Part 18 (2/2)
”It is good,” replied the Spaniard, with a smile.
”Senor Capitan,” continued he, ”you are without a sword. Will you favour me by accepting this?”
Don Cosme held out to me a rapier of Toledo steel, with a golden scabbard richly chased, and bearing on its hilt the eagle and nopal of Mexico.
”It is a family relic, and once belonged to the brave Guadalupe Victoria.”
”Ha! indeed!” I exclaimed, taking the sword; ”I shall value it much.
Thanks, Senor! thanks! Now, Major, we are ready to proceed.”
”A gla.s.s of maraschino, gentlemen?” said Don Cosme, as a servant appeared with a flask and gla.s.ses. ”Thank you--yes,” grunted the major; ”and while we are drinking it, Senor Don, let me give you a hint. You appear to have plenty of _pewter_.” Here the major significantly touched a gold sugar-dish, which the servant was carrying upon a tray of chased silver. ”Take my word for it, you can't bury it too soon.”
”It is true, Don Cosme,” said I, translating to him the major's advice.
”We are not French, but there are robbers who hang on the skirts of every army.”
Don Cosme promised to follow the hint with alacrity, and we prepared to take our departure from the rancho.
”I will give you a guide, Senor Capitan; you will find my people with the _mulada_. Please _compel_ them to la.s.so the cattle for you. You will obtain what you want in the corral. _Adios, Senores_!”
”Farewell, Don Cosme!”
”_A dios, Capitan! adios! adios_!”
I held out my hand to the younger of the girls, who instantly caught it and pressed it to her lips. It was the action of a child. Guadalupe followed the example of her sister, but evidently with a degree of reserve. What, then, should have caused this difference in their manner?
In the next moment we were ascending the stairway.
”Lucky dog!” growled the major. ”Take a ducking myself for that.”
”Both beautiful, by Jove!” said Clayley; ”but of all the women I ever saw, give me `Mary of the Light'!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
THE SCOUT CONTINUED, WITH A VARIETY OF REFLECTIONS.
Love is a rose growing upon a th.o.r.n.y bramble. There is jealousy in the very first blush of a pa.s.sion. No sooner has a fair face made its impress on the heart than hopes and fears spring up in alternation.
Every action, every word, every look is noted and examined with a jealous scrutiny; and the heart of the lover, changing like the chameleon, takes its hues from the latest sentiment that may have dropped from the loved one's lips. And then the various looks, words, and actions, the favourable with the unfavourable, are recalled, and by a mental process cla.s.sified and marshalled against each other, and compared and balanced with as much exact.i.tude as the _pros_ and _contras_ of a miser's bank-book; and in this process we have a new alternation of hopes and fears.
Ah, love! we could write a long history of thy rise and progress; but it is doubtful whether any of our readers would be a jot the wiser for it.
Most of them ere this have read that history in their own hearts.
I felt and knew that I was in love. It had come like a thought, as it comes upon all men whose souls are attuned to vibrate under the mystical impressions of the beautiful. And well I knew _she_ was beautiful. I saw its unfailing index in those oval developments--the index, too, of the intellectual; for experience had taught me that _intellect takes a shape_; and that those peculiarities of form that we admire, without knowing why, are but the material ill.u.s.trations of the diviner principles of mind.
The eye, too, with its almond outline, and wild, half-Indian, half Arab expression--the dark tracery over the lip, so rarely seen in the lineaments of her s.e.x--even these were attractions. There was something picturesque, something strange, something almost fierce, in her aspect; and yet it was this indefinable something, this very fierceness, that had challenged my love. For I must confess mine is not one of those curious natures that I have read of, whose love is based only upon the goodness of the object. That _is not love_.
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