Richardson pulled up his horse, and looked back over the trail where the serape of his servant flamed amid the dusk of the mesquit. The hills in the west were carved into peaks, and were painted the most profound blue. Above them the sky was of that marvellous tone of green—like still, sun-shot water—which people denounce in pictures.
José was deep in his blanket, and his great toppling sombrero was low over his brow. He shadowed his master along the dimming trail in the fashion of an assassin. A cold wind of the night swept over the of mesquit.
"Man," said Richardson in Mexican as the servant drew near, "I want eat! I want sleep! Understand—no? Quickly! Understand?"
"Si, señor," said José, nodding. He stretched one arm out of his blanket and a yellow finger into the gloom. "Over there, small village. Si, señor."
They rode forward again. Once the American's horse shied and breathed quiveringly at something which he saw or imagined in the darkness, and the rider drew a steady, patient , and leaned over to speak tenderly as if he were addressing a frightened woman. The sky had faded to white over the mountains, and the plain was a vast, pointless ocean of black.
Suddenly some low houses appeared amid the bushes. The horsemen rode into a hollow until the houses rose against the sombre sundown sky, and then up a small hillock, causing these habitations to sink like boats in the sea of shadow.
A beam of red firelight fell across the trail. Richardson sat sleepily on his horse while his servant quarrelled with somebody—a voice in the gloom—over the price of bed and board. The houses about him were for the most part like tombs in their whiteness and silence, but there were black figures that seemed interested in his arrival.
José came at last to the horses' heads, and the American slid stiffly from his seat. He muttered a greeting, as with his spurred feet he clicked into the house that confronted him. The brown face of a woman shone in the light of the fire. He seated himself on the earthen floor and blinked at the blaze. He was aware that the woman was clinking , and hieing here and everywhere in the manoeuvres of the housewife. From a dark corner there came the sound of two or three snores twining together.
The woman handed him a bowl of tortillas. She was a submissive creature, timid and large-eyed. She gazed at his enormous silver spurs, his large and impressive revolver, with the interest and of the highly-privileged cat of the . When he ate, she seemed transfixed off there in the gloom, her white teeth shining.
José entered, staggering under two Mexican saddles, large enough for building-sites. Richardson to smoke a cigarette, and then changed his mind. It would be much finer to go to sleep. His blanket hung over his left shoulder, furled into a long pipe of cloth, according to the Mexican fashion. By his sombrero, unfastening his spurs and his revolver belt, he made himself ready for the slow, blissful twist into the blanket. Like a cautious man he lay close to the wall, and all his property was very near his hand.
The mesquit brush burned long. José threw two gigantic wings of shadow as he flapped his blanket about him—first across his chest under his arms, and then around his neck and across his chest again—this time over his arms, with the end tossed on his right shoulder. A Mexican thus can nevertheless free his fighting arm in a beautifully brisk way, merely shrugging his shoulder as he grabs for the weapon at his belt. (They always wear their serapes in this manner.)
The firelight the rays which, streaming from a moon as large as a drum-head, were struggling at the open door. Richardson heard from the plain the fine, of the of hurried horses. He went to sleep wondering who rode so fast and so late. And in the deep silence the pale rays of the moon must have prevailed against the red spears of the fire until the room was slowly flooded to its middle with a rectangle of silver light.
Richardson was by the sound of a guitar. It was badly played—in this land of Mexico, from which the romance of the instrument to us like a perfume. The guitar was and like a badgered soul. A noise of scuffling feet accompanied the music. Sometimes laughter arose, and often the voices of men saying bitter things to each other, but always the guitar cried on, the treble sounding as if some one were beating iron, and the humming like bees. "Damn it—they're having a dance," he muttered, fretfully. He heard two men quarrelling in short, sharp words, like pistol shots; they were calling each other worse names than common people know in other countries. He wondered why the noise was so loud. Raising his head from his saddle pillow, he saw, with the help of the moonbeams, a blanket hanging flat against the wall at the further end of the room. Being of opinion that it a door, and remembering that Mexican drink made men very drunk, he pulled his revolver closer to him and prepared for sudden disaster.
Richardson was dreaming of his far and beloved north.
"Well, I would kill him, then!"
"No, you must not!"
"Yes, I will kill him! Listen! I will ask this American beast for his beautiful pistol and spurs and money and saddle, and if he will not give them—you will see!"
"But these Americans—they are a strange people. Look out, señor."
Then twenty voices took part in the discussion. They rose in quavering , as from men badly drunk. Richardson felt the skin draw tight around his mouth, and his knee-joints turned to bread. He slowly came to a sitting , glaring at the motionless blanket at the far end of the room. This stiff and mechanical movement, by the muscles of the waist, must have looked like the rising of a in the moonlight, which gave everything a of the grave.
My friend, take my advice and never be executed by a hangman who doesn't talk the English language. It, or anything that resembles it, is the most difficult of deaths. The tumultuous emotions of Richardson's terror destroyed that slow and careful process of thought by means of which he understood Mexican. Then he used his comprehension of the first and universal language, which is tone. Still, it is disheartening not to be able to understand the detail of threats against the blood of your body.
