Jessica, the Heiress Part 26

"In the cupboard--look, quick!" he whispered, pointing to a set of shelves built upon the wall and behind whose locked doors Pedro had been accustomed to store his baskets.

Jessica tried the little door, which refused to open, and to her inquiry for the key, Antonio pointed to his own pillow. After a slight hesitation she approached and secured the key from beneath it; but when she had opened the cupboard found that all the Indian's exquisite weaving had been removed. In its place was the metal-pointed staff, with its shank broken in half, and she exclaimed, indignantly:

"Oh! how could you do that, Antonio? And how could you be so mean as to take it from two children?"

"Ha! Once it was all mine--this land. The copper in the canyon, mine, also. Si. The padres' secret which the shepherd kept was mine----No, no; not yet!" he broke off, with a sudden, delirious scream, fancying he saw the head of a man appearing without the door.

His outcry set Jessica shivering with fear at being alone in that isolated spot with a possible madman; but a second glance into his pallid face restored her natural courage and a.s.sured her that he was powerless to injure her, even had he wished to do so. Just then, too, Buster whinnied and she felt that he was company. It sounded as if he had seen some stable companion of his own and had welcomed it; yet this could not be, of course, since n.o.body knew of her whereabouts or would be likely to come to the mesa now. Therefore, she did not follow Antonio's glance doorward, but sought at once to relieve his distress.

"Won't you drink another cup of coffee, Antonio? Or shall I make you a bit of porridge? There's hot water still in the kettle and I know how.

I've made it for my mother, often, when she was ill; and the little boys always have it. Oh, I can do it quite well!"

She was so eager to serve him, and the pain had once more so greatly lessened for the time being, that the late manager graciously consented, and with such an absurd a.s.sumption of his old "top-lofty"

manner that Jessica laughed even while she hastened to put on the tiny porringer and seek the meal. The little oil stove blazed merrily, and so deft was she that, in a very few minutes more, she had a dish of the steaming mush beside the cot and had thinned a cup of condensed milk with which to make it the more palatable. Sugar there was in plenty, for Pedro had loved sweets; so that nothing was wanted, save appet.i.te, to render the repast all that was desirable; yet when it was quite ready Antonio could not take it.

The pain had returned and with added intensity; and it was due to that fact that he no longer delayed the confession he had sent for her to hear.

"Hark! Behold! I talk."

"Yes, Antonio, I'm listening."

"Well, I--how begin? It is a story long, not pleasant."

"Wait. Open your mouth and I will feed you. Yes, do."

His black eyes stared at her, astonished. In her place had anybody done him the ill that he had done her, he would have let his enemy starve and have rejoiced at a suffering well deserved. But this child--he wished she would turn her face away, and not look upon him with that innocent compa.s.sion. She was too like her dead father, and his one best friend; whom in life he had really loved and in death had not scrupled to despoil.

"Come, Antonio, eat. Afterward you'll be stronger to talk," she said, as coaxingly as if he had been her little brother, Ned; and thus persuaded, he opened his mouth and received the morsel she forced upon him. Thus it continued; she feeding, he resting and with halting eagerness relating the story of his own misdeeds.

"For I must go to pay the price. Si. But the poor lad, my half-wit brother Ferd, ugly, sinful, desolate--he will be left alone. Is it not? For him, if I restore all, there may still be kindness and a home at Sobrante, that should all be his--if----"

"No, Antonio; you know better. That is a poor, foolish notion that has been put into your head. You know; for Mr. Hale, who is a lawyer and understands everything like that, told you and us that you hadn't a bit of right to a bit of land anywhere in this world. Unless, indeed, you may have bought it since that little while ago in Los Angeles. And if you have, where did you get the money?"

"Lo dicho dicho," he muttered the Spanish phrase: "What I have said I have said," and sighed profoundly, as one hopelessly aggrieved.

Jessica lost her temper. She forgot that he was ill and remembered only that he was imputing treachery to her parents and to others whom she loved, and retorted, warmly:

"What you have 'said' doesn't make the truth, Senor Bernal. And if you have anything to tell me I wish you would tell it now. I ought to be at home with Mr. Sharp, who's come to make us a visit. My mother is away, and it's rude to leave guests alone like that. I, who want to be a perfect lady, do hate to be rude. So tell, please, and quick."

"It was he, then, whom I saw on the road with old Ephraim, yes?" cried Antonio, in a voice which was certainly much stronger than it had been when Lady Jess arrived.

"Yes, it was he. Now begin, please. What first?"

Neither the man on the bed nor the girl who listened to him so intently suspected that other ears were as eager to hear this dying confession. Yet so it was, and Buster's short whinny of welcome had been a real one. For John, on Moses, and Ninian, on Nimrod, had lost but little time in riding to the mesa; though because of the reporter's poor horsemanship, the carpenter felt that they would really save time by taking the longer level road around by the north, and not the narrow canyon trail, which was dangerous for the inexperienced. This had consumed some time, but each felt a thrill of relief, when they at last arrived, to see Buster calmly nibbling at the dry herbage near the shepherd's cabin.

"Where Buster is Jessica is, this time," said the carpenter, softly.

"And I was right. I'd heard of this spook being seen up here, and fool folks layin' it to poor Old Century. That's why I came. We didn't make any mistake, did we?"

Then as they approached nearer to the house and quietly dismounted to hobble their horses, he added:

"Let's go up sly. Everything seems terrible still, and I'd like to take a peek through that back window 'fore we let on we've come."

