For the Soul of Rafael Part 25

CHAPTER XII

Toward evening Raquel grew more quiet, and Ana, seeing that the fever was abating, gave herself much blame for sending in such haste for Rafael; and what she had written to him only the good saints could tell, for she had been so frightened she had possibly told him unpleasant things!

However, all things could be endured if only Raquel would open her eyes in reason once more, and lift the load of self-blame from the heart of Ana.

Not only the young girls, but the mistress as well, kept a respectful distance from the room where Raquel lay, adjoining the hall. Her moans and strange words had filled them with dread, but no more so than had the grovelling fear of the old Indian woman. All day she had crouched at the door like a patient animal, waiting the end. Sometimes she muttered to herself in queer Indian words, sometimes she crept to the couch of Dona Raquel for a little while, and then back again to the door, always mumbling or praying, and always insisting that the mother of Raquel had come from the grave to tell things, and that the last of the kings was gone now for always!

Any attempt at a question, any interpretation of her mutterings, would arouse her to a realization that she was among new people in a strange land, and her lips would shut in a straight line, to be kept shut so long as she was conscious of their presence.

The Indian servants crept past the door, with fearful eyes fixed in dread. She was of another race and another tongue than their own forebears, straight and slender even in her old age; darkest reddish-bronze in color, while a San Juan grandmother was always fat, and nearly always black. Beside them, Polonia looked almost Caucasian.

Yet she proudly denied any white blood; she was an Indian of a hill tribe of the south, the name of which she would not utter.

All this, and her mutterings, and the wild words of her mistress, put terror into the heart of the San Joaquin household. The girls huddled together and whispered tales of witches and ghosts, and thought she looked like each in turn; and Dona Ana got great credit for courage in staying in the room with her in the night-time.

But all their vague fears were changed to a definite terror when one of the Indian children found the clay image by the aquia, and in its yet moist members all the pins, for the stealing of which half the children around the ranch had that morning received a taste of the rope's end.

Such a gray-faced, wailing lot as scampered up from the aquia! Girls screaming, old women wailing, and the mothers herding the children out of reach of the accursed thing!

All was explained now, about the sudden awful sickness of the Dona Raquel! The Indian woman from the south was a very devil! Dona Raquel had perhaps had to whip her some time, and she had waited until she was with her in a strange house to do this thing: that was why she crouched at the door as if on guard; she was afraid some one might enter to pray, or with holy water, or any of the helps of the saints. And after the life had gone from Dona Raquel, who could tell that she might not kill others, even all of them on the ranch? Since she had in one hour's time changed her mistress from a well woman to a crazy woman who laughed, how long would it take to do the same for a dozen? Not a day! In a week she could kill them all!

Panic seized the entire herd. They raced in terror for the ranch-house and overwhelmed the mistress with their fears. Her daughters clung together, white-faced at the frenzy facing them. The men were out on the ranch and ranges; Don Enrico was with them, and there was no one to control the dark mob of fanatic faces, any more than one could head a stampeding herd of cattle: that was what terror developed in them--the mad, unreasoning rush of animals to trample underfoot, or tear to pieces, the thing they feared.

The mistress could only gasp, "Pray to G.o.d--pray to G.o.d!" but her voice was lost in the tumult of the wild chorus. It was too late for prayers; prayers were no good after a devil had got hold of any one! Then there was only one thing to do, and they had the knife for the meat and the axe for the wood! A devil could be burned out, or drowned out, and there was not water enough this side of the sea for the drowning; therefore--

In vain their mistress screamed, and her daughters clung to the bare brown arms of their serving-women. They were thrown aside in the stampede of the savage herd. Let the lady say what should be done with white blood; but this was an Indian, and an Indian of a strange tribe and country!

Even in their panic the bovine cowardly herd remembered that fact; there would be no Indian relatives of the witch to wreak vengeance on them; she was the devil's own, and she had no other kindred!

They tore across the hall, sacred at other times to the family, and Ana, rising in wonder at the tumult, was met at the door by the mob. She retreated to the couch of Raquel, with outstretched arms to protect her guest, as she commanded that they be gone.

Her words were scarcely heard. At the door, crouching, and with covered head, they found her they wanted, and dragged her unresisting through the hall and out into the open.

The mistress, sick and half fainting, stumbled to her own room, and cowered at the altar, with one daughter clinging to her and sobbing, while the other stood at the portal of the patio and called for some of the boys, or a man, or horse for any one who could ride for help and stop the horror.

"Mother of G.o.d! They make the fire!" she screamed.

It was true. They were dragging the wood and making ready for a fire.

Children followed their mothers, gathering leaves and straw. One black-skinned creature had brought a shovel of coals, and was lying p.r.o.ne on the ground beside it, blowing it with her breath until it glowed and sent demoniac lights into her heavy-lidded eyes. One old hag held the devil's witness, the clay image, before the accused, and after one brief look Polonia made no struggle. It was fate; she had known from the feverish words of Dona Raquel that some one must die as sacrifice.

Then she began to croon a strange whining chant, and the hands of those holding her fell away in sudden terror of even the touch of her. Slowly she stumbled to her feet, and looked at the sun, and raising her old hands toward its lowering light, waved them to and fro in weird salutation, never checking the strange song or chant.

