Heart of the Sunset Part 56

"His humiliation kills him. When I saw that it was useless to appeal to him on moral grounds, and that threats were unavailing, I took another course. Something gave me insight into his mind, and the power to talk as I have never talked before. All in a flash I saw the man's soul laid bare before me, and--I think I played upon it with some cunning. I don't remember all I said, for I was inspired, but I appealed to his vanity and to his conceit, and as I went along I impressed upon him, over and over, the fact that the world knows we are here and that it trusts him. He aspires to the Presidency; he believes he is destined to be Mexico's Dictator; so I painted a picture that surpa.s.sed his own imaginings. He would have been suspicious of mere flattery, so I went far beyond that and inflamed him with such extravagant visions as only a child or an unblushing egotist like him could accept. I swelled his vanity; I inflated his conceit. For a moment, at least, I lifted him out of himself and raised him to the heights."

From beyond the closed door came Longorio's voice, issuing some command to his men. A moment pa.s.sed; then he appeared before the three Americans. He seemed taller, thinner, more erect and hawklike than ever. His head was held more proudly and his chest was fuller. A set, disdainful smile was graven upon his face.

He began by addressing his words directly to Alaire. "Senora," he said, "I am a man of deep feeling and I scorn deceit. Therefore I offer no apology for my recent display of emotion. If I have seemed to press my advances with undue fervor, it is because, at heart, I am as great a lover as I am a statesman or a soldier. But there are other things than love. Nature const.i.tuted me a leader, and he who climbs high must climb alone. I offered Chapultepec as a shrine for your beauty. I offered to share Mexico with you, and I told you that I would not be content with less than all of you. Well I meant it. Otherwise--I would take you now." His voice throbbed with a sudden fierce desire, and his long, lean hands closed convulsively. "You must realize that I have the courage and the power to defy the world, eh?" He seemed to challenge denial of this statement, but, receiving none, he went on, fixing his brilliant, feverish eyes once more upon Alaire. "As a man of sentiment I am unique; I am different from any you have ever known. I would not possess a flower without its fragrance. You did not believe me when I told you that, but I am going to prove it. All your life you are going to think of me as heroic. Perhaps no patriot in history ever made a more splendid sacrifice for his country than I make now. Some day the world will wonder how I had the strength to put aside love and follow the path of duty."

Alaire trusted herself to ask, "Then we are free to go?"

The general's face was swept by a grimace intended for a smile. "I have ordered your horses to be saddled."

Dave, who had with difficulty restrained his anger at the fellow's bombast, was upon the point of speaking when Father O'Malley took the words out of his mouth:

"Would you send this woman out of her own house into a country like--like this? Remember the fortune in cattle you have already taken--"

Longorio broke in with a snarl: "Is it my fault that the country is in arms? Military necessity compels me to remain here. I consider myself magnanimous. I--" His voice cracked, and he made a despairing, violent gesture. "Go, before I change my mind."

Dave signaled to the others, and Alaire slipped away to make herself ready. During the uncomfortable silence which succeeded her departure, Longorio paced the room, keeping his eyes resolutely turned away from Law.

"Do you mean that I, too, may go?" O'Malley inquired.

"What good are you to me?" snapped the general.

"You will give us safe conduct?"

"Be still, priest!" Longorio glared at the speaker, clasping and unclasping his fists behind his back.

With the sound of hoofs outside, Alaire and Dolores appeared, and the Mexican straightened himself with an effort.

"Adios, senora!" he said, with a stiff bow. "We have had a pleasant friendship and a thrilling flirtation, eh? I shall never cease to regret that Fate interrupted at such an interesting moment. Adios!

Adios!" He bowed formally, in turn to Dave and to the priest, then resumed his pacing, with his hands at his back and his brow furrowed as if in a struggle with affairs of greater moment than this.

But when he heard the outside door creak shut behind them his indifference vanished and he halted with head turned in an effort to catch the last sounds of their departure. His face was like tallow now, his lips were drawn back from his teeth as if in supreme agony. A moment and the hoofbeats had died away. Then Longorio slipped his leash.

He uttered a cry--a hoa.r.s.e, half-strangled shriek that tore his throat.

He plucked the collar from his neck as if it choked him; he beat his breast. Seizing whatever article his eye fell upon, he tore and crushed it; he swept the table clean of its queer Spanish bric-a-brac, and trampled the litter under his heels. Spying a painting of a saint upon the wall, he ran to it, ripped it from its nail, and, raising it over his head, smashed frame and gla.s.s, cursing all saints, all priests, and churchly people. Havoc followed him as he raged about the place wreaking his fury upon inanimate objects. When he had well-nigh wrecked the contents of the room, and when his first paroxysm had spent its violence, he hurled himself into a chair, writhing in agony. He bit his wrists, he pounded his fists, he kicked; finally he sprawled full length upon the floor, clawing at the cool, smooth tiles until his nails bled.

