The Mystery of The Barranca

by Herman Whitaker

  CHAPTER XIII

  Coming out from luncheon--at which Sebastien had presided with a gravecourtesy which lifted the inn's humble fare of eggs, tortillas, and riceto epicurean heights--Seyd and Francesca came face to face with Tomas,her _mozo_, who had just ridden into the patio. At sight of his mistressthe _mozo's_ teeth flashed in the golden dusk under his sombrero, but heshook his head when she reached for the letter which he took out of hissaddle bags.

  "It is for the gringo senor. The _jefe_ did not know of your coming."

  It was, of course, from Don Luis. Couched in terms massively dignifiedas his own reserve, it apologized for the floods as for some personalfault, and finished by placing hacienda San Nicolas at Seyd's service.

  "So you will ride on with us," Francesca commented upon its content.

  As Sebastien had gone to order fresh horses, there was no one but Seydto observe her evident pleasure. But if he thrilled, yet he persisted,pleading that he intended to establish headquarters there at the inn andwould be head over heels in business, freighting machinery and suppliesin from the station.

  He smiled at her further objection that he would hardly find theaccommodations of the inn to his liking. "They are better than at themine. If they prove too bad I shall run down to San Nicolas to beg ameal."

  "Very well, senor, we shall expect you."

  Her little backward nod, riding away with Sebastien a few minutes later,reaffirmed it, but while Seyd bowed in acknowledgment his thought ranoppositely. Unaware how quickly circumstances would compel the visit, heformulated a hardy resolution. "Now, young man, no more sentimentalfooling. It's you for work. The first thing is to get across to Billy."

  When, however, he took counsel with his fat brown host concerning thehire of a dugout the latter held up pudgy hands in horror. _SantissimoTrinidad!_ The very idea was madness! With the river running a mile wideat its narrowest? Not a peon would venture upon it! And under theinspiration of his belief that a live customer was to be preferred toeven a drowned gringo he worked privately against Seyd's suicidalintention. So well did he scatter his pessimistic seed that when Seydsucceeded in finding a dugout he had to buy it outright; nor could hepersuade a single peon to dare the flood.

  It was while returning to the inn late in the day that he obtained hisfirst glimpse of the river from a knoll which lifted him above thedrowned jungle. Around wooded islands, which were usually dry hills, awaste of waters, thick and brown as chocolate, swept madly. Along theedge of the jungle it boiled in fat eddies which sucked and licked thetrailing greenery. Farther out it was whipped into a yellow cream by thethrashing branches of uprooted trees, ceibas and cedars, huge as achurch, which rolled and tumbled as their submerged limbs caught on thebottom. Everywhere it was studded with debris, trees and brush, wholeacres of water lilies which here massed like a garden around a floatinghut, there wreathed the carcass of some drowned beast.

  In all the world there is nothing more melancholy than the voice of aflood. Its resurgent dirge stirs vague forebodings which root in thecalamitous experience of the race. Standing there alone, with the callof rushing waters, patter of rain, and sough of a sad wind in his ears,Seyd was able to understand the peons' superstitious fear. Yet heremained undeterred. The water being far too deep for poling, he made apair of oars and fitted wooden thole pins in the dugout that evening,and next morning put off by himself on the tangled breast of the floodwith such food as he had been able to buy.

  Once afloat, he found navigation even more precarious than the direstprophecy of his host. Now backwatering until an opening showed in abristle of brush and water lilies, he would next almost crack his backin a supreme effort to cross the currents which ran like millracesbetween wooded islands. Once a quick spurt saved him from disastrouscollision with a derelict log; and, dodging or running, he was kept sobusy that Billy's sudden hail came as a surprise.

  "Hello, Seyd! Got any decent grub? We've lived on frijoles straight forthe last thirty days."

  The monotonous diet, however, did not seem to have impaired Billy'scustomary cheerfulness. At the sight of eggs, honey, chickens, andbananas in the stern of the boat his freckles loomed like brown spots ona shining sun. Neither had misfortune affected his industry. Though--asFrancesca feared--ten feet of water now covered the new foundation, hehad immediately started another on a bench which rose fifty feet abovethe flood. And, now munching a tortilla rolled in honey, he led the wayto where Calixto and Caliban, with half a dozen others, were hard atwork. It was their first meeting since Seyd left for the States, andthere was, of course, no end to the things each had to tell. Then, inreviewing the new work and planning for more, the day slipped rapidlyaway.

  Indeed, afternoon was drawing on before Seyd pushed off again. He hadintended to land as close as possible to the inn and have the dugoutcarried back upstream the following day. But he could not, of course,foresee the event which, a third of the way across, caused him to stoprowing and stare with all his eyes. For as he backwatered to avoid ahuge ceiba that bore down upon him with a slow, leisurely roll he spieda patch of white amidst the branches, and as it drew closer thispresently resolved into a drenched chemisette which clung to the limbsof a young girl.

