A Deal in Wheat and Other Stories of the New and Old West Part 22

And with the words she suddenly pressed her lips to his.

Abruptly Felipe freed himself. A new thought suddenly leaped to his brain.

"Let your own curse return upon you," he cried. "You yourself have freed me; you yourself have broken the barrier you raised between me and my betrothed. You cursed her whose lips should next touch mine, and you are poisoned with your own venom."

He sprang from off the bed, and catching up his _serape_, flung it about his shoulders.

"Felipe," she cried, "Felipe, where are you going?"

"Back to Buelna," he shouted, and with the words rushed from the room.

Her strength seemed suddenly to leave her. She sank lower to the floor, burying her face deep upon the pillows that yet retained the impress of him she loved so deeply, so recklessly.

Footsteps in the pa.s.sage and a knocking at the door aroused her. A woman, one of the escort who had accompanied her, entered hurriedly.

"Senorita," cried this one, "your brother, the Senor Unzar, he is dying."

Rubia hurried to an adjoining room, where upon a mattress on the floor lay her brother.

"Put that woman out," he gasped as his glance met hers. "I never sent for her," he went on. "You are no longer sister of mine. It was you who drove me to this quarrel, and when I have vindicated you what do you do?

Your brother you leave to be tended by hirelings, while all your thought and care are lavished on your paramour. Go back to him. I know how to die alone, but as you go remember that in dying I hated and disowned you."

He fell back upon the pillows, livid, dead.

Rubia started forward with a cry.

"It is you who have killed him," cried the woman who had summoned her.

The rest of Rubia's escort, _vaqueros_, _peons_, and the old _alcalde_ of her native village, stood about with bared heads.

"That is true. That is true," they murmured. The old _alcalde_ stepped forward.

"Who dishonours my friend dishonours me," he said. "From this day, Senorita Ytuerate, you and I are strangers." He went out, and one by one, with sullen looks and hostile demeanour, Rubia's escort followed.

Their manner was unmistakable; they were deserting her.

Rubia clasped her hands over her eyes.

"Madre de Dios, Madre de Dios," she moaned over and over again. Then in a low voice she repeated her own words: "May it be a blight to her. From that moment may evil cling to her, bad luck follow her; may she love and not be loved; may friends desert her, her sisters shame her, her brothers disown her----"

There was a clatter of horse's hoofs in the courtyard.

"It is your lover," said her woman coldly from the doorway. "He is riding away from you."

"----and those," added Rubia, "whom she has loved abandon her."

IV. BELUNA

Meanwhile Felipe, hatless, b.l.o.o.d.y, was galloping through the night, his pony's head turned toward the _hacienda_ of Martiarena. The Rancho Martiarena lay between his own rancho and the inn where he had met Rubia, so that this distance was not great. He reached it in about an hour of vigorous spurring.

The place was dark though it was as yet early in the night, and an ominous gloom seemed to hang about the house. Felipe, his heart sinking, pounded at the door, and at last aroused the aged superintendent, who was also a sort of _major-domo_ in the household, and who in Felipe's boyhood had often ridden him on his knee.

"Ah, it is you, Arillaga," he said very sadly, as the moonlight struck across Felipe's face. "I had hoped never to see you again."

"Buelna," demanded Felipe. "I have something to say to her, and to the _padron_."

"Too late, senor."

"My G.o.d, dead?"

"As good as dead."

"Rafael, tell me all. I have come to set everything straight again. On my honour, I have been misjudged. Is Buelna well?"

"Listen. You know your own heart best, senor. When you left her our little lady was as one half dead; her heart died within her. Ah, she loved you, Arillaga, far more than you deserved. She drooped swiftly, and one night all but pa.s.sed away. Then it was that she made a vow that if G.o.d spared her life she would become the bride of the church--would forever renounce the world. Well, she recovered, became almost well again, but not the same as before. She never will be that. So soon as she was able to obtain Martiarena's consent she made all the preparations--signed away all her lands and possessions, and spent the days and nights in prayer and purifications. The Mother Superior of the Convent of Santa Teresa has been a guest at the _hacienda_ this fortnight past. Only to-day the party--that is to say, Martiarena, the Mother Superior and Buelna--left for Santa Teresa, and at midnight of this very night Buelna takes the veil. You know your own heart, Senor Felipe. Go your way."

"But not _till_ midnight!" cried Felipe.

"What? I do not understand."

"She will not take the veil till midnight."

"No, not till then."

"Rafael," cried Felipe, "ask me no questions now. Only _believe_ me. I always have and always will love Buelna. I swear it. I can stop this yet; only once let me reach her in time. Trust me. Ah, for this once trust me, you who have known me since I was a lad."

He held out his hand. The other for a moment hesitated, then impulsively clasped it in his own.

"_Bueno_, I trust you then. Yet I warn you not to fool me twice."

"Good," returned Felipe. "And now _adios_. Unless I bring her back with me you'll never see me again."

"But, Felipe, lad, where away now?"

"To Santa Teresa."

"You are mad. Do you fancy you can reach it before midnight?" insisted the _major-domo_.

"I _will_, Rafael; I _will_."

"Then Heaven be with you."

But the old fellow's words were lost in a wild clatter of hoofs, as Felipe swung his pony around and drove home the spurs. Through the night came back a cry already faint:

"_Adios, adios_."

"_Adios_, Felipe," murmured the old man as he stood bewildered in the doorway, "and your good angel speed you now."

When Felipe began his ride it was already a little after nine. Could he reach Santa Teresa before midnight? The question loomed grim before him, but he answered only with the spur. Pepe was hardy, and, as Felipe well knew, of indomitable pluck. But what a task now lay before the little animal. He might do it, but oh! it was a chance!

In a quarter of a mile Pepe had settled to his stride, the dogged, even gallop that Felipe knew so well, and at half-past ten swung through the main street of Piedras Blancas--silent, somnolent, dark.