She reins up; though not to give her horse an opportunity of resting. She has halted, because of having reached the point where her excursion is to terminate.
There is an opening on one side of the road, of circular shape, and having a superficies of some two or three acres.
It is grass-covered and treeless—a prairie in petto.
It is surrounded by the chapparal forest—very different from the bottom timber out of which she has just emerged.
On all sides is the enclosing thicket of spinous plants, broken only by the embouchures of three paths, their triple openings scarce perceptible from the middle of the glade.
Near its centre she has pulled up, patting her horse upon the neck to keep him quiet.
It is not much needed. The scaling of the “cuesta” has done that for him. He has no inclination either to go on, or tramp impatiently in his place.
“I am before the hour of appointment,” mutters she, drawing a gold watch from under her serape, “if, indeed, I should expect him at all. He may not come?
God grant that he be able!
“I am trembling!
Or is it the breathing of the horse?
Valga me Dios, no! ’Tis my own poor nerves!
“I never felt so before!
Is it fear?
I suppose it is.
“’Tis strange though—to fear the man I love—the only one I over have loved: for it could not have been love I had for Don Miguel.
A girl’s fancy.
Fortunate for me to have got cured of it!
Fortunate my discovering him to be a coward.
That disenchanted me—quite dispelled the romantic dream in which he was the foremost figure.
Thank my good stars, for the disenchantment; for now I hate him, now that I hear he has grown—Santissima! can it be true that he has become—a—a salteador?
“And yet I should have no fear of meeting him—not even in this lone spot!
“Ay de mi! Fearing the man I love, whom I believe to be of kind, noble nature—and having no dread of him I hate, and know to be cruel and remorseless! ’Tis strange—incomprehensible!
“No—there is nothing strange in it.
I tremble not from any thought of danger—only the danger of not being beloved.
That is why I now shiver in my saddle—why I have not had one night of tranquil sleep since my deliverance from those drunken savages.
“I have never told him of this; nor do I know how he may receive the confession.
It must, and shall be made.
I can endure the uncertainty no longer.
In preference I choose despair—death, if my hopes deceive me!
“Ha!
There is a hoof stroke!
A horse comes down the road!
It is his?
Yes.
I see glancing through the trees the bright hues of our national costume.
He delights to wear it.
No wonder; it so becomes him!
“Santa Virgin!
I’m under a serape, with a sombrero on my head.
He’ll mistake me for a man!
Off, ye ugly disguises, and let me seem what I am—a woman.”
Scarce quicker could be the transformation in a pantomime. The casting off the serape reveals a form that Hebe might have envied; the removal of the hat, a head that would have inspired the chisel of Canova!
A splendid picture is exhibited in that solitary glade; worthy of being framed, by its bordering of spinous trees, whose hirsute arms seem stretched out to protect it. A horse of symmetrical shape, half backed upon his haunches, with nostrils spread to the sky, and tail sweeping the ground; on his back one whose aspect and attitude suggest a commingling of grand, though somewhat incongruous ideas, uniting to form a picture, statuesque as beautiful. The pose of the rider is perfect. Half sitting in the saddle, half standing upon the stirrup, every undulation of her form is displayed—the limbs just enough relaxed to show that she is a woman.
Notwithstanding what she has said, on her face there is no fear—at least no sign to betray it.
There is no quivering lip—no blanching of the cheeks.
The expression is altogether different. It is a look of love—couched under a proud confidence, such as that with which the she-eagle awaits the wooing of her mate.
You may deem the picture overdrawn—perhaps pronounce it unfeminine.
And yet it is a copy from real life—true as I can remember it; and more than once had I the opportunity to fix it in my memory. The attitude is altered, and with the suddenness of a coup d’eclair; the change being caused by recognition of the horseman who comes galloping into the glade.
The shine of the gold-laced vestments had misled her.