What could be the purpose of the strange proceeding? How was it to terminate?

Isidora looked on in silent astonishment. She could do nothing else.

So long as the infernal fracas continued, there was no chance to elicit an explanation from the queer creature who had caused it.

He had returned to the door of the jacale; and once more taken his stand upon the threshold; where he stood, with the tranquil satisfied air of an actor who has completed the performance of his part in the play, and feels free to range himself among the spectator.

CHAPTER FIFTY EIGHT.

RECOILING FROM A KISS.

For full ten minutes was the wild chorus kept up, the mare all the time squealing like a stuck pig; while the dog responded in a series of lugubrious howls, that reverberated along the cliffs on both sides of the creek.

To the distance of a mile might the sounds have been heard; and as Zeb Stump was not likely to be so far from the hut, he would be certain to hear them.

Convinced of this, and that the hunter would soon respond to the signal he had himself arranged, Phelim stood square upon the threshold, in hopes that the lady visitor would stay outside--at least, until he should be relieved of the responsibility of admitting her.

Notwithstanding her earnest protestations of amity, he was still suspicious of some treasonable intention towards his master; else why should Zeb have been so particular about being summoned back?

Of himself, he had abandoned the idea of offering resistance. That shining pistol, still before his eyes, had cured him of all inclination for a quarrel with the strange equestrian; and so far as the Connemara man was concerned, she might have gone unresisted inside.

But there was another from Connemara, who appeared more determined to dispute her pa.s.sage to the hut--one whom a whole battery of great guns would not have deterred from protecting its owner. This was Tara.

The staghound was not acting as if under the excitement of a mere senseless alarm. Mingling with his prolonged sonorous "gowl" could be heard in repeated interruptions a quick sharp bark, that denoted anger.

He had witnessed the att.i.tude of the intruder--its apparent hostility-- and drawing his deductions, had taken stand directly in front of Phelim and the door, with the evident determination that neither should be reached except over his own body, and after running the gauntlet of his formidable incisors.

Isidora showed no intention of undertaking the risk. She had none.

Astonishment was, for the time, the sole feeling that possessed her.

She remained transfixed to the spot, without attempting to say a word.

She stood expectingly. To such an eccentric prelude there should be a corresponding _finale_. Perplexed, but patiently, she awaited it.

Of her late alarm there was nothing left. What she saw was too ludicrous to allow of apprehension; though it was also too incomprehensible to elicit laughter.

In the mien of the man, who had so oddly comported himself, there was no sign of mirth. If anything, a show of seriousness, oddly contrasting with the comical act he had committed; and which plainly proclaimed that he had not been treating her to a joke.

The expression of helpless perplexity that had become fixed upon her features, continued there; until a tall man, wearing a faded blanket coat, and carrying a six-foot rifle, was seen striding among the tree-trunks, at the rate of ten miles to the hour. He was making direct for the _jacale_.

At sight of the new-comer her countenance underwent a change. There was now perceptible upon it a shade of apprehension; and the little pistol was clutched with renewed nerve by the delicate hand that still continued to hold it.

The act was partly precautionary, partly mechanical. Nor was it unnatural, in view of the formidable-looking personage who was approaching, and the earnest excited manner with which he was hurrying forward to the hut.

All this became altered, as he advanced into the open ground, and suddenly stopped on its edge; a look of surprise quite as great as that upon the countenance of the lady, supplanting his earnest glances.

Some exclamatory phrases were sent through his teeth, unintelligible in the tumult still continuing, though the gesture that accompanied them seemed to proclaim them of a character anything but gentle.

On giving utterance to them, he turned to one side; strode rapidly towards the screaming mare; and, laying hold of her tail--which no living man save himself would have dared to do--he released her from the torments she had been so long enduring.

Silence was instantly restored; since the mare, abandoned by her fellow choristers, as they became accustomed to her wild neighs, had been, for some time, keeping up the solo by herself.

