For the Soul of Rafael Part 42

[Ill.u.s.tration: "ONE WORDLESS MINUTE."]

He caught her to him and held her there. The world reeled about them for one wordless minute, and then he released her and walked out across where the tower of the temple had once been, and he knew he was leaving her forever. A horse was waiting. He had said he could ride best in the moonlight, and a little later the hoof-beats sounded through the strumming guitars, and she knew it was over! It was her sacrifice for the oath to the dead, and she sank prostrate in the shadow of the altar.

The tiny candles glimmered and went out, yet still she lay there. The moon in its soft yellow light flooded the open s.p.a.ce without, but did not touch her. She had found the rosary and clasped it, her lips against the cold pearl figure of the sculptured Christ.

And then two persons came toward her through the arch of the old sacristy, one in the velvet and gold lace of a Spanish grandee, and the other a s.h.i.+mmer of brocade and pearl-gemmed lilies.

"No, I will not go without it," the woman's voice was saying, petulantly, "not though a dozen boats waited! Yes, I can slip away after the dance. Have a horse ready. Dolly will be sleeping; she is the greatest risk. But we can be out of sight of land long before the dawn breaks."

The man murmured some plea in her ear, and she turned away, shrugging her shoulders.

"The jewels first!" she said, with pretty decision. "The coin is a matter of course; we shall need that to live on. But the jewels--why not? Half of them belonged to your own family, and for the rest--well, you leave her enough to give the Church; that is all she lives for.

Bring me the jewels at once: when I see them in my own hand, I am ready to promise everything."

"You are not afraid to wait here?"

"Yes, a little," she acknowledged. "It's a horrid, creepy place, but it's the one corner where no one else will come. I will wait for them here."

The woman prostrate before the Madalena arose to her feet and stood motionless in the shadow. Her hands were crossed unconsciously on her heart to quiet its beating. Her own sacrifice, then, was to go for nothing; the vow she had sworn to live for was to count for naught because of one little white vampire of a creature whose G.o.d was gold and jewels!

The crossed hands held the rosary and the dagger.

"They are here," said Rafael, returning after a few minutes, "all but the few the girls wear to-night. There! They are at last in your own hands, and now--"

She slipped her white arm about his throat and kissed him on the mouth.

"And you will live in my way--not hers?" she said, with clinging sweetness. "You are not to be even Catholic with me? You have promised!"

"Thou art my only G.o.d, O little white one!" he said, and pressed her to his breast. "All the world can go to h.e.l.l, so I have you! My soul I give into these little hands; my heart is under these little feet, which I kiss thus; and thus, and thus! Though Christ himself stood in the way, I would have you for myself!"

She laughed softly in her triumph.

"We shall be missed," she said at last. "Go that way to the plaza, and I will go by the old garden. These I will wrap up and carry in my own hands. Go,--oh, there will be other nights for kisses,--go now, quickly!"

She pushed him from her, and he obeyed, walking across the tiled floor in the moonlight, and out into the plaza, as Bryton had walked so short a time before. The woman with the casket stood an instant looking after him, and then raised the lid and lifted a handful of the gems, holding them up that the soft light of the moon might add to the glow of rubies and the white fire of diamonds.

"All these, and his very soul besides!" she murmured, holding a necklace aloft to the moon's rays,--"his soul besides!"

And then a low strangled cry escaped her as the woman of the rosary and dagger came silently to her from the shadows and halted a moment beside her.

A little later the Padre Libertad was stopped in the corridor by Raquel.

He had been watching the dancers, and was about to start south. Like Bryton, he meant to ride at night, instead of in the hot sun.

"Wait," she said, imperatively; "the chapel is open; I would confess before you go."

"But to-morrow--your own padre--"

"To-night," she said; "and I want no other padre."

"If you have remembered a sin--" he began, hesitatingly; but she interrupted.

"I think it is neither sin nor remorse," she said, quietly; "but it is you that must listen to me."

He closed the door behind them. Old Polonia crouched unnoticed beside it, and in perhaps ten minutes he came out again, and started to walk the road to the sea. Rafael saw him, and laughed at the queer crack-brained padre who preferred walking to riding a good horse.

Others laughed also, and the dance went on, until the partners of Dona Angela grew impatient, and a gay party with guitars started to encircle the plaza for her, singing love-songs of appeal as they went.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THINGS KNOWN AND NEVER TOLD."]

The white gleam of the brocaded gown caught the eyes of the singers, and then a great cry went up in the night, and the music of the dance ceased, and the people crowded about the dead woman on the altar steps, and the old Indios crossed themselves, and said in their own tongue:

"It has come, after all,--the sacrifice of blood on the altar of the temple,--the thing our fathers told us has come to pa.s.s."

The strings of pearls and other jewels were scattered on the diamond-shaped tiles of the floor, and many were red with blood.

"Some one has tried to steal the jewels while we all danced there,"

suggested one of the guests, "and she has died defending them. Rafael, she has given her life to save the jewels of your wife!"

"Yes," Rafael said, at last, and stared at the speaker in a dazed way; "my wife. I--I will go to my wife."

He strode through the crowd toward the living-rooms, and flung wide the door of her chamber. She was on her knees where Padre Libertad had left her.

"Raquel!"

His voice sounded hollow and strange in his own ears. A strange buzzing in his head blurred speech and thought, and when she arose and faced him with clear eyes and quiet face, he leaned against the chair and looked at her strangely--helplessly.

"She is dead," he said, thickly; "Angela Bryton is found dead--and your jewels--"

"Wait," she said, "and I will go with you."

And turning, she lifted the lid from the perfumed box of candles.

"She did not believe in these," she said, quietly, "but we will light them for her, just the same. None of us knew whom they would burn for; perhaps she knows now, Rafael."

He made no answer, but moved like a man stunned mentally. Out beside her he walked to the altar-place, and the people made way for them.

It was the hour of dawn when a fisherman rode from the beach to tell how he had found two sailors beaten and bound at the landing-place. They had a story of a sailing-vessel and sacks of coin, and a bearded man who looked like El Capitan; but it must have been his ghost, for it was thought Capitan was dead, as well as Juan Flores. At any rate, the vessel was gone, and the sailors were left tied on the sh.o.r.e. They were afraid to face Rafael Arteaga, because of the coin he had trusted them with, and the good boat, gone now straight out of sight--the saints and the devil only knew where!

But they needed not to fear Rafael. The coin, for which he had exchanged all the cattle and horses possible to sell in two days' time, was a forgotten thing to him, or uncared for. He sat apart and silent, as though paralyzed by a great fear, and he ever followed Raquel Arteaga with his eyes, and said nothing.

The people wondered much that the robbers who would kill a woman and steal a boat had not stopped also to gather up the scattered jewels strewn about her. But they had not. Not even a diamond was missing. They were gathered from the tiles, and the blood was washed from them, and the casket was taken to Raquel by Ana, who was almost as silent as Rafael. On that subject, never in their lives would they gain courage to speak. Raquel took the casket, and looked at the gems, but did not touch them.

"And for such trifles she lost her life, perhaps her soul--who knows?"

she said, in the same colorless quiet way, and handed the casket to her husband. "Rafael, have these put away for her child, when she becomes a woman. They were paid for by the mother!"

From that night Rafael Arteaga was a changed man. Some said he had gone mad at the death of the woman there; others said that it was not the death of the woman, but the curse of the Arteagas had fallen upon him.

No one ever heard him laugh or sing again; and when his wife brought pretty Marta's little boy from the willows, and had him educated to inherit after his father, the father accepted him almost without notice.