"I've played this hand alone," said he; "but I'm thinking it's getting about time for those San Remo folks to chip in."
And then in the distance, through the shimmering mirage that wavered before the eye, he saw a little cloud of dust arise like a travelling whirlwind.
He watched it; it was not one of nature's whirlwinds, for it came straight on up the trail, fast and steady. Men made that whirlwind, and soon they were near enough to be distinguished.
It was Don Andres and a strong band of Mexicans riding like the Old Harry to the rescue.
"But I played it alone, for all that," he said.
CHAPTER XXIX
PEACE WITH HONOUR
When the death-shriek of Mahletonkwa startled the dwellers in the Casa Sanchez, the sound was so strange, so unearthly, that they sprang to their feet in terror. What new ill had fallen upon the village! That could be no human cry. It seemed to their terrified imaginations that some evil spirit from the other world had come to add a crowning horror to their troubles.
"It is the devil," they murmured, crossing themselves with trembling prayers--"the devil has come to carry away _el defunto_. _Que los Santos nos ayuden._"
But when the blood-curdling shriek was followed by a succession of rapid pistol-shots and the cries of those who fell before the American's unerring aim, they knew that it was a conflict of a more earthly sort.
The men snatched up their arms and dashed out of the house, ready for attack or defence, and were followed to the door by the trembling women, while Stephens's dog darted away on his master's trail.
This last alarm was too much for Manuelita. Her nerves were still quivering from the terrors of her own captivity, and now fears for her deliverer overwhelmed her. She knew the American was at the store,--he was surely killed; the blow that had threatened them had fallen at last, not on the family but on their friend. She tried to run, but her trembling limbs refused to bear her, and she sank to the ground in a passion of sobs; brave she could be for her own danger, but not for him, not for the man who had just left her, whose eyes had told her a secret she hardly let herself guess.
She raised her head and heard the shuffling of feet, and the sound of subdued voices came nearer to her. In the doorway appeared her father, anxious and flurried. "Hasten, sister," he called in a loud half-whisper to her aunt, "hasten and make a bed in the room across the patio for a wounded man. The Navajos are on the war-path, and an American has been hurt."
"Who is it?" asked his sister, answering him in the same excited half-whisper, as the ominous shuffling steps of Rocky's bearers reached the outside of the door and paused. "Is he dying? Quick there, Juana, run and bring bedding; fly!"
Manuelita's heart seemed to stop beating as she listened for the answer.
"I know not who he is. They say he is a friend of Don Estevan's. He had but just arrived from Santa Fe. There is a doctor of the American soldiers with him. Mahletonkwa stabbed him in the lung."
Manuelita tried to ask, "And what of Don Estevan?" but her dry lips refused to speak the words. Her father answered the unspoken question.
"Don Estevan is like a raging lion. He has killed Mahletonkwa and half his band already, and he is chasing the rest. Ah, what a fighter! They say he fired off his pistol like lightning, and left the savages lying all around like dead dogs in a heap as if a thunderbolt from heaven had struck them. Ah, what a fighter! The young men are all galloping after to help him."
"He is not wounded himself?" They were already in the room across the patio preparing it for the wounded man, and it was the voice of Manuelita that asked this question. Her tongue had found speech at last.
"Well, it is not known precisely," said Don Nepomuceno. "He started off after them like fury, and so did the two young Sandovals, and then there was more firing out on the plain, but it is not certain as yet what happened there. The doctor of the American soldiers wished to place the wounded Americano with us at once, and I did not wait. Ah, here they are, bringing him through the court. This way, Senor el Doctor. Here is the room for him. Is he much hurt?"
"Pretty bad," replied the doctor in Spanish, which he knew that Rocky, who was still conscious, did not understand. "But we shall see. With proper nursing there should be a good chance for him yet."
With gentle hands Rocky was laid upon the couch arranged for him, and attended to by the doctor and the women-folk, while Don Nepomuceno, in his eagerness to be of service, succeeded only in getting in everybody's way and making a wholly unnecessary fuss.
"Run, Juana, run. Bring a bowl with water for the doctor; cold water, mind you--hot, did you say, Doctor?--hot water, then, Juana, hot from the fire. And a towel, a clean towel, child--two towels; and be quick, quick! How slow you are!"
