The Rifle Rangers Part 30

"Clayley, will you do me the favour to order the men to their saddles?"

"What! going so soon? Not before breakfast, though?"

"In five minutes."

"Why, Captain, what's the matter? And such a breakfast as they are getting! Oh, Don Cosme will not hear of it."

"Don Cosme--."

Our host entered at that moment, and, listening to his remonstrances, the order was rescinded, and I consented to remain.

I saluted the ladies with as much courtesy as I could a.s.sume. I could not help the coldness of my manner, and I could perceive that with _her_ it did not pa.s.s un.o.bserved.

We sat down to the breakfast-table; but my heart was full of bitterness, and I scarcely touched the delicate viands that were placed before me.

"You do not eat, Captain. I hope you are well?" said Don Cosme, observing my strange and somewhat rude demeanour.

"Thank, you, Senor, I never enjoyed better health."

I studiously avoided looking towards her, paying slight attentions to her sister. This is the game of piques. Once or twice I ventured a side-glance. Her eyes were bent upon me with a strange, inquiring look.

They are swimming in tears, and soft, and forgiving. They are swollen.

She has been weeping. That is not strange. Her brother's danger is, no doubt, the cause of her sorrow.

Yet, is there not reproach in her looks? Reproach! How ill does my conduct of last night correspond with this affected coldness--this rudeness! Can she, too, be suffering?

I arose from the table, and, walking forth, ordered Lincoln to prepare the men for marching.

I strolled down among the orange-trees. Clayley followed soon after, accompanied by both the girls. Don Cosme remained at the house to superintend the saddling of his mule, while Dona Joaquina was packing the necessary articles into his portmanteau.

Following some silent instinct, we--Guadalupe and I--came together.

Clayley and his mistress had strayed away, leaving us alone. I had not yet spoken to her. I felt a strange impulse--a desire to know the worst. I felt as one looking over a fearful precipice.

Then I will brave the danger; it can be no worse than this agony of suspicion and suspense.

I turned towards her. Her head was bent to one side. She was crushing an orange-flower between her fingers, and her eyes seemed to follow the dropping fragments.

How beautiful was she at that moment!

"The artist certainly has not flattered you."

She looked at me with a bewildered expression. Oh, those swimming eyes!

She did not understand me.

I repeated the observation.

"Senor Capitan, what do you mean?"

"That the painter has not done you justice. The portrait is certainly a likeness, yet the expression, I think, should have been younger."

"The painter! What painter? The portrait! What portrait, Senor?"

"I refer to your portrait, which I accidentally found hanging in my apartment."

"Ah! by the mirror?"

"Yes, by the mirror," I answered sullenly.

"But, it is not _mine_, Senor Capitan."

"Ha!--how? Not yours?"

"No; it is the portrait of my cousin, Maria de Merced. They say we were much alike."

My heart expanded. My whole frame quivered under the influence of joyful emotions.

"And the gentleman?" I faltered out.

"Don Emilio? He was cousin's lover--_huyeron_," (they eloped).

As she repeated the last word she turned her head away, and I thought there was a sadness in her manner.

I was about to speak, when she continued:

"It was her room--we have not touched anything."

"And where is your cousin now?"

"We know not."

"There is a mystery," thought I. I pressed the subject no farther. It was nothing to me now. My heart was happy.

"Let us walk farther, Lupita."

She turned her eyes upon me with an expression of wonder. The change in my manner--so sudden--how was she to account for it? I could have knelt before her and explained all. Reserve disappeared, and the confidence of the preceding night was fully restored.

We wandered along under the _guardarayas_, amidst sounds and scenes suggestive of love and tenderness. Love! We heard it in the songs of the birds--in the humming of the bees--in the voices of all nature around us. We felt it in our own hearts. The late cloud had pa.s.sed, making the sky still brighter than before; the reaction had heightened our mutual pa.s.sion to the intensity of non-resistance; and we walked on, her hand clasped in mine. We had eyes only for each other.

We reached a clump of cocoa-trees; one of them had fallen, and its smooth trunk offered a seat, protected from the sun by the shadowy leaves of its fellows. On this we sat down. There was no resistance-- no reasoning process--no calculation of advantages and chances, such as is too often mingled with the n.o.ble pa.s.sion of love. We felt nothing of this--nothing but that undefinable impulse which had entered our hearts, and to whose mystical power neither of us dreamed of offering opposition. Delay and duty were alike forgotten.

"I shall ask the question now--I shall know my fate at once," were my thoughts.

In the changing scenes of a soldier's life there is but little time for the slow formalities, the zealous vigils, the complicated _finesse_ of courtship. Perhaps this consideration impelled me. I have but little confidence in the cold heart that is won by a series of a.s.siduities.

There is too much calculation of after-events--too much selfishness.

These reflections pa.s.sed through my mind. I bent towards my companion, and whispered to her in that language--rich above all others in the vocabulary of the heart:

"_Guadalupe, tu me amas_?" (Guadalupe, do you love me?)