The Crusade of the Excelsior Part 15

"Mr. Hurlstone?--it is possible; but I know really nothing of him," said Mrs. Brimmer carelessly. "I don't think Clarissa did, either--did you, dear? Even in our enforced companionship we had to use some reserve, and we may have drawn the line at him! He was a friend of Miss Keene's; indeed, she was the only one who seemed to know him."

"And she is now here?" asked the Padre eagerly.

"No. She is with her friend the Senora Markham, at the Presidio. The Comandante has given her the disposition of his house," said Don Ramon, with a glance of grave archness at Mrs. Brimmer; "it is not known which is the most favored, the eloquent orator or the beautiful and daring leader!"

"Mrs. Markham is a married woman," said Mrs. Brimmer severely, "and, of course, she can do as she pleases; but it is far different with Miss Keene. I should scarcely consider it proper to expose Miss Chubb to the hospitality of a single man, without other women, and I cannot understand how she could leave the companionship and protection of your lovely sisters."

The priest here rose, and, with formal politeness, excused himself, urging the peremptory summons of the Council.

"I scarcely expected, indeed, to have had the pleasure of seeing my colleague here," he added with quiet suavity, turning to the Alcalde.

"I have already expressed my views to the Comandante," said the official, with some embarra.s.sment, "and my attendance will hardly be required."

The occasional misleading phosph.o.r.escence of Mrs. Brimmer's quiet eyes, early alluded to in these pages, did not escape Father Esteban's quick perception at that moment; however, he preferred to leave his companion to follow its aberrations rather than to permit that fair ignis fatuus to light him on his way by it.

"But my visit to you, Father Esteban," she began sweetly, "is only postponed."

"Until I have the pleasure of antic.i.p.ating it here," said the priest, with paternal politeness bending before the two ladies; "but for the present, au revoir!"

"It would be an easy victory to win this discreetly emotional Americana to the Church," said Father Esteban to himself, as he crossed the plaza; "but, if I mistake not, she would not cease to be a disturbing element even there. However, she is not such as would give this Hurlstone any trouble. It seems I must look elsewhere for the brains of this party, and to find a solution of this young man's mystery; and, if I judge correctly, it is with this beautiful young agitator of revolutions and her oratorical duenna I must deal."

He entered the low gateway of the Presidio unchallenged, and even traversed the courtyard without meeting a soul. The guard and sentries had evidently withdrawn to their habitual peaceful vocations, and the former mediaeval repose of the venerable building had returned. There was no one in the guard-room; but as the priest turned back to the corridor, his quick ear was suddenly startled by the unhallowed and inconsistent sounds of a guitar. A monotonous voice also--the Comandante's evidently--was raised in a thin, high recitative.

The Padre pa.s.sed hastily through the guard-room, and opened the door of the pa.s.sage leading to the garden slope. Here an extraordinary group presented itself to his astonished eyes. In the shadow of a palm-tree, Mrs. Markham, seated on her Saratoga trunk as on a throne, was gazing blandly down upon the earnest features of the Commander, who, at her feet, guitar in hand, was evidently repeating some musical composition.

His subaltern sat near him, divided in admiration of his chief and the guest. Miss Keene, at a little distance, aided by the secretary, was holding an animated conversation with a short, stout, Sancho Panza-looking man, whom the Padre recognized as the doctor of Todos Santos.

At the apparition of the reverend Father, the Commander started, the subaltern stared, and even the secretary and the doctor looked discomposed.

"I am decidedly de trop this morning," soliloquized the ecclesiastic; but Miss Keene cut short his reflection by running to him frankly, with outstretched hand.

"I am so glad that you have come," she said, with a youthful, unrestrained earnestness that was as convincing as it was fascinating, "for you will help me to persuade this gentleman that poor Captain Bunker is suffering more from excitement of mind than body, and that bleeding him is more than folly."

"The man's veins are in a burning fever and delirium from aguardiente,"

said the little doctor excitedly, "and the fire must first be put out by the lancet."

"He is only crazy with remorse for having lost his ship through his own carelessness and the treachery of others," said Miss Keene doughtily.

"He is a maniac and will kill himself, unless his fever is subdued,"

persisted the doctor.

"And you would surely kill him by your way of subduing it," said the young girl boldly. "Better for him, a disgraced man of honor, to die by his own hand, than to be bled like a calf into a feeble and helpless dissolution. I would, if I were in his place--if I had to do it by tearing off the bandages."