Rap, rap, rap, came loud, imperative knocks upon the outer door of the house, which had been made fast again after the limp form of Rocky had been brought inside. Don Nepomuceno flew to open it himself.
"Hush, hush! Who is there? Eh? What? Another man hurt? _Ave Maria purisima_, I hope it is not Don Estevan." His fingers fumbled with the bolts in his haste to unbar. "No, you say, not him. Who is it, then? One of the Sandovals shot with an arrow. And you wish for the doctor of the American soldiers to come and cure him? Come in, then, come in,"--the door opened as he spoke,--"come in and speak to the doctor yourself.
Poor young Sandoval; an arrow right through his shoulder, you say. And Don Estevan was not hit? Oh, he killed the Indian that shot young Sandoval, did he? Ah, what a lion of a man! What a fighter indeed!" and bursting with this fresh piece of news he ran across the patio to tell the doctor that his services were in request for another patient.
"It looks to me," said Doctor Benton to himself, as, after doing all he could for Rocky's comfort, he hurried with the messenger towards the house where young Sandoval was lying, "at this rate, it looks to me as if I was going to get more surgical practice in San Remo in a day than I'm likely to see at Fort Wingate in a month."
The slow hours passed, and the hot midday sun blazed down on the village; even the dogs retreated indoors to find a cool corner, and the hens retired from scratching on the dust-heaps; the place seemed asleep, save where a few anxious watchers kept their faces steadily turned towards the mirage that flickered over the plain, towards the horizon beyond which the young men had disappeared. The shaded room where Manuelita sat by Rocky's couch was cool and silent and restful, but there was no rest in the girl's dark eyes; their liquid depths burnt with a dark fire, and the scarlet spot on her cheeks, and the feverish start she gave at the slightest sound outside the door showed that she was not the impassive and self-controlled sick-nurse that Doctor Benton fondly imagined he had discovered, by some Heaven-sent miracle, in this remote corner of New Mexico. But whatever inward fire burnt in her eyes and fevered her cheeks, her hand never faltered in its task of fanning the sick man, and her ear noted his slightest breath. Yet, with the curious double consciousness that comes to us when the nerves are tense with strain, she was all the time far away--riding, riding, riding at speed over the dusty levels of the Agua Negra valley, up through the pine-clad gorges of the sierra, seeking everywhere for the form of a tall, fair-haired man--no, _Madre de Dios_, not for his corpse, not for that! ah, no! some instinct would tell her, some kindly angel would whisper to her, if that were true. But no, that could not be. He was alive, he was dealing death with that terrible rifle of his to the foe; like an avenging whirlwind he was sweeping from the face of the earth those savages who had carried her off, who had tried to murder her brother, who had murdered that poor solitary prospector,--ay, and who could say how many more? Merciful saints, what had they all not suffered from them! And now a deliverer had been sent to them by Heaven, a very St. Jago, like their own fair-haired saint, with his bright armour, in the chapel.
And while she dreamed, and while her hand moved mechanically with the fan, her ear was still alert, and it brought its tidings. There was a murmur in the air, a movement without; the village stirred, and there were sounds far off. She heard a shout, several shouts, a shot--ah heavens, not a shot again!--yes, numbers of shots, mingled with _vivas_ and cries of joy; it was a lively _feu de joie_, like that from the procession on the feast day of St. Jago himself. The shouts came nearer, they would waken her patient--oh, she must look one moment.
And, in truth, when she looked out it was a sight to see. The little plaza had fairly gone off its head with excitement; the women wrapped in their rebosos, and eager hurrying children, and grey-bearded men, too old now for work or fight, and unkempt, barefooted peons, all bustling and crowding together in one place, laughing and crying at once, and asking questions to which nobody made answer; and in the centre a party of mounted _caballeros_, their silver buttons and spurs glinting in the bright sunshine, shouting and firing off pistols, and yelling as if they were possessed.
"Peace, peace, _amigos_," the voice of Don Nepomuceno was heard crying amid the babel of tongues; "a moment's peace, I pray you. This is pure madness." But no one heeded his words.
"_Viva! viva!_" yelled the young men; "here he is, behold him, the _guerrero_ Americano, the slayer of the Indians." And in the middle of them, his left arm in a sling, bloodstained, dishevelled, and in rags, sat Stephens on his mare; his brain was reeling; the intense energy that had possessed him in the hour of the fight had gone, and left him a worn and weary man.
