Part 55 (1/2)
The shade resting on the valley appeared that of a mighty, virulent hand. Out of the depths arose a flock of dark-hued birds, soaring toward the morbific fog; not moving like other winged creatures, with harmony of motion, but rising without unity, and filling the vale with discordant sounds. Nowhere could these sable birds have appeared more unearthly than in the ”dark valley,” as it was called by the natives, where the mists moved capriciously, yet remained persistently within the circ.u.mference of this natural cauldron, now falling like a pall and again hovering in mid air. Suddenly the uncanny birds vanished among the trees as quickly as they had arisen, and there was something mysterious about their unwarranted disappearance and the abrupt cessation of clamorous cries.
While viewing this somber scene, Saint-Prosper had made his way to a little adobe house which the natives had built near the trail that led through the valley. As he approached this hut he encountered a dismal but loquacious sentinel, tramping before the partly opened door.
”This is chilly work, guard?” said the young man, pausing.
”Yis, Colonel,” replied the soldier, apparently grateful for the interruption; ”it's a hot foight I prefer to this cool dooty.”
”Whom are you guarding?” continued the officer.
”A spy, taken in the lines a few days ago. He's to be executed this morning at six. But I don't think he will moind that, for it's out of his head he is, with the malaria.”
”He should have had medical attendance,” observed the officer, stepping to the door.
”Faith, they'll cure him at daybreak,” replied the guard. ”It's a medicine that niver fails.”
Saint-Prosper pushed open the door. The interior was so dim that at first he could not distinguish the occupant, but when his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, he discovered the figure of the prisoner, who was lying with his back toward him on the ground of the little hut with nothing but a thin blanket beneath him. The only light revealing the barren details of this Indian residence sifted through the small doorway or peered timorously down through a narrow aperture in the roof that served for a chimney. As Saint-Prosper gazed at the prostrate man, the latter moved uneasily, and from the parched lips fell a few words:
”Lock the doors, Oly-koeks! Hear the songsters, Mynheer Ten Breecheses! Birds of prey, you Dutch varlet! What do you think of the mistress of the manor? The serenading anti-renters have come for her.”
Then he repeated more slowly: ”The squaw Pewasch! For seventeen and one-half ells of duffels! A rare princ.i.p.ality for the scornful minx!
Lord! how the birds sing now around the manor--screech owls, cat-birds, bobolinks!”
The soldier started back, vivid memories a.s.sailing his mind. Who was this man whose brain, independent of the corporeal sh.e.l.l, played waywardly with scenes, characters and events, indissolubly a.s.sociated with his own life?
”Do you know, Little Thunder, the Lord only rebuked the Pharisees?”
continued the prostrate man. ”Though the Pharisee triumphs after all!
But it was the stroller I wanted, not the princ.i.p.ality.”
He stirred quickly, as if suddenly aware of the presence of another in the hut, and, turning, lifted his head in a startled manner, surveying the figure near the doorway with conflicting emotions written on his pallid countenance. Perhaps some fragment of a dream yet lingered in his brain; perhaps he was confused at the sight of a face that met his excited look with one of doubt and bewilderment, but only partial realization of the ident.i.ty of the intruder came to him in his fevered condition.
Arising deliberately, his body, like a machine, obeying automatically some unconscious power, he confronted the officer, who recognized in him, despite his thin, worn face and eyes, unnaturally bright, the once pretentious land baron, Edward Mauville. Moving toward the door, gazing on Saint-Prosper as though he was one of the figures of a disturbing phantasm, he reached the threshold, and, lifting his hand above his head, the prisoner placed it against one of the supports of the hut and stood leaning there. From the creation of his mind's eye, as he doubtlessly, half-conscious of his weakness, designated the familiar form, he glanced at the sentinel and shook as though abruptly conscious of his situation. Across the valley the soldiers showed signs of bestirring themselves, the smoke of many fires hovering earthward beneath the mist. Drawing his thin frame proudly to its full height, with a gesture of disdain for physical weakness, and setting his keen, wild eyes upon the soldier, Mauville said in a hollow tone:
”Is that really you, Mr. Saint-Prosper? At first I thought you but a trick of the imagination. Well, look your fill upon me! You are my Nemesis come to see the end.”
”I am here by chance, Edward Mauville; an officer in the American army!”
”And I, a spy in the Mexican army. So are we authorized foes.”
Rubbing his trembling hands together, his eyes s.h.i.+fted from the dark birds to the mists, then from the phantom forests back to the hut, finally resting on his shabby boots of yellow leather. The sunlight penetrating a rift in the mist settled upon him as he moved feebly and uncertainly through the doorway and seated himself upon a stool. This sudden glow brought into relief his ragged, unkempt condition, the sallowness of his face, and his wasted form, and Saint-Prosper could not but contrast pityingly this cheerless object, in the garb of a ranchero, with the prepossessing, sportive heir who had driven through the Shadengo Valley.
Apparently now the sun was grateful to his bent, stricken figure, and, basking in it, he recalled his distress of the previous night:
”This is better. Not long ago I awoke with chattering teeth. 'This,' I said, 'is life; a miasma, cold, discomfort,' Yes, yes; a fever, a miasma, with phantoms fighting you--struggling to choke you--but now”--he paused, and fumbling in his pocket, drew out a cigarette case, which he opened, but found empty. A cigar the other handed him he took mechanically and lighted with scrupulous care. Near at hand the guard, more cheerful under the prospect of speedy relief from his duties, could be heard humming to himself:
”Oh, Teady-foley, you are my darling, You are my looking-gla.s.s night and morning--”
Watching the smoker, Saint-Prosper asked himself how came Mauville to be serving against his own country, or why he should have enlisted at all, this pleasure-seeking man of the world, to whom the hards.h.i.+ps of a campaign must have been as novel as distasteful.