"Often! I have been only twice down this road since I have been able to sit in my saddle. But, Miss Poindexter, may I ask how you knew that I have been this way at all?"
"Oh!" rejoined Louise, her colour going and coming as she spoke, "how could I help knowing it? I am in the habit of spending much time on the housetop. The view, the breeze, the music of the birds, ascending from the garden below, makes it a delightful spot--especially in the cool of the morning. Our roof commands a view of this road. Being up there, how could I avoid seeing you as you pa.s.sed--that is, so long as you were not under _the shade of the acacias_?"
"You saw me, then?" said Maurice, with an embarra.s.sed air, which was not caused by the innuendo conveyed in her last words--which he could not have comprehended--but by a remembrance of how he had himself behaved while riding along the reach of open road.
"How could I help it?" was the ready reply. "The distance is scarce six hundred yards. Even a lady, mounted upon a steed much smaller than yours, was sufficiently conspicuous to be identified. When I saw her display her wonderful skill, by strangling a poor little antelope with her lazo, I knew it could be no other than she whose accomplishments you were so good as to give me an account of."
"Isidora?"
"Isidora!"
"Ah; true! She has been here for some time."
"And has been very kind to Mr Maurice Gerald?"
"Indeed, it is true. She has been very kind; though I have had no chance of thanking her. With all her friendship for poor me, she is a great hater of us foreign invaders; and would not condescend to step over the threshold of Mr Oberdoffer"s hotel."
"Indeed! I suppose she preferred meeting you under the _shade of the acacias_!"
"I have not met her at all; at least, not for many months; and may not for months to come--now that she has gone back to her home on the Rio Grande."
"Are you speaking the truth, sir? You have not seen her since--she is gone away from the house of her uncle?"
"She has," replied Maurice, exhibiting surprise. "Of course, I have not seen her. I only knew she was here by her sending me some delicacies while I was ill. In truth, I stood in need of them. The hotel _cuisine_ is none of the nicest; nor was I the most welcome of Mr Oberdoffer"s guests. The Dona Isidora has been but too grateful for the slight service I once did her."
"A service! May I ask what it was, Mr Gerald?"
"Oh, certainly. It was merely a chance. I had the opportunity of being useful to the young lady, in once rescuing her from some rude Indians-- Wild Oat and his Seminoles--into whose hands she had fallen, while making a journey from the Rio Grande to visit her uncle on the Leona-- Don Silvio Martinez, whose house you can see from here. The brutes had got drunk; and were threatening--not exactly her life--though that was in some danger, but--well, the poor girl was in trouble with them, and might have had some difficulty in getting away, had I not chanced to ride up."
"A slight service, you call it? You are modest in your estimate, Mr Gerald. A man who should do that much for _me_!"
"What would you do for _him_?" asked the mustanger, placing a significant emphasis on the final word.
"I should _love_ him," was the prompt reply.
"Then," said Maurice, spurring his horse close up to the side of the spotted mustang, and whispering into the ear of its rider, with an earnestness strangely contrasting to his late reticence, "I would give half my life to see you in the hands of Wild Cat and his drunken comrades--the other half to deliver you from the danger."
"Do you mean this, Maurice Gerald? Do not trifle with me: I am not a child. Speak the truth! Do you mean it?"
"I do! As heaven is above me, I do!"
The sweetest kiss I ever had in my life, was when a woman--a fair creature, in the hunting field--leant over in her saddle and kissed me as I sate in mine.
The fondest embrace ever received by Maurice Gerald, was that given by Louise Poindexter; when, standing up in her stirrup, and laying her hand upon his shoulder, she cried in an agony of earnest pa.s.sion--
"_Do with me as thou wilt: I love you, I love you_!"
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.
A PLEASURE FORBIDDEN.
Ever since Texas became the scene of an Anglo-Saxon immigration--I might go a century farther back and say, from the time of its colonisation by the descendants of the Conquistadores--the subject of primary importance has been the disposition of its aborigines.