Suddenly, the clamour of voices ceased. There was a silence—a silence of decision. The blanket was flung aside, and the red light of a torch into the room. It was held high by a fat, round-faced Mexican, whose little snake-like moustache was as black as his eyes, and whose eyes were black as jet. He was insane with the wild rage of a man whose liquor is dully burning at his brain. Five or six of his fellows crowded after him. The guitar, which had been thrummed during the time of the high words, now suddenly stopped. They each other. Richardson sat very straight and still, his right hand lost in his blanket. The Mexicans jostled in the light of the torch, their eyes blinking and glittering.
The fat one posed in the manner of a . Presently his hand dropped to his belt, and from his lips there an epithet—a word which often foreshadows knife-blows, a word peculiarly of Mexico, where people have to dig deep to find an insult that has not lost its savour. The American did not move. He was staring at the fat Mexican with a strange of gaze, not fearful, not dauntless, not anything that could be interpreted. He simply stared.
The fat Mexican must have been disconcerted, for he continued to pose as a grandee, with more and more , until it would have been easy for him to have fallen over backward. His companions were swaying very drunkenly. They still blinked their little beady eyes at Richardson. Ah, well, sirs, here was a mystery! At the approach of their menacing company, why did not this American cry out and turn pale, or run, or pray them mercy? The animal merely sat still, and stared, and waited for them to begin. Well, evidently he was a great fighter! Or perhaps he was an idiot? Indeed, this was an embarrassing situation, for who was going forward to discover whether he was a great fighter or an idiot?
To Richardson, whose nerves were and like live wires, and whose heart inside him, this pause was a long horror; and for these men, who could so frighten him, there began to in him a fierce —a hatred that made him long to be capable of fighting all of them, a hatred that made him capable of fighting all of them. A 44-calibre revolver can make a hole large enough for little boys to shoot marbles through; and there was a certain fat Mexican with a moustache like a snake who came extremely near to have eaten his last tomale merely because he frightened a man too much.
José had slept the first part of the night in his fashion, his body into a heap, his legs , his head his knees. Shadows had obscured him from the sight of the . At this point he arose, and began to prowl quakingly over toward Richardson, as if he meant to hide behind him.
Of a sudden the fat Mexican gave a howl of glee. José had come within the torch's circle of light. With roars of ferocity the whole group of Mexicans on the American's servant. He shrank away from them, by every device of word and gesture. They pushed him this way and that. They beat him with their fists. They stung him with their curses. As he on his knees, the fat Mexican took him by the throat and said—"I am going to kill you!" And continually they turned their eyes to see if they were to succeed in causing the initial by the American. But he looked on impassively. Under the blanket his fingers were , as iron, upon the handle of his revolver.
Here suddenly two brilliant clashing chords from the guitar were heard, and a woman's voice, full of laughter and confidence, cried from without—"Hello! hello! Where are you?" The lurching company of Mexicans instantly paused and looked at the ground. One said, as he stood with his legs wide apart in order to balance himself—"It is the girls. They have come!" He screamed in answer to the question of the woman—"Here!" And without waiting he started on a pilgrimage toward the blanket-covered door. One could now hear a number of female voices and .
Two other Mexicans said—"Yes, it is the girls! Yes!" They also started quietly away. Even the fat Mexican's ferocity seemed to be . He looked uncertainly at the still immovable American. Two of his friends grasped him gaily—"Come, the girls are here! Come!" He cast another at Richardson. "But this——," he began. Laughing, his comrades him toward the door. On its threshold, and holding back the blanket, with one hand, he turned his yellow face with a last challenging glare toward the American. José, bewailing his state in little of utter despair and , crept to Richardson and near his knee. Then the cries of the Mexicans meeting the girls were heard, and the guitar burst out in humming.
The moon clouded, and but a faint square of light fell through the open main door of the house. The coals of the fire were silent, save for occasional . Richardson did not change his position. He remained staring at the blanket which hid the strategic door in the far end. At his knees José was arguing, in a low, tone, with the saints. Without, the Mexicans laughed and danced, and—it would appear from the sound—drank more.
In the stillness and the night Richardson sat wondering if some serpent-like Mexican were sliding towards him in the darkness, and if the first thing he knew of it would be the deadly sting of a knife. "Sssh," he whispered, to José. He drew his revolver from under the blanket, and held it on his leg. The blanket over the door fascinated him. It was a vague form, black and unmoving. Through the opening it shielded were to come, probably, threats, death. Sometimes he thought he saw it move. As grim white sheets, the black and silver of , all the of death, affect us, because of that which they hide, so this blanket, before a hole in an adobe wall, was to Richardson a horrible , and a horrible thing in itself. In his present mood he could not have been brought to touch it with his finger.
The celebrating Mexicans occasionally howled in song. The guitarist played with speed and enthusiasm. Richardson longed to run. But in this vibrating and threatening gloom his terror convinced him that a move on his part would be a signal for the of death. José, , now and again. Slowly, and as stars, the minutes went.
Suddenly Richardson thrilled and started. His breath for a moment left him. In sleep his nerveless fingers had allowed his revolver to fall and clang upon the hard floor. He grabbed it up hastily, and his glance swept over the room. A chill blue light of dawn was in the place. Every outline was slowly growing; detail was following detail. The blan............