Stronghand turned away, murmuring to himself compassionately.
"That is true, poor child;" then he said to Don Ruiz, "Still, you must make up your mind."
"Unfortunately I have no choice; there is only one thing to be done: whatever may happen, I shall continue my journey at sunrise, if my sister be in a condition to follow me."
"That need not trouble you. When she awakes, her strength will be sufficiently recovered for her to keep on horseback without excessive fatigue; but from here to Arispe the road is very long."
"I know it: and it is that which frightens me for my poor sister."
"Listen to me. Perhaps there is a way for you to get out of the scrape, and avoid up to a certain point the dangers that threaten you. Two days' journey from here there is a military post, placed like an advanced sentry to watch the frontier, and prevent the incursions of the Indios bravos, and other bandits of every description and colour, who infest these regions. The main point for you is to reach this post, when it will be easy for you to obtain from the Commandant an escort to protect you from any insult for the rest of your journey."
"Yes; but, as you remark, I must reach the post."
"Well?"
"I do not know this country: one of the two peons who accompanied me acted as guide; and now he is dead, it is utterly impossible for me to find my way. I am in the position of a sailor, lost without a compass on an unknown sea."
Stronghand looked at him with surprise mingled with compassion.
"Oh!" he exclaimed, "How improvident is youth! What! Imprudent boy! You dared to risk yourself in the desert, and entrust to a peon your sister's precious life?" But, recollecting himself immediately, he continued, "Pardon me; reproaches are ill suited at this moment; the great thing is to get you out of the danger in which you are."
He let his head fall on his hands, and plunged into serious reflections, while Don Ruiz looked at him with mingled apprehension and hope. The young man did not deceive himself as to his position: the reproaches which Stronghand spared him, he had already made himself, cursing his improvident temerity; for things had reached such a point, that if the man to whom he owed his life, refused to afford him his omnipotent protection, he and his sister were irremediably lost.
Stronghand, after a few minutes, which seemed to last an age, rose, seized his rifle, went up to his horse, saddled it, mounted, and said to Don Ruiz, who followed all his movements with anxious curiosity —
"Wait for me, however long my absence may be; do not stir from here till I return."
Then, without waiting for the young man's answer, he bent lightly over his horse's neck, and started at a gallop. Don Ruiz watched the black outline, as it disappeared in the gloom; he listened to the horse's footfalls so long as he could hear them, and then turned back and seated himself pensively at the fire, and looked with tearful eyes at his sleeping sister.
"Poor Marianita!" he murmured, with a heart-rending outburst of pity.
He bowed his head on his chest, and with pale and gloomy face awaited the return of Stronghand – a return which, in his heart, he doubted, although, with the obstinacy of desperate men, who try to deceive themselves by making excuses whose falsehood they know, he sought to prove its certainty.
We will take advantage of this delay in our narrative to trace rapidly the portraits of Don Ruiz de Moguer and his sister Marianita. We will begin with the young lady, through politeness.
Doña Mariana – or rather Marianita, as she was generally called at the convent, and by her family – was a charming girl scarce sixteen, graceful in her movements, and with black lustrous eyes. Her hair had the bluish tinge of the raven's wing; her skin, the warm and gilded hues of the sun of her country; her glance, half veiled by her long brown eyelashes, was ardent; her straight nose, with its pink flexible nostrils, was delicious; her laughing mouth, with its bright red lips, gave her face an expression of simple, ignorant candour. Her movements, soft and indolent, had that indescribable languor and serpentine undulation alone possessed in so eminent a degree by the women of Lima and Mexico, those daughters of the sun in whose veins flows the molten lava of the volcanoes, instead of blood. In a word, she was a Spanish girl from head to foot – but Andalusian before all. Hers was an ardent, wild, jealous, passionate, and excessively superstitious nature. But this lovely, splendid statue still wanted the divine spark. Doña Mariana did not know herself; her heart had not yet spoken; she was as yet but a delicious child, whom the fiery breath of love would convert into an adorable woman.
Physically, Don Ruiz was, as a man, the same his sister was a woman. He was a thorough gentleman, and scarce four years older than Doña Mariana. He was tall and well built; but his elegant and aristocratic form denoted great personal strength. His regular features – too regular perhaps, for a man – bore an unmistakable stamp of distinction; his black eye had a frank and confident look; his mouth, which was rather large, but adorned with splendid teeth, and fringed by a fine brown moustache, coquettishly turned up, still retained the joyous, careless smile of youth; his face displayed loyalty, gentleness, and bravery carried to temerity; – in a word, all his features offered the most perfect type of a true-blooded gentleman.
Brother and sister, who, with the exception of a few almost imperceptible variations, had the most perfect physical likeness, also resembled each other morally. Both were equally ignorant of things of the world. With their pure and innocent hearts they loved each other with the holiest of all loves, fraternal affection, and only lived through and for each other.
Hence, Doña Mariana had felt a great delight and great impatience to quit the convent, when Don Ruiz, in obedience to his father's commands, came to fetch her from the Rosario. This impatience obliged Don Ruiz not to consent to wait for an escort on his homeward journey, for fear of vexing his sister. It was an imprudence that caused the misfortunes we have already described, and for which, now they had arrived, Don Ruiz reproached himself bitterly. He cursed the weakness that had made him yield to the whims of a girl, and accused himself of being, through his weakness, the sole cause of the frightful dangers from which she had only escaped by a miracle, and of those no less terrible, which, doubtless, still threatened her on the hundred and odd leagues they had still to go before reaching the hacienda del Toro, where dwelt her father, Don Hernando de Moguer.
Still the hours, which never stop, continued to follow each other slowly. The sun had risen; and, through its presence on the horizon, immediately dissipated the darkness and heated the ground, which was chilled by the abundant and icy dew of morning.
Doña Marianita, aroused by the singing of the thousands of birds concealed beneath the foliage, opened her eyes with a smile. The calm sleep she had enjoyed for several hours restored not only her strength, which was exhausted by the struggles of the previous evening, but also her courage and gaiety. The girl's first glance was for her brother, who, anxious and uneasy, was attentively watching her slumbers, and impatiently awaiting the moment for her to awake.
"Oh, Ruiz," she said, in her melodious voice, and offering her hand and cheek simultaneously to the young man, "what a glorious sleep I have had."
"Really, sister," he exclaimed, kissing her, gladly, "you have slept well."
"That is to say," she continued, with a smile, "that at the convent I never passed so delicious a night, accompanied by such charming dreams; but it is true there were two of you to watch over my slumbers – two kind and devoted hearts, in whom I could trust with perfect confidence."
"Yes, sister; there were two of us."
"What?" she asked in surprise mingled with anxiety. "You were – What do you mean, Ruiz?"
"What I say; nothing else, dear sister."
"But I do not see the caballero to whom we have incurred so great an obligation. Where is he?"
"I cannot tell you, little sister. About two hours ago he mounted his horse and left me, telling me not to stir from here till his return."
"Oh, in that case I am quite easy. His absence alarmed me; but now that I know he will return – "
"Do you believe so?" he interrupted.
"Why