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Now, the Mulero was a man of thought and reflection, and it occurred to him that if asses, however inadequately, could yet, in some sort, perform the functions of mules, there was no reason why a man, even a very poor-looking and ragged one, should not replace a bull-dog. There was that hungry, half-starved look about me, too, that vouched my temper would not be of the sweetest; and he eyed me with the glance of a connoisseur. At last Mijo – for such was he called – made the proposal to me in all form, explaining that my predecessor had had his rations allowed him like a colonist, and was entitled to sleep under cover at the house of his former mistress, La Senhora Dias, “who,” he added, with a sly wink, “was my countrywoman.” Well knowing a Mexican never boggles at a lie, no matter how broad and palpable, I took no notice of what I at once concluded to be impossible, but proceeded to inquire as to the precise functions I might be expected to perform in my canine capacity.

“A mere nothing,” said he, with a shrug of his shoulders; “we harness the beasts at daybreak, – say three o’clock; by eight the water is all up; then you can sleep or amuse yourself till four of the afternoon, when the Commandante Salezar likes to have cool water for his bath, – that only takes an hour; then you are free again till night closes in.”

“And what then?” asked I, impatiently.

“You have your rounds at night.”

“My rounds! where, and what for?”

“Against the prairie wolves, that now and then are daring enough to come down into the very settlement, and carry off kids and lambs, – ay, and sometimes don’t stop there.”

He winked with a terrible significance at the last words.

“So, then, I am not only to bark at the asses all day, but I am to bay the wolves by night?” said I, half indignantly.

“Lupo did it,” responded he, with a nod.

“He was a dog, Señhor Mijo,” said I.

“Ah, that he was!” added he, in a tone very different from my remark, accompanying it with a most disparaging glance at my ragged habiliments. I read the whole meaning of the look at once, and hung my head, abashed at the disparaging comparison.

He waited patiently for my reply, and, perceiving that I was still silent, he said, “Well, is it a bargain?”

“Agreed,” said I, with a sigh; and wondering if Fortune had yet any lower depths in store for me, I followed him to his hut. Mijo proceeded to acquaint me with all the details of my office, and also certain peculiarities of the two beasts for whose especial misery I was engaged. If compassion could have entered into my nature, it might have moved me at sight of them. Their haunches and hocks were notched and scored with the marks of teeth, while their tails were a series of round balls, like certain old-fashioned bell-ropes, the result of days of suffering.

“I am so accustomed to the name, I must call you ‘Lupo,’” said Mijo; “you have no objection?”

“Not in the least,” said I; “if a ‘dog in office,’ why not a dog in name?”

That same day I was conducted to the “Tienda del Gato,” the shop of “The Cat,” at the sign of which animal La Señhora Dias resided. It was a small cottage at the very extremity of the village, in a somewhat pretty garden; and here a kind of canteen was held, at which the settlers procured cigars, brandy, and other like luxuries, in exchange for their “tickets of labor.”

Of the Señhora, some mystery existed: the popular rumor was, that she had been the favorite mistress of Santa Anna, whose influence, however, could not rescue her from the fate of a convict, to which she was sentenced for forgery. Her great patron contrived, however, to release her from the indignity of a penal settlement, and placed her at “La Noria,” where she had resided two years. Some said that it was to conceal herself from the prying curiosity of the vulgar; another, that it was to hide the brand of the letter “F,” burned with a hot iron in her forehead; others, again, that it was by Santa Anna’s express order (but what the reason?) she always wore a black velvet mask, which, since her arrival at the village, none had seen her remove.

A hundred stories, one more absurd than another, were circulated about her high birth and condition, and the vast wealth she had once possessed; the only real clew I could discover to these narratives being the simple fact that her dog, a fierce English bull-dog, – my own predecessor, and who by peculiar favor was permitted to accompany her, – used to wear a massive silver collar, richly chased and ornamented: fiction, indeed, had invested it with precious stones and gems; but these were purely imaginative ornaments. Even devoid of jewels, such was deemed an unequivocal proof of riches among those whose poverty was of the very lowest order, and La Señhora Dias bought her “millionnaire” character at a cheap price. To me, the most interesting part in her story was that which called her my countrywoman; and yet this seemed so unlikely, and was coupled with so much that I knew to be impossible, that I did not venture to believe it.

It was the hour of the siesta when we reached “The Cat,” so that I had no opportunity of seeing the Señhora. Mijo conducted me to a little building in the garden, originally built as a hut for a man who watched the fruit, but latterly inhabited by Lupo. There I was installed at once. Some chestnut-leaves were my bed; a small spring afforded me water; I was to receive eight ounces of maize bread each day, with half an ounce of coffee, – Lupo had “taken” the latter “out” in sausages. Of the fruit of the garden, consisting of limes, oranges, peaches, and mangoes, I was free of whatever fell to the ground, – a species of black-mail that never failed me at the dessert. These were my perquisites, – my duties I already knew; and so Mijo left me to recruit myself by one day’s rest, and on “the morrow” to begin my labors.

I shall never forget the strange mélange of feelings, pleasurable and the reverse, which came over me as I first found myself alone, and had time to think over my condition. Many would perhaps have said that the degradation would have mastered all other thoughts, and that the life to which I was reduced would have tended to break down all self-respect and esteem. Whether to my credit or otherwise, I know not, but I did not feel thus, – nay, I even went so far as to congratulate myself that a source of livelihood was open to me which did not involve me in forced companionship, and that I might devote so many hours of each day to my own undisturbed thoughts, as I wandered about that vast garden, in which no other than myself appeared ever to set foot.

Culture it had none, nor seemed to need, it; one of my duties was to pluck the ripe fruit every day, ere I issued forth to the “Well,” and place the baskets at the Señhora’s door; and, save this, I believe all was left to nature. What a wilderness of rank luxuriance it was! The earth had become so fertilized by the fallen fruit left to rot as it fell, that the very atmosphere was loaded with the odor of peaches and oranges and pomegranates. A thousand gaudy and brilliant flowers, too, glittered among the tall grass that tried to overtop them; and insects and creatures of colors still more beauteous fluttered and chirped among the leaves, making a little chorus of sounds that mingled deliciously with the rippling stream that murmured near.

CHAPTER XXV. LA SEÑHORA

To this very hour I am unable to say how long I remained at the village of La Noria. Time slipped away unchronicled; the seasons varied little, save for about two winter mouths, when heavy snows fell, and severe cold prevailed; but spring followed these with a suddenness that seemed like magic, and then came summer and autumn, as it were, blended into one, – all the varied beauties of the one season vying with the other. This was all that was wanting to complete the illusion which the monotony of my daily life suggested; for me there was no companionship, – no link that bound me to my fellow-men; the “Sunday,” too, “shone no Sabbath-day for me.” The humble range of my duties never varied; nor, save with Mijo, did I ever exchange even a passing word. Indeed, the hours of my labor were precisely those when all others slept; and whether I tracked the wayworn asses at their dreary round, or pursued my solitary path at night, my own was the only voice I ever heard. It was the “life of a dog;” but, after all, how many states of existence there are far less desirable! I had always wherewithal to subsist upon; I had no severe labor, nor any duty incompatible with health; and I had – greatest blessing of all – time for self-communing and reflection; that delicious leisure, in which the meanest hovel ever raised by hands become one’s “Home.” I was happy, then, after my own fashion; various little contrivances to lighten my tasks amused and occupied my thoughts. To bring the garden into order was also a passion with me; and although necessitated to invent and fashion the tools to work with, I was not deterred by this difficulty, but manfully overcame it. I greatly doubted if Watt ever gazed at a new improvement in steam machinery with half the delight I looked upon my first attempt at a rake. Then, what pleasure did I experience as I saw the trim beds covered with blooming flowers, the clearly raked walks, the grass-plots close-shaven and weedless! How the thoughts of changes and alterations filled my mind as I wandered in the dreary night! What trellises did I not invent; what festoons of the winding vine-branches; what bowers of the leafy banana! Like the old gardener, Adam, I began at last to think that all these things were too beautiful for one man’s gaze, that such ecstasies as mine deserved companionship, and that the selfishness of my enjoyment was the greatest blot upon its perfection. When this notion caught hold of me, I wandered away in fancy to the “Donna Maria de los Dolores;” and how fervently did I believe that, with her to share it, my present existence had been a life of Paradise!

These thoughts at last exhausted themselves, and I fell a thinking why the Señhora Dias never had the curiosity to visit her garden, nor see the changes I had wrought in it. To be sure, it was true she knew nothing of them: how, then, was I to make the fact reach her ears? The only hours that I was at liberty were those when every close-drawn curtain and closed shutter proclaimed the “siesta.”

It was clear enough that a whole life might slip over in this fashion without my ever seeing her. There was something in the difficulty that prompted a desire to overcome it; and so I set myself to plan the means by which I might make her acquaintance. Of the windows which looked towards the garden, the blinds were always closed; the single door that led into it as invariably locked; I bethought me of writing a humble and most petitionary epistle, setting forth my utter solitude and isolation; but where were pen and ink and paper to come from? These were luxuries the Gobernador himself alone possessed. My next thought was more practicable: it was to deposit each morning upon her basket of fruit a little bouquet of fresh flowers. But, then, would they ever reach her hands? – would not the servant purloin and intercept my offering? – ay, that was to be thought of.

By most assiduous watching, I at last discovered that her bedroom looked into the garden by a small grated window, almost hidden by the gnarled branches of a wild fig-tree. This at once afforded me the opportunity I desired, and up the branches of this I climbed each morning of my life, to fasten to the bars my little bouquet of flowers.

With what intense expectancy did I return home the first morning of my experiment! what vacillations of hope and fear agitated me as I came near the garden, and, looking up, saw, to my inexpressible delight, that the bouquet was gone! I could have cried for very joy! At last I was no longer an outcast, forgotten by my fellows. One, at least, knew of my existence, and possibly pitied and compassionated my desolation.

I needed no more than this to bind me again to the love of life; frail as was the link, it was enough whereupon to hang a thousand hopes and fancies, and it suggested matter for cheering thought, where, before, the wide waste of existence stretched pathless and purposeless before me. How I longed for that skill by which I might make the flowers the interpreters of my thoughts! I knew nothing of this, however; I could but form them into such combinations of color and order as should please the senses, but not appeal to the heart; and yet I did try to invent a language, forgetting the while that the key of the cipher must always remain with myself.

It chanced that one night, when on my rounds outside the village, I suddenly discovered that I had forgotten the caps for my rifle. I hastened homeward to fetch them, and entered the garden by a small door which I had myself made, and of which few were cognizant. It was a night of bright moonlight; but the wind was high, and drifted large masses of cloud across the sky, alternately hiding and displaying the moon. Tracking, with an instinct too well trained to become deceptive, the walks of the garden, while a dark mass shut out the “lamp of night,” I reached my hut, when suddenly, on a little stone bench beside the door, I beheld a female figure seated. She was scarcely four yards from where I stood, and in the full glare of the moonlight as palpable as at noonday. She was tall and elegantly formed; her air and carriage, even beneath the coarse folds of a common dress of black serge, such as bespoke condition; her hands, too, were white as marble, and finely and delicately formed; in one of them she held a velvet mask, and I watched with anxiety to see the face from which it had been removed, which was still averted from me. At last she turned slowly round, and I could perceive that her features, although worn by evident suffering and sorrow, had once been beautiful; the traits were in perfect symmetry; the mouth alone had a character of severity somewhat at variance with the rest, but its outline was faultless, – the expression only being unpleasing. The dark circles around the eyes attested the work of years of grief, bitter and corroding.

What should I do, – advance boldly, or retire noiselessly from the spot? If the first alternative presented perhaps the only chance of ever speaking to her, it might also prevent her ever again visiting the garden. This was a difficulty; and ere I had time to solve it, she arose to leave the spot. I coughed slightly: she halted and looked around, without any semblance of terror or even surprise, and so we stood face to face.

“You should have been on your rounds on this hour!” said she, with a manner of almost stern expression, and using the Spanish language.

“So I should, Señhora; but having forgot a part of my equipment, I returned to seek it.”

“They would punish you severely if it were known,” said she, in the same tone.

“I am aware of that,” replied I; “and yet I would incur the penalty twice over to have seen one of whom my thoughts for every hour these months past have been full.”

“Of me? You speak of me?”

“Yes, Señhora, of you. I know the presumption of my words; but bethink you that it is not in such a spirit they are uttered, but as the cry of one humbled and humiliated to the very dust, and who, on looking at you, remembers the link that binds him to his fellows, and for the instant rises above the degradation of his sad condition.”

“And it is through me, – by looking at me, – such thoughts are inspired!” said she, in an accent of piercing anguish. “Are you an English youth?”

“Yes, Señhora, as much as an Irishman can call himself.”

“And is this the morality of your native land,” said she, in English, “that you can feel an elevation of heart and sentiment from the contemplation of such as I am? Shame, sir, – shame upon your falsehood, or worse shame upon your principle.”

“I only know you as my day and night dreams have made you, lady, – as the worshipper creates his own idol.”

“But you have heard of me?” said she, speaking with a violence and rapidity that betokened a disordered mind. “All the world has heard of me, from the Havannah to Guajuaqualla, as the poisoner and the forger!”

I shook my head dissentingly.

“It is, then, because you are less than human,” said she, scoffingly, “or you had heard it. But mind, sir, it is untrue; I am neither.” She paused, and then, in a voice of terrible emotion, said, “There is enough of crime upon this poor head, but not that! And where have you lived, not to have heard of La Señhora Dias?” said she, with an hysteric laugh.

In a few words I told her how I had made part of a great gold-searching expedition, and been utterly ruined by the calamity which destroyed my companions.

“You would have sold yourself for gold wherewith to buy pleasure!” muttered she to herself.

“I was poor, lady; I must needs do something for my support.”

“Then why not follow humble labor? What need of wealth? Where had you learned its want, or acquired the taste to expend it? You could only have imitated rich men’s vices, not their virtues, that sometimes ennoble them.”

The wild vehemence of her manner, as with an excessive rapidity she uttered these words, convinced me that her faculties were not under the right control of reason, and I followed her with an interest even heightened by that sad impression.

“You see no one, you speak to none,” said she, turning round suddenly, “else I should bid you forget that you have ever seen me.”

“Are we to meet again, Señhora?” said I, submissively, as I stood beside the door, of which she held the key in her hand.

“Yes – perhaps – I don’t know;” and, so saying, she left me.

Two months crept over – and how slowly they went! – without my again seeing the Señhora. Were it not that the bouquets which each morning I fastened to the window-bars were removed before noon, I could have fancied that she had no other existence than what my dreamy imagination gave her. The heavy wooden “jalousies” were never opened; the door remained close locked; not a foot-tread marked the gravel near it. It was clear to me she had never crossed the threshold since the night I first saw her.

I fell into a plodding, melancholy mood. The tiresome routine of my daily life, its dull, unvarying monotony, began to wear into my soul, and I ceased either to think over the past or speculate on the future, but would sit for hours long in a moody revery, actually unconscious of everything.

Sometimes I would make an effort to throw off this despondency, and try, by recollection of the active energy of my own nature, to stir up myself to an effort of one kind or other; but the unbroken stillness, the vast motionless solitude around me, the companionless isolation in which I lived, would resume their influence, and with a weary sigh I would resign myself to a hopelessness that left no wish in the heart save for a speedy death.

Even castle-building – the last resource of imprisonment – ceased to interest. Life had also resolved itself into a successsion of dreary images, of which the voiceless prairie, the monotonous water-wheel, the darkened path of my midnight patrol, were the chief; and I felt myself sinking day by day, hour by hour, into that resistless apathy through which no ray of hope ever pierces.

At last I ceased even to pluck the flowers for the Señhora’s window. I deemed any exertion which might be avoided, needless, and taxed my ingenuity to find out contrivances to escape my daily toil. The garden I neglected utterly; and in the wild luxuriance of the soil the rank weeds soon effaced every sign of former culture. What a strange frame of mind was mine! Even the progress of this ruin gave me a pleasure to the full as great as that once felt in witnessing the blooming beauty of its healthful vegetation. I used to walk among the rank and noisome weeds with the savage delight of some democratic leader who saw his triumph amid the downfall of the beautiful, the richly-prized, and the valued, experiencing a species of insane pleasure in the thought of some fancied vengeance.

How the wild growth of the valueless weed overtopped the tender excellence of the fragrant plant; how the noisome odor overpowered its rich perfume; how, in fact, barbarism lorded it over civilization, became a study to my distorted apprehension; and I felt a diabolical joy at the victory.

A little more, and this misanthropy had become madness; but a change was at hand. I was sitting one night in the garden: it was already the hour when my “patrol” should have begun; but latterly I had grown indifferent to the call of duty: as Hope died out within me, so did Fear also, and I cared little for the risk of punishment, – nay, more, a kind of rebellious spirit was gaining upon me, and I wished for some accident which might bring me into collision with some one. As I sat thus, I heard a footstep behind me: I turned, and saw the Señhora close to me. I did not rise to salute her, but gazed calmly and sternly, without speaking.

“Has the life of the dog imparted the dog’s nature?” said she, scoffingly. “Why don’t you speak?”

“I have almost forgotten how to do so,” said I, sulkily.

“You can hear, at least?”

I nodded assent.

“And understand what you hear?”

I nodded again.

“Listen to me, then, attentively, for I have but a short time to stay, and have much to tell you. And, first of all, do you wish to escape from hence?”

“Do I wish it!” cried I; and in the sudden burst, long dried-up sources of emotion opened out afresh, and the heavy tears rolled down my cheeks.

“Are you willing to incur the danger of attempting it?”

“Ay, this instant!”

“If so, the means await you. I want a letter conveyed to a certain person in the town of Guajuaqualla, which is about two hundred miles distant.”

“In which direction?” asked I.

“You shall see the map for yourself; here it is,” said she, giving me a small package which contained a map and a mariner’s compass. “I only know that the path lies over the prairie and by the banks of a branch of the Red River. There are villages and farmhouses when you have reached that region.”

“And how am I to do so, unmolested, Señhora? A foot-traveller on the prairie must be overtaken at once.”

“You shall be well mounted on a mustang worth a thousand dollars; but ride him without spurring. If he bring you safe to Guajuaqualla he has paid his price.” She then proceeded to a detail which showed how well and maturely every minute circumstance had been weighed and considered. The greatest difficulty lay in the fact that no water was to be met with nearer than eighty miles, which distance I should be compelled to compass on the first day. If this were a serious obstacle on one side, on the other it relieved me of all apprehension of being captured after the first forty or fifty miles were accomplished, since my pursuers would scarcely venture farther.

The Señhora had provided for everything. My dress, which would have proclaimed me as a runaway “settler,” was to be exchanged for the gay attire of a Mexican horse-dealer, – a green velvet jacket and hose, all slashed and decorated with jingling silver buttons, pistols, sabre, and rifle to suit.

The mustang, whose saddle was to be fitted with the usual accompaniment of portmanteau and cloak, was also to have the leathern purse of the “craft,” with its massive silver lock, and a goodly ballast of doubloons within. Two days’ provisions and a gourd of brandy, completed an equipment which to my eyes was more than the wealth of an empire.

“Are you content?” asked she, as she finished the catalogue.

I seized her hand, and kissed it with a warm devotion.

“Now for the reverse of the medal. You may be overtaken; pursuit is almost certain, – it may be successful; if so, you must tear the letter I shall give you to fragments so small that all detection of its contents may be impossible. Sell your life dearly; this I counsel you, since a horrible death would be reserved for you if taken prisoner. Above all, don’t betray me.”

“I swear it,” said I, solemnly, as I held up my hand in evidence of the oath.

“Should you, however, escaping all peril, reach Guajuaqualla in safety, you will deliver this letter to the Señhor Estavan Olares, a well-known banker of that town. He will present you with any reward you think sufficient for your services, the peril of which cannot be estimated beforehand. This done, – and here, mark me! I expect your perfect fidelity, – all tie is severed between us. You are never to speak of me so long as I live; nor, if by any sun of Fortune we should chance to meet again in life, are you to recognize me. You need be at no loss for the reasons of this request: the position in which I am here placed – the ignominy of an unjust sentence, as great as the shame of the heaviest guilt – will tell you why I stipulate for this. Are we agreed?”

“We are. When do I set out?”