  A slim brown thing under thirteen, terror had drained away everyparticle of her natural color, leaving her big dark eyes looming deadblack in the pale gold mask of her face. Though she had seen Seyd first,the inborn humility of her subject race deterred her from making anyoutcry. She just sat perfectly still astride the thatched peak of asubmerged hut which, caught in the branches, acted as an outrigger tokeep the great tree on an even keel. Only her eyes expressed the pitifulappeal whose utter hopelessness was emphasized by flash of wonder whenSeyd drove the dugout in among the branches.

  Rising, then, she leaped into the bows, and, whether because the massrode in a balance too delicate to endure the sudden change of weight orthat a submerged branch happened to catch just then on some obstruction,the tree rolled heavily upon the dugout while Seyd was pulling his oars.Fortunately, the one heavy stroke had carried them out from under allbut the thinner branches, and, though the dugout was capsized and forcedunder, it rose instantly, with Seyd and the girl clinging at each end.The hut on which she had been floating also emerged, and, workingalongside, Seyd was able to right his craft and bale it out with hisStetson sombrero. A few yards away he recovered one oar, and, using itas a paddle, he tried to work across the flood.

  By the time he had gained half the way, however, he was miles below theinn, and dusk found him floating on the wide lake which now covered theSan Nicolas cane fields. Here, where the water ran more slowly, he madeway faster toward the shore, and through a leaden dusk he presently madeout red twinkles which grew, in another half hour, into the lights andfires of the hacienda. Soon his oar struck bottom, and, using it as apole, he drove rapidly into a landing.

  The night rains had already set in and they came down in sheets whichsoaked him to the skin and made of the girl, who had fallen asleep inthe bows, a dim white nude. She had given him her simple history--how,of the five who were asleep in the hut when it was swept away by acloudburst, she alone had survived. Utterly tired and exhausted, she didnot awaken when he picked her up, and she lay quietly in his arms duringthe long sloppy tramp across the upland pastures. She was still asleepwhen, aroused by the baying of his dogs, Don Luis peered down from theupper patio upon their draggled figures.

  "_Hombres! hombres!_" Looking up as his heavy bass boomed through thehacienda calling the _mozos_, Seyd caught a glimpse under the portallantern of Francesca's face in its frame of dark hair through aglittering mist of rain. The next moment she came flying down the greatstone stairs, followed by an irruption of brown maids.

  "The _nina_! Oh, the poor _nina_!" Though she was wearing an eveningdress of delicate white, she gathered the soaked child into her bosom,and, a center of flying skirts and soft womanish exclamations, hurriedher away to the upper regions.

  In the longer time required for him to descend, Don Luis subdued
hisfirst astonishment, but it broke bonds again when Seyd explained hisplight. "You crossed and recrossed the flood? _Por Dios mio!_ I wouldnever have dreamed that man could do it and live! You are wet to theskin. Come up at once."

  "I had not expected--" Seyd began.

  But the old man cut him off at once. "You gringos are difficult folk toplease. Surely a dry bed in San Nicolas is to be preferred to a wetnight on the river."

  Nevertheless he was not displeased. Conferring with Francesca concerninga change of clothes after Seyd was safely bestowed in a bedroom, heexpressed his secret admiration. "See you, an enormous ceiba rolls overand sends him and the _canoa_ to the bottom, yet he speaks of it withshamed laughter as though of a fault. Also he would have borrowed a_mozo_ and horse to travel back to the inn. What a man he would havemade for the old wars!"

  A _charro_ suit, so close to Seyd's size as to be almost a fit, was thebest that Francesca, after a voluble consultation with her maids, couldoffer in the way of change, and, though he experienced modest qualms atthe sight of himself in tight trousers and short bolero jacket of softleather gorgeously embroidered with silver, they undoubtedly brought outqualities of limb which were altogether lost in his usual clothing. Ifhe could have seen the touch of admiration that softened the mischief inFrancesca's dark eyes when he entered the living-room, his misgivingsmight have vanished. But the phenomenon occurred behind his back, andhis recent vow against "sentimental fooling" did not prevent him fromcoloring at her whispered remark:

  "You remind me of one Senor Rosario."

  Later, he was to spend considerable time trying to appease consciencewith plausible explanations of his feeling, to set it down to reliefthat their adventure had brought her no trouble. But while relief mayhave entered in, it was principally due to the fact that she had chosento retie the thread of their acquaintance just where it had been severedby Sebastien's intrusion. Yet, whatsoever its constituents, his pleasantembarrassment did not paralyze his tongue.

  "I cannot return the compliment."

