Part 12 (1/2)

”Roberto, dearest! It is not your fault.”

”It is my fault. I have waited too long. My sons showed me my duty--my soul urged me to do it. I deserve the shame, but I will wipe it out with crimson blood.”

The Senora stood speechless, wringing her hands. Her own pa.s.sion was puny beside the sternness, the reality, and the intensity of the quiet rage before her. She was completely mastered by it. She forgot all but the evident agony she could neither mistake nor console.

”I have come to say 'farewell,' Maria. We have been very happy together--Maria--our children--dearest--”

”Oh, Roberto! My husband! My soul! My life! Leave me not.”

”I am going for my arms. I will take them a hundredfold from those who have robbed me. I swear I will!”

”You do not love me. What are these Americans to you? I am your wife.

Your Maria--”

”These Americans are my brothers--my sons. My mother is an American woman.”

”And I?”

”You are my wife--my dear wife! I love you--G.o.d Almighty knows how well I love you; but we must part now, at least for a short time. Maria, my dear one, I must go.”

”Go? Where to?”

”I am going to join General Houston.”

”I thought so. I knew it. The accursed one! Oh that I had him here again! I would bury my stiletto in his heart! Over the white hilt I would bury it! I would wash my hands in his blood, and think them blessed ever afterwards! Stay till daylight, Roberto. I have so much to say, dearest.”

”I cannot. I have stayed too long. And now I must ride without a gun or knife to protect me. Any Indian that I meet can scalp me. Do you understand now what disarming means, Maria? If I had gone with my boy, with my brave Jack, I could at least have sold my life to its last drop.”

”In the morning, Roberto, Lopez Navarro will get you a gun. Oh, if you must go, do not go unarmed! There are ten thousand Comanche between here and the Brazos.”

”How could I look Lopez Navarro in the face? Or any other man? No, no!

I must win back my arms, before I can walk the streets of San Antonio again.”

He took her in his arms, he kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her lips, murmuring tender little Spanish words that meant, oh, so much, to the wretched woman!--words she had taught him with kisses--words he never used but to her ears only.

She clung to his neck, to his hands, to his feet; she made his farewell an unspeakable agony. At last he laid her upon her couch, sobbing and shrieking like a child in an extremity of physical anguish. But he did not blame her. Her impetuosities, her unreasonable extravagances, were a part of her nature, her race, and her character. He did not expect a weak, excitable woman to become suddenly a creature of flame and steel.

But it was a wonderful rest to his exhausted body and soul to turn from her to Antonia. She led him quietly to his chair by the parlor fire.

She gave him food and wine. She listened patiently, but with a living sympathy, to his wrong. She endorsed, with a clasp of his hand and a smile, his purpose. And she said, almost cheerfully:

”You have not given up all your arms, father. When I first heard of the edict, I hid in my own room the rifle, the powder and the shot, which were in your study. Paola has knives in the stable; plenty of them. Get one from him.”

Good news is a very relative thing. This information made the doctor feel as if all were now easy and possible. The words he said to her, Antonia never forgot. They sang in her heart like music, and led her on through many a difficult path. The conversation then turned upon money matters, and Antonia received the key of his study, and full directions as to the gold and papers secreted there.

Then Isabel was awakened, and the rifle brought down; and Paola saddled the fleetest horse in the stable, and after one solemn five minutes with his daughter, Robert Worth rode away into the midnight darkness, and into a chaos of public events of which no man living could forecast the outcome.

Rode away from wife and children and home; leaving behind him the love and labor of his lifetime--

”The thousand sweet, still joys of such As hand in hand face earthly life.”

For what? For justice, for freedom of thought and action, for the rights of his manhood, for the brotherhood of race and religion and country.