Manuelita's heart leapt at the sight of him. He was alive and, though wounded, he was able to sit his horse; his hurts, then, could not be desperate.
"Peace, peace, _amigos_," reiterated Don Nepomuceno. "See you not that Don Estevan is weary to the death? _Santisima Virgen!_ but you forget that he is wounded, too; yes, and look how the very clothes have been torn from his back.--Dismount, then, Don Estevan, and let me help you.
Come inside, and you shall be attended to instantly." His eye fell upon the Indian boy beside him. "Here you, Felipe, run to the house of the Sandovals and see if the American doctor is there still, and tell him that there is yet another patient for him to attend to here. This way, Don Estevan. Excuse me, friends, you will not go till you have taken a cup of wine with me, but I must see to Don Estevan first. Ah, no noise now, for the sake of the sick man within. My house is purely a hospital now. Angels of grace! but what agitation, what events! This way, Don Estevan, if you please. Patience, friends. By your leave, I beg the silence of one little moment. Sister, sister, bring a change of clothes for Don Estevan; his are all torn to pieces in the fight; bring my best clothes, my feast-day clothes, out of the great chest in the inner room.
Hurry, hurry! And water to wash the blood from him. Bring water, Juana; fly!"
Like a man in a dream Stephens got off his horse and entered the house.
The Navajo bondmaid hastened in answer to her master's call and brought water to wash the blood of her kinsfolk from the hands of the American.
Passively he submitted himself to her care, and to that of Don Nepomuceno, who attended to him with bustling little airs of proprietorship, as if the prospector were his own private property, his own victorious gamecock who had won the main for him and beaten everything in the pit. He was so pleased with his office and proud of his guest that he hardly noticed how unlike the American was to his alert and masterful, everyday self. The transformation effected, he joyfully ushered him into the living-room. "Dinner, sister, dinner," he called out; "a feast, we must have a feast. Andres, some wine. Here is the key. Some of the wine of El Paso from the farthest cask. We must drink a health to-day."
But as he placed Stephens on the divan it struck him suddenly that the American looked strange. His face was white and drawn, and there was a dull, abstracted look in his eyes.
"Ah, my dear friend, you are overdone; you are worn out with your heroic deeds. One little moment only, and you shall dine."
"You are very kind," said Stephens, sinking down on the soft seat, "but I couldn't eat, thank you,--not yet."
"Ah, my poor head," cried the Mexican, "how I forget things; you are so anxious for your friend doubtless. But he is doing well, very well, I do assure you. He speaks of you; he says you are a millionaire,--that you have found the silver mine of the Indians. Oh yes, you shall see him when he wakes. My daughter is taking charge of him now. Yes, and the other wounded man, young Sandoval, is doing well too. There is no need of any anxiety. You must rest; yes, rest, and eat and drink and be merry!"
Stephens seemed to rouse himself with a great effort. "Don Nepomuceno,"
he spoke with a dull, thick, voice, "I don't think I can stay now. I had ought to go right back to the pueblo. There's some more business I have; there's a girl there, the cacique's daughter----"
"Ah, what need to remember her!" cried the Mexican with a sudden flash of irritation. "Of course I have heard--but what do mere Indians matter?
Between ourselves, what does all that amount to? Nothing, absolutely nothing." He snapped his fingers with contempt, as if to brush it all away.
"Yes, but look here, Don Nepomuceno, business is business. I've undertaken to run her show, and I'm bound to see it through. I took her away from her father because he was half-murdering her, and I want to see her safe married to this cub of mine here,--what's his name? I shall forget my own next,--oh yes, Felipe, that's it, of course--to see her married to Felipe. I'd better get it done right away, else I might forget, you know"; he looked around vaguely with an incoherent half-laugh, checked himself with an effort, and collected himself again.
"If there was a padre handy, how about doing it here?--" He broke off confusedly.
Don Nepomuceno looked puzzled.
"But why trouble over these matters now? Any time will do for those Indians. But if you wish it, certainly I will send to the pueblo. You cannot go; you are overwearied. You want this girl to come here? But no; I have a better plan. The padre is here in San Remo to-day, as it happens; let us send him there, and you shall be troubled no further by her."
Even Stephens's dulled brain could not but notice something odd in the Mexican's tone. "Oh, Lord," he groaned internally, "they all give me the name of it!"