  Neither could he. With Rosa, the pretty peona, this young lady in foamywhite had nothing in common, and Rosa would have certainly felt out ofplace amidst the luxurious appointments of the room. Ample in all itsdimensions, the furnishings had evidently been selected from thegarnered treasures of several generations, with such taste, however,that the unmatched pieces made a harmonious whole. The old hangingswhich excluded the damp night, the old rugs on the mahogany floor, andold furniture lent each other countenance, melted into a rich design.Even the grand piano, undoubtedly the latest addition, was taking thetone of age. Only the bookcases which flanked the great fireplacedisplayed a modern note, for in them fine editions of English classicscrowded the novels and plays of Cervantes and Lope Felix de Vega,Daudet, Flaubert, Anatole France, De Maupassant, competed for room withSpanish and English translations of the modern Russians.

  "Her taste," Seyd had summed the room. "Your books?" he asked, with anod at these astonishing shelves.

  "Yes, no one else reads them." She added, with smiling directness: "Orcould understand. If the dear mother read French, oh, what a bonfire weshould have!"

  "And you like them--the Frenchmen?"

  "Some--in some things." Her brows arching in the effort for clearexpression, she went on: "They know life, and one cannot but enjoy theirbeautiful style. But"--the delicate penciling drew even finer--"theysee only with the eye. They are brilliant--as diamonds, and just ashard, cold. They analyze, dissect, probe life, take it apart, thenforget to put it together. Love they see only as passion devoid ofsympathy, affection, friendship. Their art is of the senses, theirrefinement--of manner. Under the veneer they are gross and hard."

  To his astonishment she had expressed his own feeling for Frenchliterature, and, intensely curious, he went on probing her withquestions, in his interest forgetting both his clothes and hunger tillDon Luis interrupted.

  "Lindita, the senor cannot live on words. The girls are calling dinner."

  But after the meal--which was set out with silver, glass, napery, all ofthe finest, and served by brown maids who moved in and out with the softstealth of bare feet--they went at their talk again, gleaning in fieldsof common knowledge while Don Luis alternately smoked and dozed by thefire.

  It was a revelation for Seyd, and while he watched the play of feelingover her face, the flow of her soft color, the swift moods of the archedbrows, and the lighting and lowering of dark eyes in unison with thechange of her talk, his hardy resolution of yesterday--already sapped byhis present luxurious comfort--underwent further disintegration.

  "After all," he thought, "why shouldn't I run down and see themoccasionally?"

  Following Don Luis to his bedroom, he arrived at this conclusion, and inhis argument with Conscience he reaffirmed it with even greater force."After all the old man's kindness it would be blackly ungrateful toflout his hospitality."

  "No reason why you should," Conscience conceded, but added theunpleasant rider, "providing you don't sail under false colors."

  "Of course!" Seyd here grew quite huffy with Conscience. "I alwaysintended to let her know I was married--not that it is necessary. I'mnot so conceited as to think that she feels the slightest personalinterest in me."

  If it were really sincere his belief might have been shaken, could hehave reviewed a little scene that was being enacted at that very momentacross the patio. After the waif from the floods had been bathed and fedshe was put to bed on a couch in Francesca's own room, and, aroused bythe brilliant sheen of wax candles on the dresser, she lay and watchedwith eyes of awe the young lady at her toilet. In her simple sight thedresser, with its big French mirror and gleaming silver appointments,doubtless appeared as the altar before which was being accomplished themarvelous transmutation of a woman into the exact semblance of thoseangels of light pictured on the stained windows of the church ofChilpancin. From the plaiting of the dark cloud of hair into a thickcable, to the final assumption of filmy white, she remained quiet as amouse. Francesca had risen to blow out the candles before a small voicerose behind her.

  "He said you were beautiful. Could he but see thee now!"

  After a sudden start Francesca moved over to the couch and collapsedbeside it in a white heap.

  "Awake, _nina_? What is this? He said I was beautiful? Who?"

  "The gringo senor. When I began to cry for my mother and little Pedrothat was drowned with her in the flood he said for me to take comfort,that he was going to place me with the most beautiful senorita in allGuerrero--one that would be kinder to me than my mother."

  "And that I will be." Drawing her close, Francesca kissed the small goldface. "But did he really say--No, you shall tell me all about it fromthe very beginning."

  While the tale was proceeding in soft lisping Spanish Francesca's eyeseloquently illustrated its varied course. But their wide horror, moistpity at the drowning of the poor brown mother, suspense until Seyd andthe child had climbed back into the dugout, merged in a soft glow at therepetition of his promise. "'The most beautiful senorita in allGuerrero?' Then he could not have meant me."

  "_Si._" The girl emphatically nodded. "Also he said you would take meinto your service."

  "And so I will. I shall have thee trained for my own little maid. Ishall call thee Roberta, after him, and every night it will be thy dutyto speak for him in thy prayers. Are they said?"

  "_Si_, senorita. I said them to the big girl, Rosa, but I will say onenow for him--with thee."

  Could Seyd have heard the soft voice following Francesca's gentlepromptings he would undoubtedly have suffered another onslaught fromConscience. As it was, just to prove his disinterestedness he rose atdawn. Leaving a note of thanks on the table, he went out on a hunt forpeons and mules to haul the dugout back to the inn, and, having foundthem, went sternly on about his business.