For the Soul of Rafael Part 9

Mrs. Bryton could not have put into words the idea of the girl's face; but her own angry blue eyes were caught and held for an instant by strange fathomless violet ones--held until she shrank suddenly, and the color left her face. Yet--as the carriage paused, her head was still turned toward the stranger, and Jose saw her put her hands suddenly across her eyes with a gesture of repulsion or pain, and sink back on the cushions.

The girl on the horse had not moved a muscle. She might have been carved from marble, for any sign she made after she read the angry insolence of the blue eyes.

"Don Felipe Estevan's daughter," said the Mexican driver, "and here ahead of the carriage of the Senora Luisa--it must be so."

Mrs. Bryton gave no sign that she heard, neither did she glance at the occupants of the carriage as they whirled past; her mind held only one hateful picture.

"Felipe Estevan's daughter" meant that she had looked into the eyes of the "black woman from Mexico" who had come back to her father's land to rule, and the Mexican woman had proven not so black as she had fancied, and had sat there on the crest of the hill with a pride that was half regal,--and almost half barbaric,--as though the highway was her very own--as though the centre of it belonged to her by divine right. Mrs.

Bryton's vain soul was fired by a momentary wild temptation to test that divine right, to show her there was one man in San Juan not to be ruled by anyone else if she, Angela Bryton, cared to call him to her side and keep him there. Should she--or should she not?

Teresa was quite right in her fancy that the trick against the Americano had been quite successful enough; it was time the other girl came to claim her own!

[Music: _La Noche Fatal_.]

En la noche fatal que a tus ojos Dirigi una mirida ardoro-sa Comprendi que la dicha amorosa, No me es dada en el mundo gozar.

CHAPTER VI

It was quite true that no one was allowed to sleep that night of Rafael's last bachelor supper. Because of Miguel's death, there could be no dancing, but the hours pa.s.sed merrily enough, for all that. The army men stayed until the faint gray shone in the east, when they mounted and rode north after the horses, started a day ahead.

Keith Bryton had ridden with the herd as far as Santa Ana, and then, to Angela's amus.e.m.e.nt, returned to San Juan. She was certain that his return had not been for Rafael's supper, but to see that she did not by some man[oe]uvre manage that it be a ladies' supper and graced by her attendance. She had in jest threatened to suggest it, and Keith felt very much as Teresa felt--it was quite time the bride were at hand to stop a flirtation bordering on the dangerous.

But, after all, the ladies of San Juan were not included. It was a carouse instead of an entertainment. Girls were there, and guitars; and the big Mission doors and wooden shutters inside the deep windows barred the outer world from the hilarity, the songs, the shrieks of laughter over toasts of the old men to the groom-elect.

At earliest dawn the army men, with promises and gold pieces to the girls, and an extra gla.s.s to Rafael and his bride, mounted their horses and rode north to catch up with the herd before it reached Los Angeles.

One of the girls wept lest the one who had made her favorite might never ride that way again, and the wilder spirits marched around her with lighted candles, singing a funeral dirge, ending in a wild fandango.

Don Antonio was there, and old Ricardo Ruiz, and they sat through the night playing with the dice, and emptying each other's pockets in turn, and comparing the old entertainment with the new, between the drinks.

The fandango ended by Concha, the weeping one, doing the maddest dancing of all, and Fernando Mendez poured out goblets of wine to drink luck to her next lover.

"It is good luck for himself he wants, Concha!" called Rafael across the room. "Fernando is a coyote, always awake for young chickens!"

"Concha mia, he is jealous; never heed him, but drink wine with me to the next lover!"

"He offers her a gla.s.s of wine, Antonio," grunted old Don Ricardo.

"Huh!--that is the love-making of California to-day!"

"True, Ricardo; at his age you or I would have been at her feet and our jewels on her breast."

"Fernando has no jewels left."

"I should say not. His father made love after our fashion, hence--"

"The deluge!"

"The deluge of poverty and Americanos," a.s.sented Antonio. "A plague on them both! They have changed the land!"

A burst of laughter from Rafael's end of the table drowned the grumblings of the old men. Rafael had told a story so very funny that the girls had shrieked and giggled and protested behind their fans.

"Fie, Don Rafael! and you to be a married man in a week!"

"But a week is seven nights away, and all of them your own, Merced mia!"

"Merced!" called another man from a game of _malia_ at an old table once used for altar service--"Merced, darling, never listen to a word he says! A paltry seven nights! My heart is at your feet for a lifetime!"

"Of nights or days, senor?" asked the girl, laughingly.

"She caught you there, Senor Gonzales," observed Bryton, who was dealing the cards. "Don Rafael, after all, makes the only definite offer."

"You are right, Don Keith," returned the other. "With the help of the Americanos, Don Rafael is learning to be a good maker of bargains."

"The sooner the rest of you learn the same trick, the better for California!" retorted Rafael.

"You hear?" said Don Ricardo.

"Sure," a.s.sented the major-domo. "What if his mother heard?"

"All the saints! There would be murder!"

"Por Dios!" exclaimed Rafael, as a servant opened a window because of the thick tobacco smoke; "it is daylight, and I must start for San Diego. My last bachelor carouse is ended, and none of us under the table!"

"How sad that we are still able to stand on our own feet!" laughed Merced. "See!" and she sprang to the top of a beautiful silver-decorated chest against the wall; "one of us is even able to dance good-bye to your last night of freedom! Good-bye, O free heart of Don Rafael! On some to-morrow the bride comes!"

"Holy Maria!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Don Antonio, putting his gla.s.s down; "she is dancing on the _donas_ of the bride!"

"The _donas_!" echoed Don Ricardo, aghast; "and the bride a young saint stolen from the Church!--the _donas_!"

"What's that?" asked Bryton, while the rest applauded the dancer.

"_Donas?"_

"The gifts of the groom to the bride,--the gown, the wedding veil, the--holy G.o.d! it's sacrilege!"

"Is it?" asked the American; "then we'll stop it. Come to coffee, Merced!"

Without further ceremony he picked the girl up in his arms, and carried her, laughing and struggling, into the great refectory, where the Indian servants were placing breakfast on the table.

"That was quick work, Antonio," observed Don Ricardo, with a breath of relief.

"Sure; he is the best of all the Americanos. Ai! even more like the caballeros of other days than our own sons!"

Don Ricardo did not care to commit himself so far as that. He contented himself with grumbling at Rafael's indifference.

"And the girl a young saint--meant to live in religion!"