for a moment to look around him; then he drove his spurs into his horse, and by dealing blows of his chicote liberally all around, he succeeded in clearing the dense crowd, and reached the hacendero's house, which he entered.
"Here is the count," Don Sylva said laconically to his daughter.
In fact, within a minute that gentleman entered the saloon.
"Halloh!" he said, stopping at the doorway, "What strange notion is this of yours, Don Sylva? On my soul, you are amusing yourself by throwing millions out of the window, to the still greater amusement of the leperos and other rogues of the same genus!"
"Ah, 'tis you, señor Conde," the hacendero replied calmly; "you are welcome. I shall be with you in an instant. Only these few handfuls, and it will be finished."
"Don't hurry yourself," the count said with a laugh. "I confess that the fancy is original;" and drawing near the young lady, whom he saluted with exquisite politeness, he continued,
"Would you deign, Señorita, to give me the word of this enigma, which, I confess, interests me in the highest degree?"
"Ask my father, Señor," she answered with a certain dryness, which rendered conversation impossible.
The count feigned not to notice this rebuff; he bowed with a smile, and falling into a butaca, said coolly,
"I will wait; I am in no hurry."
The hacendero, in telling his daughter that the gentleman he intended for her husband was a handsome man, had in no respect flattered him. Count Maxime Gaëtan de Lhorailles was a man of thirty at the most, well built and active, and slightly above the middle height. His light hair allowed him to be recognised as a son of the north; his features were fine, his glance expressive, and his hands and feet denoted race. Everything about him indicated the gentleman of an old stock; and if Don Sylva was not more deceived about the moral qualities than he had been about the physical, Count de Lhorailles was really a perfect gentleman.
At length the hacendero exhausted all the gold Cucharés had brought: he then hurled the table into the street, ordered the windows to be closed, and came back to take a seat by the side of the count, rubbing his hands.
"There," he said with a joyous air, "that's finished. Now I am quite at your service."
"First one word."
"Say it."
"Excuse me. You are aware that I am a stranger, and such as thirsting for instruction."
"I am listening to you."
"Since I have lived in Mexico I have seen many extraordinary customs. I ought to be blasé about novelties; still, I must confess that what I have just seen surpasses anything I have hitherto witnessed. I should like to be certain whether this is a custom of which I was hitherto ignorant."
"What are you talking about?"
"Why, what you were doing when I arrived that gold you were dropping like a beneficent dew on the bandits of every description collected before your house; ill weeds, between ourselves, to be thus bedewed."
Don Sylva burst into a laugh.
"No, that is not a custom of ours," he replied.
"Very good. Then, you were indulging in the regal pastime of throwing a million to the scum. Plague! Don Sylva, a man must be as rich as yourself to allow such a gratification."
"Things are not as you fancy."
"Still I saw it raining ounces."
"True, but they did not belong to me."
"Better and better still. That renders the affair more complicated; you heighten my curiosity immensely."
"I will satisfy it."
"I am all attention, for the affair is growing as interesting to me as a story in the 'Arabian Nights.'"
"H'm!" the hacendero said, tossing his head, "It interests you more than you perhaps suspect."
"How so?"
"You shall judge."
Doña Anita was in torture; she knew not what to do. Seeing that her father was about to divulge all to the count, she did not feel in herself the courage to be present at such a revelation, and rose tottering.
"Gentlemen," she said in a feeble voice, "I feel indisposed; be kind enough to allow me to retire."
"Really," the count said, as he hurried towards her, and offered her his arm to support her, "you are pale, Doña Anita. Allow me to accompany you to your apartment."
"I thank you, caballero, but I am strong enough to proceed there alone, and, while duly grateful for your offer, pray permit me to decline it."
"As you please, señorita," the count replied, inwardly piqued by this refusal.
Don Sylva entertained for a moment the idea of ordering his daughter to remain; but the poor girl turned towards him so despairing a glance that he did not feel the courage to impose on her a longer torture.
"Go my child," he said to her.
Anita hastened to take advantage of the permission; she left the salón, and sought refuge in her bedroom, where she sank into a chair, and burst into tears.
"What is the matter with Doña Anita?" the count asked with sympathy, so soon as she had gone.
"Vapours headache what do I know?" the hacendero replied, shrugging his shoulders. "All young girls are like that. In a few minutes she will have forgotten it."
"All the better. I confess to you that I was alarmed."
"But now that we are alone, would you not like me to give you the explanation of the enigma which appeared to interest you so much?"
"On the contrary, speak without further delay: for, on my part, I have several important matters to impart to you."
CHAPTER III
THE TWO HUNTERS
About five miles from the town is the village of San José de Guaymas, commonly known as the Rancho.
This miserable pueblo is merely composed of a square of moderate size, intersected at right angles by tumbledown cabins, which are inhabited by Hiaqui Indians (a large number of whom hire themselves out annually at Guaymas to work as porters, carpenters, masons, &c), and all those nameless adventurers who have thronged to the shores of the Pacific since the discovery of the Californian plains.
The road from Guaymas to San José runs through a parched and sandy plain, on which only a few nopales and stunted cactuses grow, whose withered branches are covered with dust, and produce the effect of white phantoms at night.
The evening of the day on which our story commences, a horseman, folded to the eyes in a zarapé, was following this road, and proceeding in a gallop to the Rancho.
The sky, of a dark azure, was studded with glistening stars; the moon, which had traversed one-third of her course, illumined the silent plain, and indefinitely prolonged the tall shadows of the trees on the naked earth.
The horseman, doubtlessly anxious to reach the end of a journey which was not without peril at this advanced hour, incessantly urged on with spur and voice his horse, which did not, however, appear to need this constantly-renewed encouragement.
He had all but crossed the immense uncultivated plains, and was just entering the woods which surround the Rancho, when his horse suddenly leaped on one side, and pricked up its ears in alarm. A sharp sound announced that the horseman had cocked his pistols; and, when this precaution had been taken against all risk, he turned an inquiring glance around.
"Fear nothing, caballero," a frank and sympathetic voice exclaimed; "but have the kindness to go a little farther to the right, if it makes no difference to you."
The stranger looked, and saw a man kneeling under his steed's feet, and holding in his hands the head of a horse, which was lying nearly across the road.
"What on earth are you doing there?" he asked.
"You can see," the other replied sorrowfully, "I am bidding good-by to my poor companion. A man must have lived a long time in the desert to appreciate the value of such a friend as he was."
"That is true," the stranger remarked, and immediately dismounting, added, "Is he dead then?"
"No, not yet; but, unfortunately, he is as bad as if he were."
With these words he sighed.
The stranger bent over the animal, whose body was agitated by a nervous quivering, opened its eyelids, and regarded it attentively.
"Your horse has had a stroke," he said a moment later. "Let me act."
"Oh!" the other exclaimed, "do you think you can save him?"
"I hope so," the first speaker laconically observed.
"Caray! If you do that, we shall be friends for life. Poor Negro! My old comrade!"
The horseman bathed the animal's temples and nostrils with rum and water. At the end of a few moments, the horse appeared slightly recovered, his faded eyes began to sparkle again, and he tried to rise.
"Hold him tight," the improvised surgeon said.
"Be quiet, then, my good beast. Come, Negro, my boy, quieto, quieto; it is for your good," he said soothingly.
The intelligent animal seemed to understand. It turned its head towards its master, and answered him with a plaintive neigh. The horseman, during this period, had been feeling in his girdle; and bending again over the horse,