The lady was not yet enlightened. Her astonishment continued; though a side glance given to the droll individual in the doorway told her, that he had successfully accomplished some scheme with which he had been entrusted.

Phelim's look of satisfaction was of short continuance. It vanished, as Zeb Stump, having effected the deliverance of the tortured quadruped, faced round to the hut--as he did so, showing a cloud upon the corrugations of his countenance, darkly ominous of an angry storm.

Even the presence of beauty did not hinder it from bursting. "Durn, an dog-gone ye, for a Irish eedyit! Air this what ye've brought me back for! An' jest as I wur takin' sight on a turkey, not less 'n thirty poun' weight, I reck'n; skeeart afore he ked touch trigger, wi' the skreek o' thet cussed critter o' a maar. d.a.m.ned little chance for breakfust now."

"But, Misther Stump, didn't yez till me to do it? Ye sid if any wan showld come to the cyabin--"

"Bah! ye fool! Ye don't serpose I meened weemen, did ye?"

"Trath! I didn't think it wus wan, whin she furst presented hersilf.

Yez showld a seen the way she rid up--sittin' astraddle on her horse."

"What matter it, how she wur sittin'! Hain't ye seed thet afore, ye greenhorn? It's thur usooal way 'mong these hyur Mexikin sheemales.

Ye're more o' a woman than she air, I guess; an twenty times more o' a fool. Thet I'm sartint o'. I know _her_ a leetle by sight, an somethin' more by reeport. What hev fetched the critter hyur ain't so difeequilt to comprehend; tho' it may be to git it out o' her, seein' as she kin only talk thet thur Mexikin lingo; the which this chile can't, nor wudn't ef he kud."

"Sowl, Misther Stump! yez be mistaken. She spakes English too. Don't yez, misthress?"

"Little Inglees," returned the Mexican, who up to this time had remained listening. "Inglees _poco pocito_."

"O--ah!" exclaimed Zeb, slightly abashed at what he had been saying. "I beg your pardin, saynoritta. Ye kin _habla_ a bit o' Amerikin, kin ye?

_Moocho bono_--so much the betterer. Ye'll be able to tell me what ye mout be a wantin' out hyur. Ye hain't lost yur way, hev ye?"

"No, senor," was the reply, after a pause. "In that case, ye know whar ye air?"

"_Si, senor--si_--yes, of Don Mauricio Zyerral, this the--house?"

"Thet air the name, near as a Mexikin mouth kin make it, I reck'n.

'Tain't much o' a house; but it air his'n. Preehaps ye want to see the master o't?"

"O, senor--yees--that is for why I here am--_por esta yo soy aqui_."

"Wal; I reck'n, thur kin be no objecshun to yur seein' him. Yur intenshuns ain't noways hostile to the young fellur, I kalklate. But thur ain't much good in yur talkin' to him now. He won't know yo from a side o' sole-leather."

"He is ill? Has met with some misfortune? _El guero_ has said so."

"Yis. I towlt her that," interposed Phelim, whose carroty hair had earned for him the appellation "El guero."

"Sartin," answered Zeb. "He air wounded a bit; an jest now a leetle dulleerious. I reck'n it ain't o' much consekwence. He'll be hisself agin soon's the ravin' fit's gone off o' him."

"O, sir! can I be his nurse till then? _Por amor dios_! Let me enter, and watch over him? I am his friend--_un amigo muy afficionado_."

"Wal; I don't see as thur's any harm in it. Weemen makes the best o'

nusses I've heern say; tho', for meself, I hain't hed much chance o'

tryin' 'em, sincst I kivered up my ole gurl unner the sods o'

Ma.s.sissipi. Ef ye want to take a spell by the side o' the young fellur, ye're wilkim--seein' ye're his friend. Ye kin look arter him, till we git back, an see thet he don't tummel out o' the bed, or claw off them thur bandidges, I've tied roun him."