She made a swift, half unconscious gesture of her little hand, and stopped, her beautiful eyes sparkling, her thin pink nostrils dilated, her red lips parted, her round throat lifted in the air, and one small foot advanced before her. The men glanced hurriedly at each other, and then fixed their eyes upon her with a rapt yet frightened admiration. To their simple minds it was Anarchy and Revolution personified, beautiful, and victorious.

"Ah!" said the secretary to Padre Esteban, in Spanish, "it is true! she knows not fear! She was in the room alone with the madman; he would let none approach but her! She took a knife from him--else the medico had suffered!"

"He recognized her, you see! Ah! they know her power," said the Comandante, joining the group.

"You will help me, Father Esteban?" said the young girl, letting the fire of her dark eyes soften to a look of almost childish appeal--"you will help me to intercede for him? It is the restraint only that is killing him--that is goading him to madness! Think of him, Father--think of him: ruined and disgraced, dying to retrieve himself by any reckless action, any desperate chance of recovery, and yet locked up where he can do nothing--attempt nothing--not even lift a hand to pursue the man who has helped to bring him to this!"

"But he CAN do nothing! The ship is gone!" remonstrated the Comandante.

"Yes, the ship is gone; but the ocean is still there," said Miss Keene.

"But he has no boat."

"He will find or make one."

"And the fog conceals the channel."

"He can go where THEY have gone, or meet their fate. You do not know my countrymen, Senor Comandante," she said proudly.

"Ah, yes--pardon! They are at San Antonio--the baker, the buffoon, the two young men who dig. They are already baking and digging and joking.

We have it from my officer, who has just returned."

Miss Keene bit her pretty lips.

"They think it is a mistake; they cannot believe that any intentional indignity is offered them," she said quietly. "Perhaps it is well they do not."

"They desired me to express their condolences to the Senora," said the Padre, with exasperating gentleness, "and were relieved to be a.s.sured by me of your perfect security in the hands of these gentlemen."

Miss Keene raised her clear eyes to the ecclesiastic. That accomplished diplomat of Todos Santos absolutely felt confused under the cool scrutiny of this girl's unbiased and unsophisticated intelligence.

"Then you HAVE seen them," she said, "and you know their innocence, and the utter absurdity of this surveillance?"

"I have not seen them ALL," said the priest softly. "There is still another--a Senor Hurlstone--who is missing? Is he not?"

It was not in the possibility of Eleanor Keene's truthful blood to do other than respond with a slight color to this question. She had already concealed from every one the fact of having seen the missing man in the Mission garden the evening before. It did not, however, prevent her the next moment from calmly meeting the glance of the priest as she answered gravely,--

"I believe so. But I cannot see what that has to do with the detention of the others."

"Much, perhaps. It has been said that you alone, my child, were in the confidence of this man."

"Who dared say that?" exclaimed Miss Keene in English, forgetting herself in her indignation.

"If it's anything mean--it's Mrs. Brimmer, I'll bet a cooky," said Mrs. Markham, whose linguistic deficiencies had debarred her from the previous conversation.

"You have only," continued the priest, without noticing the interruption, "to tell us what you know of this Hurlstone's plans,--of his complicity with Senor Perkins, or," he added significantly, "his opposition to them--to insure that perfect justice shall be done to all."

Relieved that the question involved no disclosure of her only secret regarding Hurlstone, Miss Keene was about to repeat the truth that she had no confidential knowledge of him, or of his absurd alleged connection with Senor Perkins, when, with an instinct of tact, she hesitated. Might she not serve them all--even Hurlstone himself--by saying nothing, and leaving the burden of proof to their idiotic accusers? Was she altogether sure that Hurlstone was entirely ignorant of Senor Perkins' plans, or might he not have refused, at the last moment, to join in the conspiracy, and so left the ship?

"I will not press you for your answer now," said the priest gently. "But you will not, I know, keep back anything that may throw a light on this sad affair, and perhaps help to reinstate your friend Mr. Hurlstone in his REAL position."

"If you ask me if I believe that Mr. Hurlstone had anything to do with this conspiracy, I should say, unhesitatingly, that I do NOT. And more, I believe that he would have jumped overboard rather than a.s.sent to so infamous an act," said the young girl boldly.

"Then you think he had no other motive for leaving the ship?" said the priest slowly.

"Decidedly not." She stopped; a curious anxious look in the Padre's persistent eyes both annoyed and frightened her. "What other motive could he have?" she said coldly.