Part 57 (2/2)
”Poor fellow, he's done up,” Father O'Malley exclaimed.
”Yes; he hasn't slept for days,” she whispered. ”Help me.” With the a.s.sistance of Dolores they succeeded in lifting Dave to the bed, but he half roused himself. ”Lie down, dear,” Alaire told him. ”Close your eyes for a few minutes. We're safe now.”
”Somebody has to keep watch,” he muttered, thickly, and tried to fight off his fatigue. But he was like a drunken man.
”I'm not sleepy; I'll stand guard,” the priest volunteered, and, disregarding further protest, he helped Alaire remove Dave's coat.
Seeing that the bed was nothing more than a board platform covered with straw matting, Alaire folded the garment for a pillow; as she did so a handful of soiled, frayed letters spilled out upon the floor.
”Rest now, while you have a chance,” she begged of her husband. ”Just for a little while.”
”All right,” he agreed. ”Call me in--an hour. Couldn't sleep--wasn't time.” He shook off his weariness and smiled at his wife, while his eyes filmed with some emotion. ”There is something I ought to tell you, but--I can't now--not now. Too sleepy.” His head drooped again; she forced him back; he stretched himself out with a sigh, and was asleep almost instantly.
Alaire motioned the others out of the room, then stood looking down at the man into whose keeping she had given her life. As she looked her face became radiant. Dave was unkempt, unshaven, dirty, but to her he was of a G.o.dlike beauty, and the knowledge that he was hers to comfort and guard was strangely thrilling. Her love for Ed, even that first love of her girlhood, had been nothing like this. How could it have been like this? she asked herself. How could she have loved deeply when, at the time, her own nature lacked depth? Experience had broadened her, and suffering had uncovered depths in her being which nothing else had had the power to uncover. Stooping, she kissed Dave softly, then let her cheek rest against his. Her man! Her man! She found herself whispering the words.
Her eyes were wet, but there was a smile upon her lips when she gathered up the letters which had dropped from her husband's pocket.
She wondered, with a little jealous twinge, who could be writing to him. It seemed to her that she owned him now, and that she could not bear to share him with any other. She studied the inscriptions with a frown, noticing as she did so that several of the envelopes were unopened--either Dave was careless about such things or else he had had no leisure in which to read his mail. One letter was longer and heavier than the rest, and its covering, sweat-stained and worn at the edges, came apart in her hands, exposing several pages of type-writing in the Spanish language. The opening words challenged her attention.
In the name of G.o.d, Amen,
Alaire read. Involuntarily her eye followed the next line:
Know all men by this public instrument that I, Maria Josefa Law, of this vicinity--
Alaire started, Who, she asked herself, was Maria Josefa Law? Dave had no sisters; no female relatives whatever, so far as she knew. She glanced at the sleeping man and then back at the writing.
--finding myself seriously ill in bed, but with sound judgment, full memory and understanding, believing in the ineffable mysteries of the Holy Trinity, three distinct persons in one G.o.d, in essence, and in the other mysteries acknowledged by our Mother, the Church--
So! This was a will--one of those queer Spanish doc.u.ments of which Alaire had heard--but who was Maria Josefa Law? Alaire scanned the sheets curiously, and on the reverse side of the last one discovered a few lines, also in Spanish, but scrawled in pencil. They read:
MY DEAR NEPHEW,--Here is the copy of your mother's will that I told you about. At the time of her death she was not possessed of the property mentioned herein, and so the original doc.u.ment was never filed for record, but came to me along with certain family possessions of small value. It seems to contain the information you desire.
Y'rs aff'ly,
FRANCISCO RAMIREZ.
The will of Dave's mother! Then Maria Josefa Law was that poor woman regarding whose tragic end Judge Ellsworth had spoken so peculiarly.
Alaire felt not a little curiosity to know more about the mother of the man whose name she had taken. Accordingly, after a moment of debate with herself, she sat down to translate the instrument. Surely Dave would not object if she occupied herself thus while he slept.
The doc.u.ment had evidently been drawn in the strictest form, doubtless by some local priest, for it ran:
First: I commend my soul to the Supreme Being who from nothing formed it, and my body I order returned to earth, and which, as soon as it shall become a corpse, it is my wish shall be shrouded with a blue habit in resemblance to those used by the monks of our Seraphic Father, St. Francis; to be interred with high ma.s.s, without pomp--
Alaire mused with a certain reverent pleasure that Dave's mother had been a devout woman.
Second: I declare to have, in the possession of my husband, Franklin Law, three horses, with splendid equipment of saddles and bridles, which are to be sold and the proceeds applied to ma.s.ses for the benefit of my soul. I so declare, that it may appear.
Third: I declare to owe to Mrs. Guillelmo Perez about twenty dollars, to be ascertained by what she may have noted in her book of accounts.
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