Ana had a pistol, and stood in wavering uncertainty as to whether she should run out, or stay on guard beside Raquel; but to the final adjuration she responded as one suddenly aroused from a stupor of fear, and rushing to the little plaza she screamed loudly and then fired two shots in quick succession; then after a deliberate little pause she fired once more, and with pale cheeks turned toward the door, trembling, and waiting.

"G.o.d be praised! See, help is coming," gasped Juanita, pointing northward. "Good! The dust--the man on the horse--and how he rides--how he rides!"

Ana watched the rider, fascinated and weak with terror. Juanita was laughing and crying with joy, but her cousin stood pale and motionless, and said not a word as the horseman swept past the garden to the back of the house, where smoke was rolling up in a white cloud.

He was none too soon. The fire was leaping in long tongues from the crackling sycamore boughs. The dark faces of the fanatics were alight with frenzied eagerness for their pious task of destroying a witch before they might be interfered with. They had heard the screams and shots, and knew what they meant, and the log they were tying the witch to was held upright by many willing hands.

Her hands were already tied together; there was nothing left to do but fasten a rope around her at the waist, and toss both log and witch into the hottest corner.

And then Juanita ran screaming toward the group, and back of her rode a man on a fiend of a horse, knocking the pious devotees right and left, and caught up the limp figure of old Polonia and flung it on the saddle in front of him.

She opened her eyes and looked at him once as he raised her from the ground, and then closed them and looked no more. It was all of no use--neither the holy water to keep away the thought of him, nor the witchcraft to take the life from him. It was the accursed Americano, and the charm had only served to bring him more quickly!

After the first staggering blow from the stranger's horse, some of the stronger spirits rallied, and lunged forward to drag the woman from her rescuer, while others lashed his horse that it might become uncontrollable. Two able-bodied wenches held on like grim death, despite the quirt which he brought down across their shoulders again and again, while he held the horse and Polonia with one arm.

The animal, between the lashing of the mob and the roaring of the flames, was leaping madly, and the rider had all he could do to control its terror. Any moment a shot, or a club, or a stone thrown at his own head might give them two victims instead of one. That was Juanita's one wild fear. She screamed for Ana with the pistol, but Ana had sunk down, white and trembling on the doorstep, as she saw a black form suddenly appear in the midst of the howling mob of savages. An instant she saw him on the outer edge of the leaping, struggling circle, and the next he was by the head of the horse, and a strong arm struck right and left until there was s.p.a.ce enough to show he was a bronzed, bearded man in a priest's habit.

"Back to your kennels, dogs!" he cried, sharply. "Since when have ye dared strike at gentlemen? On your knees, every one of you! On your knees!"

The younger girls and children dropped in the dust, but some of the older were less willing to give up.

"She is a witch, father; she is killing a woman," cried one; "it is right a devil be put in the fire!"

"Then how hot must the fire be made when your day comes!" he replied, and raised his hand and spoke slowly, solemnly, "Thrice heated will that fire be for the thrice-accursed! To your knees, in the name of G.o.d!"

With sullen, shamed, disappointed faces, they obeyed. A white man who is a stranger they dared attack, if enough of them were together, but not a priest--a priest who could hit hard enough to knock a bull down.

"That was a close shave, padre," observed the American, with a breath of relief. "They had this poor old wretch almost pulled in two--will you take her?"

The priest made a step forward, and then halted and smiled, as in vague perplexity.

"I have not the pleasure of understanding English," he said, gently.

Ana arose and came forward; she was still very pale and still trembling; she looked at the priest and tried to speak, but the words were smothered in a half sob.

"My daughter," he said, quietly, "take courage." Then he glanced at the pistol still in her hand. "It was you who fired? That was right. I was on the hill in the edge of the wood, and it is well you sent that warning. Your American friend said--?"

"Oh, I speak a little Spanish too," remarked Bryton, in that tongue; "it is the woman with the tied hands I wanted you to take."

The padre did so, untying the rope deftly, and steadying her wavering figure, while Bryton slipped from the saddle, and spoke to Juanita, who had the one welcoming face he had seen.

"I know you," she said, eagerly. "Did I not see you at San Juan Capistrano, at Alvara's and at the Mission? I was sure of it. This is my cousin Dona Ana and Father--"

"Libertad," the padre interrupted, briefly, and spoke directly to Bryton, "from Mexico."

"You will think us all savages to allow this, father," and she pointed to the huddled Indians and the leaping flames; "but it was all so quick--like that--no one could think! My mother is in hiding from it, and--"

"Father," said Ana, speaking for the first time, "a priest is needed in the house. We have a woman who may be dying. Will you come quickly?"

She was eager to separate the priest from the others, and, her speech was nervous and eager.

"Dying?" he repeated, "is that what they meant when they said the Indian had killed a woman?"

"Yes, father," broke in the quavering tones of old Altagrazia, "here it is--the devil she made!" and she held up the clay image, from which the head had been broken in the _melee_. "One day ago the lady is well and rides like a caballero, and this day the sun goes down and she dies. The Indian from Mexico put on the curse!"