In an instant she had pounced upon it as viciously as if it had been the interloper she was seeking. She knew that she held in her fingers the secret of Francisco’s sudden banishment. She felt instinctively that this yellowish envelope, with its red string and its blotch of red seal, was his sentence and her own. The little mestiza had not been brought up to respect the integrity of either locks or seals, both being unknown in the patriarchal life of the hacienda. Yet with a certain feminine instinct she looked furtively around her, and even managed to dislodge the clumsy wax without marring the pretty effigy of the crossed keys impressed upon it. Then she opened the letter and read.
Suddenly she stopped and put back her hair from her brown temples. Then a succession of burning blushes followed each other in waves from her neck up, and died in drops of moisture in her eyes. This continued until she was fairly crying, dropping the letter from her hands and rocking to and fro. In the midst of this she quickly stopped again; the clouds broke, a sunshine of laughter started from her eyes, she laughed shyly, she laughed loudly, she laughed hysterically. Then she stopped again as suddenly, knitted her brows, swooped down once more upon the letter, and turned to fly. But at the same moment the letter was quietly but firmly taken from her hand, and Mr. Jack Cranch stood beside her.
Juanita was crimson, but unconquered. She mechanically held out her hand for the letter; the American took her little fingers, kissed them, and said:—
“How are you again?”
“The letter,” replied Juanita, with a strong disposition to stamp her foot.
“But,” said Cranch, with business directness, “you’ve read enough to know it isn’t for you.”
“Nor for you either,” responded Juanita.
“True. It is for the Reverend Father Superior of San Jose Mission. I’ll give it to him.”
Juanita was becoming alarmed, first at this prospect, second at the power the stranger seemed to be gaining over her. She recalled Francisco’s description of him with something like superstitious awe.
“But it concerns Francisco. It contains a secret he should know.”
“Then you can tell him it. Perhaps it would come easier from you.”
Juanita blushed again. “Why?” she asked, half dreading his reply.
“Because,” said the American, quietly, “you are old playmates; you are attached to each other.”
Juanita bit her lips. “Why don’t you read it yourself?” she asked bluntly.
“Because I don’t read other people’s letters, and if it concerns me you’ll tell me.”
“What if I don’t?”
“Then the Father Superior will.”
“I believe you know Francisco’s secret already,” said the girl, boldly.
“Perhaps.”
“Then, Mother of God! Senor Crancho, what do you want?”
“I do not want to separate two such good friends as you and Francisco.”
“Perhaps you’d like to claim us both,” said the girl, with a sneer that was not devoid of coquetry.
“I should be delighted.”
“Then here is your occasion, Senor, for here comes my adopted father, Don Juan, and your friend, Senor Br—r—own, the American alcalde.”
Two men appeared in the garden path below them. The stiff, glazed, broad-brimmed black hat, surmounting a dark face of Quixotic gravity and romantic rectitude, indicated Don Juan Briones. His companion, lazy, specious, and red-faced, was Senor Brown, the American alcalde.
“Well, I reckon we kin about call the thing fixed,” said Senor Brown, with a large wave of the hand, suggesting a sweeping away of all trivial details. “Ez I was saying to the Don yer, when two high-toned gents like you and him come together in a delicate matter of this kind, it ain’t no hoss trade nor sharp practice. The Don is that lofty in principle that he’s willin’ to sacrifice his affections for the good of the gal; and you, on your hand, kalkilate to see all he’s done for her, and go your whole pile better. You’ll make the legal formalities good. I reckon that old Injin woman who can swear to the finding of the baby on the shore will set things all right yet. For the matter o’ that, if you want anything in the way of a certificate, I’m on hand always.”
“Juanita and myself are at your disposition, caballeros,” said Don Juan, with a grave exaltation. “Never let it be said that the Mexican nation was outdone by the great Americanos in deeds of courtesy and affection. Let it rather stand that Juanita was a sacred trust put into my hands years ago by the goddess of American liberty, and nurtured in the Mexican eagle’s nest. Is it not so, my soul?” he added, more humanly, to the girl, when he had quite recovered from the intoxication of his own speech. “We love thee, little one, but we keep our honor.”
“There’s nothing mean about the old man,” said Brown, admiringly, with a slight dropping of his left eyelid; “his head is level, and he goes with his party.”
“Thou takest my daughter, Senor Cranch,” continued the old man, carried away by his emotion; “but the American nation gives me a son.”
“You know not what you say, father,” said the young girl, angrily, exasperated by a slight twinkle in the American’s eye.
“Not so,” said Cranch. “Perhaps one of the American nation may take him at his word.”
“Then, caballeros, you will, for the moment at least, possess yourselves of the house and its poor hospitality,” said Don Juan, with time-honored courtesy, producing the rustic key of the gate of the patio. “It is at your disposition, caballeros,” he repeated, leading the way as his guests passed into the corridor.
Two hours passed. The hills were darkening on their eastern slopes; the shadows of the few poplars that sparsedly dotted the dusty highway were falling in long black lines that looked like ditches on the dead level of the tawny fields; the shadows of slowly moving cattle were mingling with their own silhouettes, and becoming more and more grotesque. A keen wind rising in the hills was already creeping from the canada as from the mouth of a funnel, and sweeping the plains. Antonio had forgathered with the servants, had pinched the ears of the maids, had partaken of aguardiente, had saddled the mules,—Antonio was becoming impatient.
And then a singular commotion disturbed the peaceful monotony of the patriarchal household of Don Juan Briones. The stagnant courtyard was suddenly alive with peons and servants, running hither and thither. The alleys and gardens were filled with retainers. A confusion of questions, orders, and outcrys rent the air, the plains shook with the galloping of a dozen horsemen. For the acolyte Francisco, of the Mission San Carmel, had disappeared and vanished, and from that day the hacienda of Don Juan Briones knew him no more.
CHAPTER III
When Father Pedro saw the yellow mules vanish under the low branches of the oaks beside the little graveyard, caught the last glitter of the morning sun on Pinto’s shining headstall, and heard the last tinkle of Antonio’s spurs, something very like a mundane sigh escaped him. To the simple wonder of the majority of early worshipers—the half-breed converts who rigorously attended the spiritual ministrations of the Mission, and ate the temporal provisions of the reverend fathers—he deputed the functions of the first mass to a coadjutor, and, breviary in hand, sought the orchard of venerable pear trees. Whether there was any occult sympathy in his reflections with the contemplation of their gnarled, twisted, gouty, and knotty limbs, still bearing gracious and goodly fruit, I know not, but it was his private retreat, and under one of the most rheumatic and misshapen trunks there was a rude seat. Here Father Pedro sank, his face towards the mountain wall between him and the invisible sea. The relentless, dry, practical Californian sunlight falling on his face grimly pointed out a night of vigil and suffering. The snuffy yellow of his eyes was injected yet burning, his temples were ridged and veined like a tobacco leaf; the odor of desiccation which his garments always exhaled was hot and feverish, as if the fire had suddenly