The War Trail: The Hunt of the Wild Horse

“Now, Monsieur le Poète, does my face inspire you? When may I expect the verses? To-morrow? Soon? Never? Ah! monsieur, I fear you are not more gallant to us poor ‘ladies ob colour’ than your countryman the lieutenant. Ha, ha, ha!”

I was too much ashamed of my own conduct, and too deeply wounded by her reproach, to make reply. Fortunately her continued laughter offered me an opportunity to mutter some broken phrases, accompanied by very clumsy gestures, and thus take myself off. Certainly, in all my life, I never made a more awkward adieu.

I walked, or rather stole, towards the entrance, determined to leave the ball-room, and gallop home.

On reaching the door, my curiosity grew stronger than my shame; and I resolved to take a parting look at this singular Ethiopian. The blue domino, still within the niche, caught my eye at once; but on looking up to the face – gracious Heaven! it was Isolina’s!

I stood as if turned into stone. My gaze was fixed upon her face, and I could not take it off. She was looking at me; but, oh! the expression with which those eyes regarded me! That was a glance to be remembered for life. She no longer laughed, but her proud lip seemed to curl with a sarcastic smile, as of scorn!

I hesitated whether to return and apologise. But no; it was too late. I could have fallen upon my knees, and begged forgiveness. It was too late. I should only subject myself to further ridicule from that capricious spirit.

Perhaps my look of remorse had more effect than words. I thought her expression changed; her glance became more tender, as if inviting me back! Perhaps —

At this moment a man approached, and without ceremony seated himself by her side. His face was towards me – I recognised Ijurra!

“They converse. Is it of me? Is it of – ? If so, he will laugh. A world to see that man laugh, and know it is at me. If he do, I shall soon cast off the load that is crushing my heart!

“He laughs not – not even a smile is traceable on his sombre features. She has not told him, and well for him she has not. Prudence, perchance, restrains her tongue; she might guess the result.”

They are on their feet again; she masks. Ijurra leads her to the dance; they front to each other; they whirl away – away: they are lost among the maskers.

“Some wine, mozo!”

A deep long draught, a few seconds spent in buckling on my sword, a few more in reaching the gate, one spring, and my saddled steed was under me.

I rode with desperate heart and hot head; but the cool night-air, the motion of my horse, and his proud spirit mingling with mine, gave me relief, and I soon felt calmer.

On reaching the rancheria, I found my lieutenants still up, eating their rudely cooked supper. As my appetite was roused, I joined them at their meal; and their friendly converse restored for the time my spirit’s equanimity.

Chapter Fourteen.

Love-thoughts

A dread feeling is jealousy, mortified vanity, or whatever you may designate the disappointment of love. I have experienced the sting of shame, the blight of broken fortune, the fear of death itself; yet none of these ever wrung my heart so rudely as the pang of an unreciprocated passion. The former are but transient trials, and their bitterness soon has an end. Jealousy, like the tooth of the serpent, carries poison in its sting, and long and slow is the healing of its wound. Well knew he this, that master of the human heart: Iago’s prayer was not meant for mockery.

To drown my mortification, I had drunk wine freely at the ball; and on returning home, had continued my potations with the more fiery spirit of “Catalan.” By this means I gained relief and sleep, but only of short duration. Long before day I was awake – awake to the double bitterness of jealousy and shame – awake to both mental and physical pain, for the fumes of the vile stuff I had drunk wrecked my brain as though they would burst open my skull. An ounce of opium would not have set me to sleep again, and I tossed on my couch like one labouring under delirium.

Of course the incidents of the preceding night were uppermost in my mind. Every scene and action that had occurred were as plainly before me as if I was again witnessing them. Every effort to alienate my thoughts, and fix them upon some other theme, proved vain and idle; they ever returned to the same circle of reflections, in the centre of which was Isolina de Vargas! I thought of all that had passed, of all she had said. I remembered every word. How bitterly I remembered that scornful laugh! – how bitterly that sarcastic smile, when the double mask was removed!

The very remembrance of her beauty pained me! It was now to me as to Tantalus the crystal waters, never to be tasted. Before, I had formed hopes, had indulged in prospective dreams: the masquerade adventure had dissipated them. I no longer hoped, no longer permitted myself to dream of pleasant times to come: I felt that I was scorned.

This feeling produced a momentary revulsion in my thoughts. There were moments when I hated her, and vengeful impulses careered across my soul.

These were fleeting moments: again before me rose that lovely form, that proud grand spirit, in the full entirety of its power, and again my soul became absorbed in admiration, and yielded itself to its hopeless passion. It was far from being my first love. And thus experienced, I could reason upon it. I felt certain it was to be the strongest and stormiest of my life.

I know of three loves distinct in kind and power. First, when the passion is reciprocated – when the heart of the beloved yields back thought for thought, and throb for throb, without one reserved pulsation. This is bliss upon earth – not always long-lived – ending perchance in a species of sublimated friendship. To have is no longer to desire.

The second is love entirely unrequited – love that never knew word or smile of encouragement, no soft whisper to fan it into flame, no ray of hope to feed upon. Such dies of inanition – the sooner that its object is out of the way, and absence in time will conquer it.

