"Stop!" cried the girl, "I absolve you from all injunctions of silence.

I, too, am a de Lara, and in my father's absence the head of the house.

The duty thou hast sworn to him thou owest me. Art still in the same mind as last night, I say?"

"Last night I was a fool!"

"And this morning?"

"I am a slave."

"A slave to what? To whom?"

"Donna Mercedes," he cried, turning an imploring glance upon her, "press me no further. Indeed, the burden is greater than I can bear."

"A slave to whom?" she went on insistently, seeing an advantage and pressing it hard. She was determined that she would have an answer. No conviction of duty or feeling of filial regard was strong enough to overwhelm love in this woman's heart. As she spoke she flashed upon him her most brilliant glance and by a deft movement of her bridle hand swerved the jennet in closer to his barb. She laid her hand upon his strong arm and bent her head close toward him. They were far from the others now and the turns of the winding road concealed them.

"A slave to whom? Perhaps to--me?" she whispered.

"Have mercy on me!" he cried. "To you? Yes. But honor, duty----"

"Again those hateful words!" she interrupted, her dark face flushing with anger. "Were I a man, loved I a woman who loved me as I--as I--as one you know, I would have seized her in spite of all the world! Once she had fled to the shelter of my arms, while life beat in my heart none should tear her thence."

"Thy father----"

"He thinks not of my happiness."

"Say not so, Donna Mercedes."

"'Tis true. It is a matter of convenient arrangement. Two ancient names, two great fortunes cry aloud for union and they drown the voice of the heart. I am bestowed like a chattel."

"Don Felipe----"

"Is an honorable gentleman, a brave one. He needs no defense at my hands. That much, at least, my father did. There is no objection to my suitor save that I do not love him."

"In time--in time you may," gasped Alvarado.

"Dost thou look within thine own heart and see a fancy so evanescent that thou speakest thus to me?"

"Nay, not so."

"I believe thee, and were a thousand years to roll over my head thine image would still be found here."

She laid her tiny gloved hand upon her breast as she spoke in a low voice, and this time she looked away from him. He would have given heaven and earth to have caught her yielding figure in his arms. She drooped in the saddle beside him in a pose which was a confession of womanly weakness and she swayed toward him as if the heart in her body cried out to that which beat in his own breast.

"Mercedes! Mercedes!" he said, "you torture me beyond endurance! Go back to your duenna, to Senora Agapida, I beg of you! I can stand no more! I did promise and vow in my heart--my honor--my duty----"

"Ay, with men it is different," said the girl, and the sound of a sob in her voice cut him to the heart, "and these things are above love, above everything. I do not--I can not understand. I can not comprehend. You have rejected me--I have offered myself to you a second time--after the refusal of last night. Where is my Spanish pride? Where is my maidenly modesty? That reserve that should be the better part of woman is gone. I know not honor--duty--I only know that though you reject me, I am yours.

I, too, am a slave. I love you. Nay, I can not marry Don Felipe de Tobar. 'Twere to make a sacrilege of a sacrament."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Alvarado threw his right arm around her, and with a force superhuman dragged her from the saddle.]

"Thy father----"

"I have done my best to obey him. I can no more."

"What wilt thou do?"

"This!" cried the girl desperately.

The road at the point they had arrived wound sharply around the spur of the mountain which rose above them thousands of feet on one side and fell abruptly away in a terrific precipice upon the other. As she spoke she struck her horse again with the whip. At the same time by a violent wrench on the bridle rein she turned him swiftly toward the open cliff.

Quick as she had been, however, Alvarado's own movement was quicker. He struck spur into his powerful barb and with a single bound was by her side, in the very nick of time. Her horse's forefeet were slipping among the loose stones on the edge. In another second they would both be over.

Alvarado threw his right arm around her and with a force superhuman dragged her from the saddle, at the same time forcing his own horse violently backward with his bridle hand. His instant promptness had saved her, for the frightened horse she rode, unable to control himself, plunged down the cliff and was crushed to death a thousand feet below.

CHAPTER XIII

IN WHICH CAPTAIN ALVARADO IS FORSWORN AND WITH DONNA MERCEDES IN HIS ARMS BREAKS HIS PLIGHTED WORD

"My G.o.d!" cried the young soldier hoa.r.s.ely, straining her to his breast, while endeavoring to calm his nervous and excited horse. "What would you have done?"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Why didn't you let me go?" she asked, struggling feebly in his arms.

"It would all have been over then."

"I could not, I love you."

The words were wrung from him in spite of himself by her deadly peril, by her desperate design which he had only frustrated by superhuman quickness and strength. He was pale, shaking, trembling, unnerved, for her. He scarce knew what he said or did, so little command had he over himself.

As he spoke those words "I love you," so blissful for her to hear, she slipped her arm around his neck. It was not in mortal man to resist under such circ.u.mstances. He forgot everything--honor, duty, his word, everything he threw to the winds. Before the pa.s.sion which sought death when denied him his own powers of resistance vanished. He strained her to his breast and bent his head to kiss her. Again and again he drank at the upturned fountain of affection, her lips. The shock had been too much for him. Greater for him than for her. He had seen her upon the verge of eternity. She thought nothing of that in her present joy. She only realized that she was in his arms again, that he had kissed her, and between the kisses he poured out words that were even greater caresses.

The others were far behind. They were alone upon the mountain-side with the rocks behind and the great sapphire sea of the Caribbean before them. He held her close to his breast and they forgot everything but love as they gently p.r.i.c.ked along the road. It was near noon now, and as the road a furlong farther debouched into an open plateau shaded by trees and watered by a running brook which purled down the mountain-side from some inaccessible cloud-swept height it was a fitting place to make camp, where the whole party, tired by a long morning's travel, could repose themselves until the breeze of afternoon tempered the heat of the day. Here he dismounted, lifted her from horse, and they stood together, side by side.

"You have saved me," she whispered, "you have drawn me back from the death that I sought. G.o.d has given me to you. We shall never be parted."

"I am a false friend, an ungrateful servitor, a forsworn man, a perjured soldier!" he groaned, pa.s.sing his hand over his pale brow as if to brush away the idea consequent upon his words.

"But thou hast my love," she whispered tenderly, swaying toward him again.

"Yes--yes. Would that it could crown something else than my dishonor."

"Say not so."

She kissed him again, fain to dispel the shadow that darkened his face.

"I had been faithful," he went on, as if in justification, "had I not seen thee on the brink of that cliff, and then thou wert in my arms--I was lost----"