“To-morrow by daybreak; leave this a little before your usual time, pass out of the village, and, taking the path that skirts the beech wood, make for the Indian ground, – you know the spot. At the cedar-tree close to that you will find your horse all ready, – the letter is here.” Now for the first time her voice trembled slightly, and for an instant or two she seemed irresolute. “My mind is sometimes so shaken by suffering,” said she, “that I scarcely dare to trust its guidance; and even now I feel as if the confidence I am about to place in an utter stranger, in an – ”

“Outcast, you would say,” said I, finishing what she faltered at. “Do not fear, then, one humbled as I have been can take offence at an epithet.”

“Nor is it one such as I am who have the right to confer it,” said she, wiping the heavy drops from her eyes. “Good-bye forever! – since, if you keep your pledge, we are never to meet again.” She gave me her hand, which I kissed twice, and then, turning away, she passed into the house; and before I even knew that she was gone, I was standing alone in the garden, wondering if what had just occurred could be real.

If my journey was not without incident and adventure, neither were they of a character which it is necessary I should inflict upon my reader, who doubtless ere this has felt all the wearisome monotony of prairie life, by reflection. Enough that I say, after an interesting mistake of the “trail” which led me above a hundred miles astray! I crossed the Conchos River within a week, and reached Chihuahua, a city of considerable size, and far more pretensions than any I had yet seen in the “Far West.”

Built on the narrow gorge of two abrupt mountains, the little town consists of one great straggling street, which occupies each side of a torrent that descends in a great tumbling mass of foam and spray along its rocky course. It was the time of the monthly market, or fair, when I arrived, and the streets were crowded with peasants and muleteers in every imaginable costume. The houses were mostly built with projecting balconies, from which gay-colored carpets and bright draperies hung down, while female figures sat lounging and smoking their cigarettes above. The aspect of the place was at once picturesque and novel. Great wooden wagons of melons and cucumbers, nuts, casks of olive-oil and wine; bales of bright scarlet cloth, in the dye of which they excel; pottery ware; droves of mustangs, fresh caught and capering in all their native wildness; flocks of white goats from the Cerzo Gorde, whose wool is almost as fine as the Llama’s; piles of firearms from Birmingham and Liège, around which groups of admiring Indians were always gathered; parroquets and scarlet jays, in cages; richly ornamented housings for mule teams; brass-mounted saddles and a mass of other articles littered and blocked up the way so that all passage was extremely difficult.

Before I approached the city, I had been canvassing with myself how best I might escape from the prying inquisitiveness to which every stranger is exposed on entering a new community. I might have spared myself the trouble, for I found that I was perfectly unnoticed in the motley throng with which I mingled.

My strong-boned, high-bred mustang, indeed, called forth many a compliment as I rode past; but none had any eye, nor even a word, for the rider. At last, as I was approaching the inn, I beheld a small knot of men whose dress and looks were not unfamiliar to me; and in a moment after, I remembered that they were the Yankee horse-dealers I had met with at Austin, some years before. As time had changed me far more than them, I trusted to escape recognition, not being by any means desirous of renewing the acquaintance. I ought to say that, besides my Mexican costume, I wore a very imposing pair of black moustaches and beard, the growth of two years at “La Noria,” so that detection was not very easy.

While I was endeavoring to push my way between two huge hampers of tomatoes and lemons, one of this group, whom I at once recognized as Seth Chiseller, laid his hand on my beast’s shoulder and said, in Spanish, “The mustang is for sale?”

“No, Señhor,” said I, with a true Mexican flourish, “he and all mine stand at your disposal, but I would not sell him.”

Not heeding much the hackneyed courtesy of my speech, he passed his hands along the animal’s legs, feeling his tendons and grasping his neat pasterns. Then, proceeding to the hocks, he examined them carefully; after which he stepped a pace or two backwards, the better to survey him, when he said, “Move him along in a gentle trot.”

“Excuse me, Señhor, I came here to buy, not to sell. This animal I do not mean to part with.”

“Not if I were to offer you five hundred dollars?” said he, still staring at the beast.

“Not if you were to say a thousand, Señhor,” said I, haughtily; “and now pray let me pass into the court, for we are both in need of refreshment.”

“He an’t no Mexican, that ‘ere chap,” whispered one of the group to Chiseller.