Whether these, the lawful lords of the soil, chanced to be in a state of open war--or whether, by some treaty with the settlers they were consenting to a temporary peace--made but slight difference, so far as they were talked about. In either case they were a topic of daily discourse. In the former it related to the dangers to be hourly apprehended from them; in the latter, to the probable duration of such treaty as might for the moment be binding them to hold their tomahawks entombed.
In Mexican times these questions formed the staple of conversation, at _desayuno, almuerzo, comida, y cena_; in American times, up to this present hour, they have been the themes of discussion at the breakfast, dinner, and supper tables. In the planter"s piazza, as in the hunter"s camp, bear, deer, cougar, and peccary, are not named with half the frequency, or half the fear-inspiring emphasis, allotted to the word "Indian." It is this that scares the Texan child instead of the stereotyped nursery ghost, keeping it awake upon its moss-stuffed mattress--disturbing almost as much the repose of its parent.
Despite the surrounding of strong walls--more resembling those of a fortress than a gentleman"s dwelling--the inmates of Casa del Corvo were not excepted from this feeling of apprehension, universal along the frontier. As yet they knew little of the Indians, and that little only from report; but, day by day, they were becoming better acquainted with the character of this natural "terror" that interfered with the slumbers of their fellow settlers.
That it was no mere "bogie" they had begun to believe; but if any of them remained incredulous, a note received from the major commanding the Fort--about two weeks after the horse-hunting expedition--was calculated to cure them of their incredulity. It came in the early morning, carried by a mounted rifleman. It was put into the hands of the planter just as he was about sitting down to the breakfast-table, around which were a.s.sembled the three individuals who composed his household--his daughter Louise, his son Henry, and his nephew Ca.s.sius Calhoun.
"Startling news!" he exclaimed, after hastily reading, the note. "Not very pleasant if true; and I suppose there can be no doubt of that, since the major appears convinced."
"Unpleasant news, papa?" asked his daughter, a spot of red springing to her cheek as she put the question.
The spoken interrogatory was continued by others, not uttered aloud.
"What can the major have written to him? I met him yesterday while riding in the chapparal. He saw me in company with--Can it be that?
_Mon Dieu_! if father should hear it--"
""The Comanches on the war trail"--so writes the major."
"Oh, that"s all!" said Louise, involuntarily giving voice to the phrase, as if the news had nothing so very fearful in it. "You frightened us, sir. I thought it was something worse."
"Worse! What trifling, child, to talk so! There is nothing worse, in Texas, than Comanches on the war trail--nothing half so dangerous."
Louise might have thought there was--a danger at least as difficult to be avoided. Perhaps she was reflecting upon a pursuit of wild steeds-- or thinking of the _trail of a lazo_.
She made no reply. Calhoun continued the conversation.
"Is the major sure of the Indians being up? What does he say, uncle?"
"That there have been rumours of it for some days past, though not reliable. Now it is certain. Last night Wild Cat, the Seminole chief, came to the Fort with a party of his tribe; bringing the news that the painted pole has been erected in the camps of the Comanches all over Texas, and that the war dance has been going on for more than a month.
That several parties are already out upon the maraud, and may be looked for among the settlements at any moment."
"And Wild Cat himself--what of him?" asked Louise, an unpleasant reminiscence suggesting the inquiry. "Is that renegade Indian to be trusted, who appears to be as much an enemy to the whites as to the people of his own race?"
"Quite true, my daughter. You have described the chief of the Seminoles almost in the same terms as I find him spoken of, in a postscript to the major"s letter. He counsels us to beware of the two-faced old rascal, who will be sure to take sides with the Comanches, whenever it may suit his convenience to do so."
"Well," continued the planter, laying aside the note, and betaking himself to his coffee and waffles, "I trust we sha"n"t see any redskins here--either Seminoles or Comanches. In making their marauds, let us hope they will not like the look of the crenelled parapets of Casa del Corvo, but give the hacienda a wide berth."
Before any one could respond, a sable face appearing at the door of the dining-room--which was the apartment in which breakfast was being eaten--caused a complete change in the character of the conversation.
The countenance belonged to Pluto, the coachman.
"What do you want, Pluto?" inquired his owner.