Ninian was not so cautious; or, rather, he was more anxious about the little captain, and protested:

"How do we know but that this silence means mischief? If he has sent for her to harm her----"

"Hark! She's all right. Thank G.o.d for that. I can hear her laughing, and he's a coward. She isn't; and, anyway, he'd think twice 'fore he hurt a hair of that child's head. Why, man, his life wouldn't be worth a minute's purchase if he dared! He'd be hunted to his own destruction so quick you couldn't say 'scat.' Humph! He may be after mischief--'cause he hasn't been after anything else since Ca.s.s'us died--but he'll keep within bounds. Now, this way. Lucky the gra.s.s is thick; but even so, don't tread too heavy. Right behind that rear wall, close against the east, is the place to hear all and not be seen."

Therefore, as noiselessly and hastily as possible, they placed themselves within earshot of what was said within the house; and the story they heard, reduced to simplest facts, was to the effect, as follows:

Upon receiving his discharge from legal detention at Los Angeles, Antonio had felt a homesick longing for his old haunts. He had returned without telling anybody of his intention and had taken up his abode at Solano's ranch, where his unfortunate brother and the only person for whom he still cared was frequently to be found. There the dwarf had joined him, though rambling away again, from time to time, on errands of his own of which he neither spoke nor was questioned.

"Money, money! That's the one thing, the only thing, no! Get money, Ferd whenever, however, wherever you can and what you get you keep.

Hear me," had been Antonio's constant instruction during all the years of the hunchback's life; and to the dwarf's limited understanding, his adored brother typified incarnate wisdom.

He had antic.i.p.ated high praise when, one day, he came back to Solano's and reported his hiding of the little captain in the canyon cave. The praise was not so ready at first, for Antonio was astute enough to see whither such a hazardous scheme might lead; but the approbation came unstained when, later, Ferd again appeared, describing Pedro's behavior at the time of the rescue and of the curious action of the ancient staff. Sent back alone to bring fresh specimens of the mineral Pedro had unearthed, Ferd had suddenly turned stubborn and refused to go more than halfway. Pedro had died suddenly, and Pedro's ghost would haunt the spot; no, even Antonio should not compel him thither. He would do anything, everything else, but go to the canyon cave again he would not.

Indeed Antonio now felt that it was hardly necessary he should. The poor lad's superst.i.tion had suggested a better way. With Solano's aid, the deluded "top-lofty" hatched a notable scheme. He would himself impersonate Old Century's uneasy spirit, which could not rest because he had betrayed the secret of the ancient padres. Nero could be made as white as any ghost horse by the application of a little paint; and shod with rubber could pa.s.s over the sandy roads with almost as little noise as any spectral steed. It was easy to bribe and terrify two small boys into securing and restoring to him the pointed wand, even if by their effort to obtain it they might happen to fall and break it. That mattered little, however, since the point was all that he wanted; but it was just as well to have that money he had seen through the window, that night of his first appearance on Sobrante grounds.

That, too, was easy to get if one watched his opportunity in that cactus tunnel Ferd had scooped for his brother's convenience. An unsuspecting, busy household left many chances for entering an open-windowed room, and who had ever been so familiar as he with the supposed safety secret place in which the key was kept? With the money he had found also the bit of copper Pedro had procured; and he knew enough of mining matters to rejoice, indeed. He had meant to do great things. He would prosecute his land claim to the uttermost; and there were plenty of unscrupulous men who would undertake his cause for a share in the profits of a copper mine. This very mesa would have been the scene of their first operations. Here the mill would have been built, and here----

"But what the use? The hand of punishment is upon me, yes. The money, it is there. Ferd shall tell of all the rest that he has put somewhere, I know not. His poor brain cannot carry out the plan, and to me it avails no more. Ay de mi! But Solano--beware. Of some things he knows, and of more he suspects, is it not? Ah! I weary, I languish, I die, I, Antonio Bernal, heir to wealth so boundless. It was so fine a plan--so most wonderful and simple. The fools, how they feared! Oh!

the laughter I had! and the wild, rides on my so splendid ghost horse, yes. But I die--I die; and the great big plan for the copper turned to gold--I--who else will have the so great intellect, you call it, to make it real? Well, I have done. The staff I return--useless, save to me. The money--I cannot carry whither I must ride on the white horse of death--whiter than--the pity! The pity! Poor Antonio! Poor, poor Antonio!"

His long talk had, indeed, wearied him to faintness; but while his own tears rained down his cheeks in his self-pity, even as Jessica's in sympathetic sorrow, a cheerful and hearty voice cried through the window:

"Don't fret yourself, top-lofty! There's one or two other smart men left, my friend, to carry out that n.o.ble scheme of yours, and my name ain't John Benton, if they don't do it! More'n that, I'll promise you a few more years to spend in wickedness, if you like. On one condition."

Antonio's eyes almost leaped from his head in amaze at this interruption and greater amazement at this astounding promise; and John was swift to press his advantage:

"I'll save your life--on one condition!"

CHAPTER XX.

THE VERDICT

"Benton!" warned Ninian Sharp, aghast at the audacity of a man who would trifle with the apparent death-hour of any man.

"Oh! that's all right. Come around and in with me. I never yet heard a voice as l.u.s.ty as that from a dying man, and I've been acquainted with Senor Bernal some little spell. He's scared nigh to death--it's just possible--but he ain't sick nor wounded to death, or I'm mistook. Come in!"

Jessica met him at the door, and impulsively threw her arms about them at her relief in their presence. She had not been afraid of anything which could harm herself, but she had believed the man's own statement that he was dying, and his suffering had been evidently intense at times. She had been saddened and awe-stricken, and she now shared Ninian's indignation at the carpenter's apparently heartless promise.

How was it possible for him to bestow life where death had set its seal?

Nothing abashed by the reproachful looks cast upon him, John walked straight to the bed and demanded, in the most ordinary tone: