Considering an all-night ride over a rough road in a lumbering old Spanish stagecoach, and the thrilling, harrowing events that succeeded their arrival at the _Posada_, it is little wonder that Mrs. Forest took to her bed early in the day on the verge of a nervous collapse, or that Colonel Van Ashton, contrary to his habit, retired early in the evening firmly convinced that his nephew was suffering from an acute attack of lunacy which took the form of a mania for everything that was wild and bizarre; everything in fact that was contrary to the Colonel's views of life.

How unfortunate that his nephew had not shown signs of madness earlier!

It would have been so easy with the a.s.sistance of the family physician and lawyer to have confined him in a private sanitarium. And the Colonel fondly pictured his nephew wandering distractedly through a long suite of padded cells--but, alas! the bird had flown. Such things were always expedited with such felicitous despatch in those parts of the earth inhabited by civilized men, but here where everybody was equally mad, where chaos reigned, and n.o.body either recognized or respected beings of a superior order, what could be done to check the headlong career of his nephew who with twenty millions was rushing straight to destruction?

No wonder G.o.d had long since abandoned this land to his majesty, the devil who, as in the days of Scripture, roamed and roared at will. No one having pa.s.sed twenty-four hours in the country could possibly doubt that his cup of joy was running over. Where his nephew had concealed his fortune was also a source of mystery to him. He certainly had displayed the diabolical cunning that is characteristic of the mentally deranged.

Possibly he had concealed it in Mexico, but to combat the inst.i.tutions of that land was like attempting to stem the tides.

The thought of those twenty millions tortured the Colonel's mind almost beyond endurance, and he groaned aloud as his imagination pictured them rolling in a bright, glittering stream of gold and silver coins into the gutter for the swine that waited to devour them.

Such were the Colonel's reflections as he sat on the edge of his bed in his shirt sleeves and wearily removed his tight fitting, dust-begrimed, patent-leather shoes with the a.s.sistance of his valet.

How his feet and back ached! He wanted sympathy, but got none, the others being too much occupied with their own woes to think of his comfort. On the walls of the room were hung numerous cheap biblical prints--the very things he abominated most. Among them, just over the foot of the bed, on the very spot where first his gaze would alight on opening his eyes in the morning, hung a small colored print of the Madonna. No wonder the people of this land spent so much time crossing themselves and calling upon her for protection--they certainly had cause to. The room, in his opinion, was a veritable rat-hole; the place little better than what one might expect to find in a suburb of h.e.l.l.

The exertions of the last two days had been more than mortal could endure. Never had he felt so completely f.a.gged, and it was with no little concern that he contemplated the reflection of his face in the small oval mirror which hung on the rough gray plaster wall opposite, just over the small, cheap, brown-stained wooden bureau. The sight of his countenance, as is the case with most of us who have not yet entered the limbo of senile decrepitude and still dare look ourselves in the face, was always a source of extreme satisfaction to him. He held it in the highest esteem as though it were the head of some beautiful antique Apollo, and in his, the Colonel's estimation, was the handsomest face on earth.

Indeed it was a handsome face, and like many others both in and outside of his particular set, he devoted hours to its preservation.

What was John, his valet, for? To press his clothes and run errands? Not at all. He was there to ma.s.sage that precious face and drive away all hara.s.sing signs of care and age by means of a liberal use of cold cream and enamel. In the present instance, barring a sun-scorched nose, his delicately rouged cheeks like his exquisitely manicured finger tips blushed with rose of vermilion like those of the daughters of Judea of old, contrasting favorably with his dark eyes, wavy white hair, and mustache and eyebrows dyed a jet black. His regular features, long slender white hands, and tall erect figure betokened the born aristocrat of the spoiled, luxurious type.

In spite of his determination not to sleep a wink, this overindulged child and arch hypocrite, fell asleep almost the instant his tired head touched the pillow, and would have slept to a comparatively late hour had it not been for the ceaseless crowing of a c.o.c.k in the barnyard, awakening him at daybreak.

What a land, where people were not even permitted to sleep! Vague apprehensions for the future went flitting through his mind, and, as he lay in bed moodily contemplating through the window the first sunrise he had witnessed in years, he cursed fate and his nephew, and secretly vowed that he would wring that infernal bird's neck at the first opportunity.

Mrs. Forest's mental att.i.tude resembled that of her brother's, but with Blanch and Bessie it was different. The strangeness and novelty of the situation so different from anything they had hitherto experienced, began to interest them in spite of their previous determination to be bored. That evening they had visited the plaza with the Captain and d.i.c.k Yankton and had witnessed the dances beneath the great _alamos_ or poplar trees that surrounded the square, braving the risk of contamination which Mrs. Forest had vainly protested would be sure to ensue should they mingle with the populace--the Mexican-Indian rabble of which it was composed--a distinction which only she and the Colonel seemed able to divine, for had it been a garlic-tainted Egyptian or Neapolitan mob, little objection would have been raised to their going.

The sights amused and interested them, and after an hour's mild dissipation, they returned to the _Posada_ in time to meet a few of the Senora's guests in the garden, among whom was Padre Antonio. The quaint, inborn courtesy of the well-bred Spaniard was a revelation to them; something they imagined did not exist outside of Spain.

The charm of the Padre's simple manner and ways proved no less irresistible to them than to the rest of the world, and they marveled that he spoke English so well. His intimate knowledge of the people and the customs of the country threw a new light on them, reconciling the girls to many things that had seemed incomprehensible.

The Senora, out of consideration for the ladies, by whose presence she was greatly honored, had relinquished her rooms to them; the best and most comfortably furnished which the _Posada_ afforded.

It was a late hour before the girls retired for the night. There was so much to talk over, and when they did finally lay themselves down to rest, it was with the conviction that Captain Forest was not quite so mad as they had supposed. He was at least a harmless lunatic and in no danger of running amuck.

As for Bessie, the gentle hand of sleep soon closed her eyes, and she slept the sleep of a tired child. With Blanch it was otherwise.

How could she sleep with the face of Chiquita constantly before her and the pangs of jealousy gnawing at her heart? How stupid to have imagined her to be one of those bovine women with large liquid eyes who, figuratively speaking, pa.s.s the major portion of their lives standing knee-deep in a pond, gazing stolidly out upon the world; a fat brown wench upon whose hip a man might confidently expect to hang his hat by the time she has attained the age of forty.

Nothing could have been farther from the mark. She might have known that Jack could not have been caught with so thin a bait. All night long she tossed on her pillow, or silently rose to gaze at the stars from the window.

"Oh, if she only were not so beautiful!" she moaned as the first pale streaks of light in the east told her that day had finally dawned, and she crept stealthily back to bed again. Of course Jack, the wretch, was sleeping peacefully--that was the irony of fate! What did he know of suffering? But he would pay for this!

Their rooms overlooked the _patio_, and from behind an angle of a screen she could look straight across it into the garden beyond as she lay in bed. The bright shafts of the morning sun sifted down through the branches of the trees and lay in patches of gold on the gra.s.s and flowers beneath and flooded the _patio_ with light. Above the tops of the trees and one corner of the low roof, the clear, pale blue skyline was just visible. b.u.t.terflies and humming-birds darted in and out among the fragrant white clematis and honeysuckle and pa.s.sion vines that hung from the arcades surrounding the court, or hovered over the fountain and basin of gold fish in its center, edged with gra.s.ses and ferns. The notes of the golden oriole and cooing of pigeons and wood-doves mingling with the silvery jingle of an occasional _vaquero's_ spurs, came from the garden beyond.

How peaceful it was! After all, why was the place so unusual, so different from the rest of the world? But forget where one was, and the scene might have been one in Algiers or Egypt, or in a town in Spain or Northern Italy. And why, she asked herself, as her thoughts reverted to Chiquita, was this Indian woman so very different from themselves?

Dress her as they were dressed, and place her in the proper surroundings, and she would easily pa.s.s for a Gypsy or a Spaniard. Was there any reason to believe that the queens of Sheba and Semiramis with their tawny skins were any less fair than she, Blanch Lennox, with her rosy, soft white complexion? Or Chiquita a shade darker than Cleopatra, the witch of the Nile, whose beauty caused the downfall of Antony and with it the waning power and splendor of ancient Egypt?

Was her lineage superior to Chiquita's, the descendant of a long line of rulers whose ancestry stretched back into the dim, remote past as ancient as the hills, the record of whose lives and deeds stood inscribed on the ruined temples and palaces scattered throughout the land where they once dwelt at a time when her European ancestors roamed the wilderness half naked and clad in the skins of wild beasts?

White men of eminence had married Indians and their descendants were proud of their lineage. True, Chiquita was an exception just as she towered above most women of her race. And who were they, that they should criticize--vaunt their superiority in the face of the universal scheme of things? Were they really any better? The same pa.s.sions, longings and aspirations that swayed them, swayed the Red man as well.

Their daily lives were different--their aspirations were directed in different channels, that was all. What was true civilization and culture, any way? Who had ever succeeded in defining them? The so-called civilized world might prattle of culture. Its ideas compared with those of mankind as a whole were purely relative and of a local origin and color, and could not be gauged by a uniform standard of ethics. What pleases the one fails to attract the other. The man in power who talks of culture may be taken seriously by those of his own race who stand by and applaud his words, but remove him from his home surroundings and place him on a footing of equality with those of a different race and environment and his arguments fail to convince.

Did the harangues of Louis the Sixteenth's tormentors convince him of the ethical standards of universal justice, or John Brown's sacrifice the representatives of a slave-holding population?

Which is the most convincing--the example set by the early Spartans, or that of the man who surrounds himself with every luxury and convenience of modern life; the man who reads books and lives in a house and travels by train and automobile, or he who dwells in a tent, who is ignorant of letters, and prefers the slower locomotion of horse and foot? Who is the arbiter of fashion? The sun shines alike on the just and the unjust, the great world still continues to laugh and goes on its way in spite of men's philosophies, but tear up the map, as the French say, and where are our standards and codes?

Prove it if you can, that the wild flower in the meadow is less beautiful than the one reared beneath the hand of the gardener. Argue and theorize as we will, our sophistries count for little when we are brought face to face with the realities of life. The law of compensation and certainty of facts still hold the balance when the bed-rock of human existence is reached. One might as well expect the mountains to slip into the sea, or the stars to pause in their courses to hearken to the voice of a modern Joshua as a man in love with a vision of beauty, to listen to ethics.

It was quite evident that somebody had lied. In fact, all men of her race had been lying from the beginning of time, for what, after all, did civilization amount to if it were not convincing? Did it ever soothe a wounded heart, stifle the pangs of jealousy, or was it ample compensation for the loss of the great prize of life--happiness?

Civilization and blindness were fast becoming synonymous terms, and there were even moments when one almost fancied one heard the laughter of the G.o.ds. Let the dull brute civilized herd sweep by, all its moralizing and sophistries could not arouse so much as a single heart-beat where sentiment was concerned.

The truth of these convictions surged in upon her with overwhelming force. Had Jack also noted them, she asked herself.

Possibly, but not, perhaps, with the keener intuition of the woman. She breathed hard. Hot tears of rage, jealousy and disappointment surged to her eyes. She could endure it no longer--she felt as though she would stifle. Suddenly she sat bolt upright in bed and then sprang to the floor, noticing for the first time the pretty little Mexican girl, Rosita, who at Bessie's summons, had entered and deposited a tray containing oranges, chocolate and _tortillas_ on the table in the center of the room.

The dark circles beneath Blanch's eyes and her general appearance of a disheveled Eve told Bessie how little she had slept.

"I knew you were thinking of her," she said, throwing herself back in the pillows and stretching her arms. Her eyelids drooped for a moment over her great violet eyes and she laughed lightly with the contentment of one whose heart is free.

"Of course I am," returned Blanch, coloring and biting her lip. "What else should I be thinking of?"

"Do you know, I rather like her," continued Bessie, raising on one elbow and stretching herself again with the delicious satisfaction of one who has slept soundly and well.

"And I hate her!" cried Blanch. And seizing Chiquita's dagger which lay on the table beside the tray, she plunged it viciously into an orange.

X

Things began to a.s.sume a more favorable aspect. Even Mrs. Forest had plucked up enough courage to venture beyond the confines of the _Posada's_ garden.

Late one afternoon as she with Blanch and Bessie descended the veranda steps, preparatory to a stroll through the town, a horseman, dressed in the height of Mexican fashion, shot suddenly round the curve in the road at full gallop and drew rein before them, tossing the dust raised by his animal's hoofs into their faces.

Dust and a horse's nose thrust suddenly into Mrs. Forest's face could hardly improve a temper already strained to the breaking point.

"Are people beasts--mere cattle of the fields to be trampled upon by a horse?" she gasped, as soon as she had recovered sufficiently from her surprise.

"A thousand pardons--I did not see you!" replied the horseman, his English colored with a slight accent.

"What are people's eyes for?" returned Mrs. Forest, making no attempt to conceal her irritation.

"Mrs. Forest, I see you do not recognize me," answered the horseman, smiling and raising his broad-brimmed _sombrero_ which partially concealed his features.

"Don Felipe Ramirez!" cried Blanch and Bessie in the same breath.