The Strollers Part 55

The shade resting on the valley appeared that of a mighty, virulent hand. Out of the depths arose a flock of dark-hued birds, soaring toward the morbific fog; not moving like other winged creatures, with harmony of motion, but rising without unity, and filling the vale with discordant sounds. Nowhere could these sable birds have appeared more unearthly than in the "dark valley," as it was called by the natives, where the mists moved capriciously, yet remained persistently within the circ.u.mference of this natural cauldron, now falling like a pall and again hovering in mid air. Suddenly the uncanny birds vanished among the trees as quickly as they had arisen, and there was something mysterious about their unwarranted disappearance and the abrupt cessation of clamorous cries.

While viewing this somber scene, Saint-Prosper had made his way to a little adobe house which the natives had built near the trail that led through the valley. As he approached this hut he encountered a dismal but loquacious sentinel, tramping before the partly opened door.

"This is chilly work, guard?" said the young man, pausing.

"Yis, Colonel," replied the soldier, apparently grateful for the interruption; "it's a hot foight I prefer to this cool dooty."

"Whom are you guarding?" continued the officer.

"A spy, taken in the lines a few days ago. He's to be executed this morning at six. But I don't think he will moind that, for it's out of his head he is, with the malaria."

"He should have had medical attendance," observed the officer, stepping to the door.

"Faith, they'll cure him at daybreak," replied the guard. "It's a medicine that niver fails."

Saint-Prosper pushed open the door. The interior was so dim that at first he could not distinguish the occupant, but when his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, he discovered the figure of the prisoner, who was lying with his back toward him on the ground of the little hut with nothing but a thin blanket beneath him. The only light revealing the barren details of this Indian residence sifted through the small doorway or peered timorously down through a narrow aperture in the roof that served for a chimney. As Saint-Prosper gazed at the prostrate man, the latter moved uneasily, and from the parched lips fell a few words:

"Lock the doors, Oly-koeks! Hear the songsters, Mynheer Ten Breecheses! Birds of prey, you Dutch varlet! What do you think of the mistress of the manor? The serenading anti-renters have come for her."

Then he repeated more slowly: "The squaw Pewasch! For seventeen and one-half ells of duffels! A rare princ.i.p.ality for the scornful minx!

Lord! how the birds sing now around the manor--screech owls, cat-birds, bobolinks!"

The soldier started back, vivid memories a.s.sailing his mind. Who was this man whose brain, independent of the corporeal sh.e.l.l, played waywardly with scenes, characters and events, indissolubly a.s.sociated with his own life?

"Do you know, Little Thunder, the Lord only rebuked the Pharisees?"

continued the prostrate man. "Though the Pharisee triumphs after all!

But it was the stroller I wanted, not the princ.i.p.ality."

He stirred quickly, as if suddenly aware of the presence of another in the hut, and, turning, lifted his head in a startled manner, surveying the figure near the doorway with conflicting emotions written on his pallid countenance. Perhaps some fragment of a dream yet lingered in his brain; perhaps he was confused at the sight of a face that met his excited look with one of doubt and bewilderment, but only partial realization of the ident.i.ty of the intruder came to him in his fevered condition.

Arising deliberately, his body, like a machine, obeying automatically some unconscious power, he confronted the officer, who recognized in him, despite his thin, worn face and eyes, unnaturally bright, the once pretentious land baron, Edward Mauville. Moving toward the door, gazing on Saint-Prosper as though he was one of the figures of a disturbing phantasm, he reached the threshold, and, lifting his hand above his head, the prisoner placed it against one of the supports of the hut and stood leaning there. From the creation of his mind's eye, as he doubtlessly, half-conscious of his weakness, designated the familiar form, he glanced at the sentinel and shook as though abruptly conscious of his situation. Across the valley the soldiers showed signs of bestirring themselves, the smoke of many fires hovering earthward beneath the mist. Drawing his thin frame proudly to its full height, with a gesture of disdain for physical weakness, and setting his keen, wild eyes upon the soldier, Mauville said in a hollow tone:

"Is that really you, Mr. Saint-Prosper? At first I thought you but a trick of the imagination. Well, look your fill upon me! You are my Nemesis come to see the end."

"I am here by chance, Edward Mauville; an officer in the American army!"

"And I, a spy in the Mexican army. So are we authorized foes."

Rubbing his trembling hands together, his eyes shifted from the dark birds to the mists, then from the phantom forests back to the hut, finally resting on his shabby boots of yellow leather. The sunlight penetrating a rift in the mist settled upon him as he moved feebly and uncertainly through the doorway and seated himself upon a stool. This sudden glow brought into relief his ragged, unkempt condition, the sallowness of his face, and his wasted form, and Saint-Prosper could not but contrast pityingly this cheerless object, in the garb of a ranchero, with the prepossessing, sportive heir who had driven through the Shadengo Valley.

