"The muchacha should keep the "capotillo,"" said an old lynx-eyed duenna, with a fan as large as a fire-board.
"A Caballero rich as that should give her a necklace of real pearls,"
said another.
"I "d choose a mustang, with a saddle and trappings all studded with silver," muttered a third in her ear.
"I "ll have none of these," said the girl, musing; "I must bethink me well if I cannot find something I shall like to look at with pleasure, when mere dress and finery would have lost their charm. I must have that which will remind me of this evening a long time hence, and make me think of him who made it a happiness; and now what shall it be?"
"His heart"s blood, if that will content you!" cried the mountaineer, as, springing from his seat, he tore the scarf from her hands and dashed it on the ground, trampling it beneath his feet, and tearing it to very rags.
"A fight--a fight!" shouted out a number of voices; and now the crowd closed in upon the dancing s.p.a.ce, and a hundred tongues mingled in wild altercation. Although a few professed themselves indignant that a stranger should be thus insulted, I saw plainly that the majority were with their countryman, whom they agreed in regarding as a most outraged and injured individual. To my great astonishment, I discovered that my friend Seth took the same view of the matter, and was even more energetic than the others in reprobation of my conduct.
"Don"t you see," cried he to me, "that you have taken his sweetheart from him? The muchacha has done all this to provoke his jealousy."
"Oui, oui," said a thin, miserable-looking Frenchman, "vous avez tire la bouteille; il faut payer le vin."
In all probability, had not the crowd separated us most effectually, these comments and counsels had been all uttered "after the fact;" for I dashed forward to strike my antagonist, and was only held back by main force, as Seth whispered in my ear, "Take it coolly, lad; it must be a fight now, and don"t unsteady your hand by flying into a pa.s.sion."
Meanwhile the noise and confusion waxed louder and louder; and from the glances directed towards me there was very little doubt how strongly public opinion p.r.o.nounced against me.
"No, no!" broke in Seth,--in reply to some speech whose purport I could only guess at, for I did not hear the words,--"that would be a downright shame. Let the lad have fair play. There"s a pretty bit of ground outside the garden, for either sword or pistol-work, whichever you choose it to be. I "ll not stand anything else."
Another very fiery discussion ensued upon this, the end of which was that I was led away by Seth and one of his comrades to my room, with the satisfactory a.s.surance that at the very first dawn of day I was to meet the Mexican peasant in single combat.
"You have two good hours of sleep before you," said Seth, as we entered my room; "and my advice is, don"t lose a minute of them."
It has been a mystery to me, up to the very hour I am writing in, how far my friend Seth Chiseller"s conduct on this occasion accorded with good faith. Certainly, it would have been impossible for any one to have evinced a more chivalrous regard for my honor, and a more contemptuous disdain for my life, than the aforesaid Seth. He advanced full one hundred reasons for a deadly combat, the results of which, he confessed, were speculative matters of a most dreamy indifference. Now, although it has almost become an axiom in these affairs that there is nothing like a bold, decided friend, yet even these qualities may be carried to excess; and so I began to experience.
There was a vindictiveness in the way he expatiated upon the gross character of the insult I had received, the palpable openness of the outrage, that showed the liveliest susceptibility on the score of my reputation; and thus it came to pa.s.s, I suppose, from that spirit of divergence and contradiction so native to the human heart that the stronger Seth"s argument ran in favor of a most b.l.o.o.d.y retribution, the more ingenious grew my casuistry on the side of mercy; till, grown weary of my sophistry, he finished the discussion by saying: "Take your own road, then; and if you prefer a stiletto under the ribs to the chance of a sabre-cut, it is your own affair, not mine."
"How so? Why should I have to fear such?"
"You don"t think that the villano will suffer a fellow to take his muchacha from him, and dance with her the entire evening before a whole company, without his revenge? No! no! they have different notions on that score, as you "ll soon learn."
"Then what is to be done?"
"I have told you already, and I tell you once more: meet him to-morrow,--the time is not very distant now. You tell me that you are a fair swordsman: now, these chaps have but one attack and one guard.
I "ll put you up to both; and if you are content to take a slight sabre-cut about the left shoulder, I"ll show you how to run him through the body."
"And then?"
"Why, then," said he, turning his tobacco about in his mouth, "I guess you"d better run for it; there"ll be no time to lose. Mount your beast, and ride for the Guajuaqualla road, but don"t follow it long, or you"ll soon be overtaken. Turn the beast loose, and take to the mountains, where, when you "ve struck the miner"s track, you "ll soon reach the town in safety."
Overborne by arguments and reasons, many of which Seth strengthened by the pithy apothegm of "Bethink ye where ye are, boy! This is not England, nor Ireland neither!" all my scruples vanished, and I set about the various arrangements in a spirit of true activity. The time was brief, since, besides taking a lesson in the broadsword, I had to make my will. The reader will probably smile at the notion of Con Cregan leaving a testament behind him; but the over-scrupulous Seth would have it so, and a.s.sured me, with much feeling, that it would "save a world of trouble hereafter, if anything were to go a bit ugly."
I therefore bequeathed to the worthy Seth my mustang and his equipments of saddle, holsters, and cloak-bag; my rifle and pistols and bowie-knife were also to become his, as well as all my movables of every kind. I only stipulated that, in the event of the "ugly" termination alluded to, he would convey the letter with his own hands to Guajuaqualla,--a pledge he gave with the greater readiness that a reward was to be rendered for the service. There was some seventy dollars in my bag, which, Seth said, need not be mentioned in the will, as they would be needed for the funeral. "It "s costly hereabouts," said he, growing quite lively on the theme. "They put ye in a great basket, all decked with flowers, and they sticks two big oranges or lemons in your hands; and the chaps as carry you are dressed like devils or angels, I don"t much know which,--and they do make such a cry, My eye for it, but if you was n"t dead, you "d not lie there long and listen to "em!"
Now, although the subject was not one half so amusing to me as it seemed to Seth, I felt that strange fascination which ever attaches to a painful theme, and asked a variety of questions about the grave and the ceremonies and the ma.s.ses, reminding my executor that, as a good Catholic, I hoped I should have the offices of the Church in all liberality.
"Don"t distress yourself about that," said he; "I "ll learn a lot of prayers in Latin myself,--" just to help you on," as a body might say.
But, as I live, there goes the chaps to the "Molino";" and he pointed to a group of about a dozen or more, who, wrapped up in their large cloaks, took the way slowly and silently through the tall wet gra.s.s at the bottom of the garden.
I have ever been too candid with my kind reader to conceal anything from him. Let him not, therefore, I beg, think the worse of me if I own that, at the sight of that procession, a strange and most uncomfortable feeling pervaded me. There seemed something so purpose-like in their steady, regular tramp. There was a look of cold determination in their movement that chilled me to the heart. "Only to think!" muttered I, "how they have left their beds on this raw, damp morning, at the risk of colds, catarrhs, and rheumatism, all to murder a poor young fellow who never injured one of them!"
Not a thought had I for the muchacha,--the cause of all my trouble; my faculties were limited to a little routine of which I myself was the centre, and I puzzled my brain in thinking over the human anatomy, and trying to remember all I had ever heard of the most fatal localities, and where one could be carved and sliced with the fullest impunity.
"Come along!" said Seth; "we "ve no time to lose. We must look out for a cheap mustang to wait for you on the Guajuaqualla road, and I have to fetch my sword; for this thing of yours is full eight inches too short."
Seth now took my arm, and I felt myself involuntarily throwing a glance at the little objects I owned about the room,--as it were a farewell look.
"What are you searching for?" said he, as I inserted my hand into my breast-pocket.
"It"s all right," said I; "I wanted to see that I had the Senhora"s letter safe. If--if--anything--you understand me--eh?"
"Yes, yes; I"ll look to it. They sha" n"t bury you with it," said he, with a diabolical grin which made me positively detest him, for the moment.
If Mr. Chiseller was deficient in the finer sympathies of our nature, he was endowed with a rare spirit of practical readiness. The "mustang"
was found in the very first stable we entered, and hired for a day"s pleasure,--so he called it,--for the sum of two crowns. A mountain lad was despatched to hold him for my coming, at a certain spot on the road.
The sabre was fetched from his chamber, and in less than five minutes we were on our way to the Molino, fully equipped and "ready for the fray."
"Don"t forget what I told you about the face-guard: always keep the hilt of your weapon straight between your eyes, and hold the elbow low."
This he kept repeating continually as we went along, till I found myself muttering the words after him mechanically,--without attaching the slightest meaning to them. "The villain is a strong muscular chap, and perhaps he "ll be for breaking down your guard by mere force, and cleaving you down with a stroke. If he tries it, you "ve only to spring actively to one side and give him your point, anywhere about the chest."
From this he proceeded to discuss a hundred little subtleties and stratagems the Mexicans are familiar with, so that at last I regretted, from the very bottom of my soul, that the gage of battle had not fallen upon Seth himself, so much more worthy in every way of the distinction.
If I seemed full of attention to all he was saying, my thoughts, in truth be it spoken, were travelling a vastly different road. I was engaged in the performance of a little mental catechism, which ran somewhat in this wise: "If you escape this peril, Master Con, will it not be wise to eschew fandangoes in future,--or, at least, not indulge in them with other men"s sweethearts? Beware, besides, of horse-dealers, of Xeres and Paquaretta; and, above all, of such indiscretions as may make the "Seth Chisellers" of this world your masters!" Ay, there was the sum and substance of my sorrows: that unlucky step about "Charry"
and the lottery-ticket placed me in a situation from which there was no issue. I now saw, what many have seen before, and many will doubtless see again, that crime has other penalties besides legal ones, and that the difficulty of conforming to an a.s.sumed good character, with even _one_ lapse from the path of honesty, is very considerable.
"Are you attending to me, lad?" cried Seth, impatiently. "I was telling you about the cross-guard for the head."
"I have not heard one word of it," said I, frankly; "nor is it of the least consequence. All the talk in the world could n"t make a swordsman, still less would a few pa.s.sing hints like those you give me. If the villano be the better man, there"s an end of the matter."
Seth, less convinced by my reasonings than offended at them, spoke no more, and we approached the Molino in silence. As we neared the spot, we perceived the party seated in a little arbor, and by their gestures, as well as by a most savory odor of garlic, evidently eating their breakfast.
"The fellows are jolly," said Seth: "had we not better follow their example? Here is a nice spot, and a table just at hand." At the same time he called out, "Muchacho, pan el vino en la mesa, and we "ll think of somewhat to eat."
I tried to play indifferent, and seem at my ease; but it was no use.
The vicinity of the other group, and, in particular, of a certain broad-shouldered member of it whom I could detect through the leaves, and who certainly did not eat with the air of a man who felt it to be his last breakfast, spoiled all my efforts, and nipped them even as they budded.
"You don"t eat," said Seth; "look at the villano yonder."
"I see him," said I, curtly.
"See how he lays in his prog!"
"Let him show that he can be as dexterous with the broadsword as with a carving-knife," said I, with a tremendous effort.
"Egad! I"ll tell him that," cried Seth, jumping up, and hastening across the garden. I had not long to wait for the effect of the speech.
Scarcely had Chiseller uttered a few words than the whole party arose, and such a volley of "Maledicion!" and "Caramba!" and other like terms I never heard before or since.
"I knew that would make "em blaze up," said he; "they"re all ready now,--follow me." I obeyed, and walked after him into a little paddock, which, from the marks of feet and other signs, seemed to be a spot not chosen for the first time for such an amus.e.m.e.nt. The others entered by an opposite gate, and, taking off their cloaks, folded them carefully and laid them on the benches. They were armed to the very teeth, and really did look amazingly like the troop of brigands Drury Lane would produce in a new melodrama.