Part 18 (2/2)

Then a great light flashed upon me. I knelt on one knee and caught to my lips a white hand that did not seek to escape my grasp. ”The barrier--the barrier of rock!--Alisanda! you give me hope! If I come to you there--if I cross that barrier? Dearest one!--dearest! can you doubt it? Though I have to find my way alone among the fierce savages of the vast prairies; though I find that snowy range a mountain of ice and fire, I will come to you, Alisanda--my love!”

I saw the quick rise of her bosom and the blush that suffused her cheeks with glorious scarlet before she could raise her masking fan.

”_Santisima Virgen!_” she murmured, and broke into a little quavering, uncertain laugh. ”They speak of the cold blood of your race!”

”Alisanda!--Dearest one! Tell me I may come!”

She rose quietly, already calm again, and cold as the moonlight which shone full upon her face. I rose with her, still clasping her hand.

”Tell me, Alisanda, may I come?”

”Why ask me that?” she said, in an even voice. ”Could I prevent if you wished to try?”

”If I cross the barrier, may I hope?”

”There would yet be the gulf.”

”Gulf or barrier, I swear I will find my way to you, though it be through fire and flood! I will seek you out and win you, though you hide your beauty beneath a nun's veil!”

Such was the force of my pa.s.sion, I again saw her bosom rise to a deep-drawn breath and the edges of her sensitive nostrils quiver. Yet this time she did not blush, and her voice cut with its fine-drawn irony: ”Words--words!”

”I offer love. I ask nothing in turn but a word or a token--nothing but--my lady's colors.”

She turned and opened her eyes full to my gaze as she had opened them at our parting in far-off Was.h.i.+ngton, and I looked down into their depths, vainly seeking to penetrate the darkness. At last it seemed to me I saw a gleam far down in the wells of mystery--a glow, faint yet warm, that seemed to light my way to hope.

Suddenly the glow burst into a flame of golden glory--She was swaying toward me, a line of pearls showing between her curving lips. But even as I sought to clasp her in my arms, she eluded me and glided away, vanis.h.i.+ng through the farther window.

Half mad with delight, yet unable to believe my own eyes, I sought to follow, the blood drumming in my ears from the wild intoxication of my love. None too soon I heard behind me the sharp call of Don Pedro: ”_Hola, amigo!_ Have you gone deaf, that you do not answer?”

This, then, was why she had eluded me! It was his return which had robbed me of that moment of all moments. My look as I turned was as bitter as his was keen. My voice sounded to me like that of another man: ”What! Back so soon, senor?”

”Senor?” he repeated, taken aback by the formal address. ”Yet it is as well, Juan. All our plans are blasted. Hereafter it would seem we are to be strangers. I have no faith in the promises of that man.”

”You do well to distrust him,” I said. ”I might have foreseen the outcome of plans in which he was to play a part.”

”Whom can we trust in this self-seeking age! I find myself doubting even the fair promises of your great statesman Burr.”

”Of our discredited politician Burr!” I cried. ”Don Pedro, he has no claim upon me, and you have many. Let me tell you, I begin to doubt him, even as I doubt our pompous General. I have reason to believe that Colonel Burr plans to take your country from Spain, not for the benefit of you and your friends, but for his own aggrandizement. He thinks himself a second Napoleon.”

”_Por Dios!_ I see it now. He plots to sell us to Spain, that Spain may aid his plot to make himself king of your Western country,--king of all that part which extends from the Alleghanies even here to New Orleans and north and west to the Pacific. I know; for did he not enter into negotiations with Marquis de Casa Yrujo?”

”With the Spanish Minister?” I exclaimed.

”With Casa Yrujo, after the death of Pitt deprived him of the hope of British s.h.i.+ps and money.”

”So--he is but a crack-brained trickster,” I muttered. ”We have chased his rainbows and landed in the mire. This is the end, senor. I go now.

Tomorrow's sun will see me on my way up-river to St. Louis. May you find brave men enough in your own land to win freedom, without the costly aid of tricksters!”

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