Apparently now the sun was grateful to his bent, stricken figure, and, basking in it, he recalled his distress of the previous night:

"This is better. Not long ago I awoke with chattering teeth. 'This,' I said, 'is life; a miasma, cold, discomfort,' Yes, yes; a fever, a miasma, with phantoms fighting you--struggling to choke you--but now"--he paused, and fumbling in his pocket, drew out a cigarette case, which he opened, but found empty. A cigar the other handed him he took mechanically and lighted with scrupulous care. Near at hand the guard, more cheerful under the prospect of speedy relief from his duties, could be heard humming to himself:

"Oh, Teady-foley, you are my darling, You are my looking-gla.s.s night and morning--"

Watching the smoker, Saint-Prosper asked himself how came Mauville to be serving against his own country, or why he should have enlisted at all, this pleasure-seeking man of the world, to whom the hardships of a campaign must have been as novel as distasteful.

"Are you satisfied with your trial?" said the soldier at length.

"Yes," returned Mauville, as if breaking from a reverie. "I confess I am the secret agent of Santa Anna and would have carried information from your lines. I am here because there is more of the Latin than the Anglo-Saxon in me. Many of the old families"--with a touch of insane pride--"did not regard the purchase of Louisiana by the United States as a transaction alienating them from other ties. Fealty is not a commercial commodity. But this," he added, scornfully, "is something you can not understand. You soldiers of fortune draw your swords for any master who pays you."

The wind moaned down the mountain side, and the slender trees swayed and bent; only the heavy and ponderous cactus remained motionless, a formidable monarch receiving obeisance from supple courtiers. Like cymbals, the leaves clashed around this armament of power with its thousand spears out-thrust in all directions.

The ash fell from the cigar as Mauville held the weed before his eyes.

"It is an hour-gla.s.s," he muttered. "When smoked--Oh, for the power of Jupiter to order four nights in one, the better to pursue his love follies! Love follies," he repeated, and, as a new train of fancy was awakened, he regarded Saint-Prosper venomously.

"Do you know she is the daughter of a marquis?" said Mauville, suddenly.

"Who?" asked the soldier.

"The stroller, of course. You can never win her," he added, contemptuously. "She knows all about that African affair."

Saint-Prosper started violently, but in a moment Mauville's expression changed, and he appeared plunged in thought.

"The last time I saw her," he said, half to himself, "she was dressed in black--her face as noonday--her hair black as midnight--crowning her with languorous allurement!"

He repeated the last word several times like a man in a dream.

"Allurement! allurement!" and again relapsed into a silence that was half-stupor.

By this time the valley, with the growing of the day, began to lose much of its evil aspect, and the eye, tempted through glades and vistas, lingered upon gorgeous forms of inflorescence. The land baron slowly blew a wreath of smoke in the air--a circle, mute reminder of eternity!--and threw the end of the cigar into the bushes. Looking long and earnestly at the surrounding scene, he started involuntarily. "The dark valley--whar de mists am risin'--I see yo' da, honey--fo'ebber and fo'ebber--"

As he surveyed this prospect, with these words ringing in his ears, the brief silence was broken by a bugle call and the trampling of feet.

"The trumpet shall sound and the dead shall arise," said the prisoner, turning and facing the soldiers calmly. "You have come for me?" he asked, quietly.

"Yes," said the officer in command. "General Scott has granted your request in view of certain circ.u.mstances, and you will be shot, instead of hanged."

The face of the prisoner lighted wonderfully. He drew himself erect and smiled with some of the a.s.sumption of the old insolence, that expression Saint-Prosper so well remembered! His features took on a semblance to the careless, dashing look they had borne when the soldier crossed weapons with him at the Oaks, and he neither asked nor intended to give quarter.

"I thank you," he observed, courteously. "At least, I shall die like a gentleman. I am ready, sir! Do not fasten my hands. A Mauville can die without being tied or bound."

The officer hesitated: "As to that--" he began.

"It is a reasonable request," said Saint-Prosper, in a low tone.

Mauville abruptly wheeled; his face, dark and sinister, was lighted with envenomed malignity; an unnaturally clear perception replaced the stupor of his brain, and, bending toward Saint-Prosper, his eye rested upon him with such rancor and malevolence the soldier involuntarily drew away. But one word fell from the land baron's lips, low, vibrating, full of inexpressible bitterness. "Traitor!"

"Come, come!" interrupted the officer in command of the execution party; "time is up. As I was told not to fasten your hands, you shall have your wish. Confess now, that is accommodating?"

"Thanks," returned Mauville carelessly, relapsing into his old manner.

"You are an obliging fellow! I would do as much for you."

"Not much danger of that," growled the other. "But we'll take the will for the deed. Forward, march!"