The lady of the lazo is once more alone in the glade.
She springs out of her saddle; dons serape and sombrero; and is again the beau-ideal of a youthful hidalgo.
She remounts slowly, mechanically—as if her thoughts do not company the action.
Languidly she lifts her limb over the horse. The pretty foot is for a second or two poised in the air. Her ankle, escaping from the skirt of her enagua, displays a tournure to have crazed Praxiteles. As it descends on the opposite side of the horse, a cloud seems to overshadow the sun. Simon Stylites could scarce have closed his eyes on the spectacle. But there is no spectator of this interesting episode; not even the wretched Jose; who, the moment after, comes skulking into the glade.
He is questioned, without circumlocution, upon the subject of the strayed letter.
“What have you done with it, sirrah?”
“Delivered it, my lady.”
“To whom?”
“I left it at—at—the posada,” he replies, stammering and turning pale. “Don Mauricio had gone out.”
“A lie, lepero!
You gave it to Don Miguel Diaz.
No denial, sir!
I’ve seen it since.”
“O Senora, pardon! pardon!
I am not guilty—indeed I am not.”
“Stupid, you should have told your story better. You have committed yourself.
How much did Don Miguel pay you for your treason?”
“As I live, lady, it was not treason.
He—he—forced it from me—by threats—blows.
I—I—was not paid.”
“You shall be, then!
I discharge you from my service; and for wages take that, and that, and that—”
For at least ten times are the words repeated—the riding whip at each repetition descending upon the shoulders of the dishonest messenger.
He essays to escape by running off.
In vain.
He is brought up again by the dread of being ridden over, and trampled under the hoofs of the excited horse.
Not till the blue wheals appear upon his brown skin, does the chastisement cease.
“Now, sirrah; from my sight! and let me see you no more.
Al monte! al monte!”
With ludicrous alacrity the command is obeyed. Like a scared cat the discharged servitor rushes out of the glade; only too happy to hide himself, and his shame, under the shadows of the thorny thicket.
But a little while longer does Isidora remain upon the spot—her anger giving place to a profound chagrin.
Not only has she been baffled from carrying out her design; but her heart’s secret is now in the keeping of traitors!
Once more she heads her horse homeward.
She arrives in time to be present at a singular spectacle.
The people—peons, vaqueros, and employes of every kind—are hurrying to and fro, from field to corral, from corral to courtyard one and all giving tongue to terrified ejaculations.
The men are on their feet arming in confused haste; the woman on their knees, praying pitifully to heaven—through the intercession of a score of those saints, profusely furnished by the Mexican hierarchy to suit all times and occasions.
“What is causing the commotion?” This is the question asked by Isidora.
The mayor-domo—who chances to be the first to present himself—is the individual thus interrogated. A man has been murdered somewhere out upon the prairie. The victim is one of the new people who have lately taken possession of Caso del Corvo—the son of the American haciendado himself.
Indians are reported to have done the deed.
Indians!
In this word is the key to the excitement among Don Silvio’s servitors. It explains both the praying and the hurried rushing to arms.
The fact that a man has been murdered—a slight circumstance in that land of unbridled emotions—would have produced no such response—more especially when the man was a stranger, an “Americano.”
But the report that Indians are abroad, is altogether a different affair.
In it there is an idea of danger.
The effect produced on Isidora is different.
It is not fear of the savages.
The name of the “asesinado” recalls thoughts that have already given her pain.
She knows that there is a sister, spoken of as being wonderfully beautiful.
She has herself looked upon this beauty, and cannot help believing in it.
A keener pang proceeds from something else she has heard: that this peerless maiden has been seen in the company of Maurice Gerald.