"Christ! O Christ!" he screamed.

The sound of his blasphemies reached the little group of soldiers who had lingered curiously outside, and they listened open-mouthed. One by one they crossed themselves and stole away into the darkness, muttering.

x.x.xI

A SPANISH WILL

With a singing heart Alaire rode through the night at her husband's side. The strain of the last few hours had been so intense, the relief at her deliverance so keen, that now she felt curiously weak, and she kept close to Dave, comforted by his nearness and secure in the knowledge of his strength.

Although he was unusually taciturn and rode with his chin upon his breast, she attributed his silence to fatigue. Now and then, therefore, she spurred to his side and spoke softly, caressingly. At such times he reached for her hand and clung to it.

Dave was indeed weary; he was, in fact, in a sort of stupor, and not infrequently he dozed for a moment or two in his saddle. Yet it was not this which stilled his tongue, but a growing sense of guilt and dismay at what he had brought upon himself. In a moment of weakness he had done the very thing against which he had fought so bitterly, and now he faced the consequences. How, when, where could he find strength to undo his action? he asked himself. The weight of this question bent his shoulders, paralyzed his wits.

Some two hours out from La Feria the riders halted at a point where the road dipped into a rocky stream-bed; then, as the horses drank, Dolores voiced a thought that had troubled all of them.

"If that bandit really means to spare us, why did he send us away in the night, like this?" she asked. "I shall be surprised if we are not a.s.sa.s.sinated before morning."

"He must have meant it." Alaire spoke with a conviction she did not entirely feel. "Father O'Malley aroused the finer side of his nature."

"Perhaps," agreed the priest. "Somewhere in him there is a fear of G.o.d."

But Dave was skeptical. "More likely a fear of the gringo Government,"

said he. "Longorio is a four-flusher. When he realized he was licked he tried to save his face by a grandstand play. He didn't want to let us go."

"Then what is to prevent him from--well, from having us followed?"

Alaire inquired.

"Nothing," Dave told her.

As they climbed the bank and rode onward into the night she said: "No matter what happens, dear, I shall be happy, for at last one of my dreams has come true." He reached out and patted her. "You've no idea what a coward I was until you came. But the moment I saw you all my fears vanished. I was like a lost child who suddenly sees her father; in your arms I felt perfectly safe, for the first time in all my life, I think. I--I couldn't bear to go on without you, after this."

Dave found nothing to say; they rode along side by side for a time in a great contentment that required no speech. Then Alaire asked:

"Dear, have you considered how we--are going to explain our marriage?"

"Won't the circ.u.mstances explain it?"

"Perhaps. And yet--It seems ages since I learned--what happened to Ed, but in reality it's only a few hours. Won't people talk?"

Dave caught at the suggestion. "I see. Then let's keep it secret for the present. I promise not to--act like a husband."

With a little reckless laugh she confessed, "I--I'm afraid I'll find it difficult to be conventional."

"My wife!" he cried in sharp agony. Leaning far out, he encircled her with his arm; then, half lifting her from her saddle, he crushed his lips to hers. It was his first display of emotion since Father O'Malley had united them.

There were few villages along the road they followed, and because of the lateness of the hour all were dark, hence the party pa.s.sed through without exciting attention except from an occasional wakeful dog. But as morning came and the east began to glow Dave told the priest:

"We've got to hide out during the day or we'll get into trouble.

Besides, these women must be getting hungry."

"I fear there is something feminine about me," confessed the little man. "I'm famished, too."

At the next rancho they came to they applied for shelter, but were denied; in fact, the owner cursed them so roundly for being Americans that they were glad to ride onward. A mile or two farther along they met a cart the driver of which refused to answer their greetings. As they pa.s.sed out of his sight they saw that he had halted his lean oxen and was staring after them curiously. Later, when the sun was well up and the world had fully awakened, they descried a mounted man, evidently a cowboy, riding through the chaparral. He saw them, too, and came toward the road, but after a brief scrutiny he whirled his horse and galloped off through the cactus, shouting something over his shoulder.

"This won't do," O'Malley declared, uneasily. "I don't like the actions of these people. Let me appeal to the next person we meet. I can't believe they all hate us."

Soon they came to a rise in the road, and from the crest of this elevation beheld ahead of them a small village of white houses shining from the shelter of a grove. The rancheria was perhaps two miles away, and galloping toward it was the vaquero who had challenged them.

"That's the Rio Negro crossing," Dave announced. Then spying a little house squatting a short distance back from the road, he said: "We'd better try yonder. If they turn us down we'll have to take to the brush."