The third is the love that “dotes yet doubts,” that doubts but never dies – no never. The jealousy that pains, only sustains it; it lives on, now happy in the honeyed conviction of triumph, now smarting under real or fancied scorn – on, on, so long as its object is accessible to sight or hearing! No matter how worthless that object may be or become – no matter how lost or fallen! Love regards not this; it has nought to do with the moral part of our nature. Beauty is the shrine of its worship, and beauty is not morality.

In my own mind I am conscious of three elements or classes of feeling: the moral, the intellectual, and what I may term the passional– the last as distinct from either of the other two as oil from spirits or water. To the last belongs love, which, I repeat again, has no sympathy with the moral feelings of our nature, but, alas! as one might almost believe, with their opposite. Even a plain but wicked coquette will captivate more hearts than a beautiful saint, and the brilliant murderess ere now has made conquests at the very foot of the scaffold!

It pains me to pronounce these convictions, derived as they are from experience. There is as little gain as pleasure in so doing, but popularity must be sacrificed at the shrine of truth. For the sake of effect, I shall not play false with philosophy.

Rough ranger as I was, I had studied psychology sufficiently to understand these truths; and I endeavoured to analyse my passion for this girl or woman – to discover why I loved her. Her physical beauty was of the highest order, and that no doubt was an element; but it was not all. Had I merely looked upon this beauty under ordinary circumstances – that is, without coming in contact with the spirit that animated it – I might have loved her, or I might not. It was the spirit, then, that had won me, though not alone. The same gem in a less brilliant setting might have failed to draw my admiration. I was the captive both of the spirit and the form. Soul and body had co-operated in producing my passion, and this may account for its suddenness and profundity. Why I loved her person, I knew – I was not ignorant of the laws of beauty – but why the spirit, I knew not. Certainly not from any idea I had formed of her high moral qualities; I had no evidence of these. Of her courage, even to daring, I had proof; of energy and determined will; of the power of thought, quick and versatile; but these are not moral qualities, they are not even feminine! True, she wept over her slain steed. Humanity? I have knows a hardened lorette weep bitter tears for her tortoise-shell cat. She refused to take from me my horse. Generosity? She had a thousand within sight. Alas! in thus reviewing all that had passed between myself and the beautiful Isolina, in search of her moral qualities, I met with but little success!

Mystery of our nature! I loved her not the less! And yet my passion was pure, and I do not believe that my heart was wicked. Mystery of our nature! He who reads all hearts alone can solve thee!

I loved without reason; but I loved now without hope. Hope I had before that night. Her glance through the turrets – her note – its contents – a word, a look at other times, had inspired me with hopes, however faint they were. The incident of the ball-room had crushed them.

Ijurra’s dark face kept lowering before me; even in my visions he was always by her side. What was between the two? Perhaps a nearer relationship than that of cousin? Perhaps they were affianced? Married?

The thought maddened me.

I could rest upon my couch no longer. I rose and sought the open air; I climbed to the azotea, and paced it to and fro, as the tiger walks his cage. My thoughts were wild, and my movements without method.

To add to the bitterness of my reflections, I now discovered that I had sustained a loss – not in property, but something that annoyed me still more. I had lost the order and its enclosure – the note of Don Ramon. I had dropped them on the day in which they were received, and I believed in the patio of the hacienda, where they must have been picked up at once. If by Don Ramon himself, then all was well; but if they had fallen into the hands of some of the leather-clad herdsmen, ill affected to Don Ramon, it might be an awkward affair for that gentleman – indeed for myself. Such negligence would scarcely be overlooked at head-quarters; and I had ill forebodings about the result. It was one of my soul’s darkest hours.

From its very darkness I might have known that light was near, for the proverb is equally true in the moral as in the material world. Light was near.

Chapter Fifteen.

An odd epistle

Breakfast I hardly tasted. A taso of chocolate and a small sugared cake – the desayuna of every Mexican – were brought, and these served me for breakfast. A glass of cognac and a Havanna were more to the purpose, and helped to stay the wild trembling of my nerves. Fortunately, there was no duty to perform, else I could ill have attended to it.

I remained on the azotea till near mid-day. The storm raging within prevented me from taking note of what was passing around. The scenes in the piazza, the rangers and their steeds, the “greasers” in their striped blankets, the Indias squatted on their petates, the pretty poblanas, were all unnoticed by me.

At intervals my eyes rested upon the walls of the distant dwelling; it was not so distant but that a human form could have been distinguished upon its roof, had one been there. There was none, and twenty, ay, fifty times, did I turn away my disappointed gaze.

About noon the Serjeant of the guard reported that a Mexican wished to speak with me. Mechanically, I gave orders for the man to be sent up; but it was not until he appeared before me that I thought of what I was doing.

The presence of the Mexican at once aroused me from my unpleasant reverie. I recognised him as one of the vaqueros of Don Ramon de Vargas – the same I had seen on the plain during my first interview with Isolina.

There was something in his manner that betokened him a messenger. A folded note, which he drew from under his jerkin – after having glanced around to see whether he was noticed – confirmed my observation.

I took the note. There was no superscription, nor did I stay to look for one. My fingers trembled as I tore open the seal. As my eye rested on the writing and recognised it, my heart throbbed so as almost to choke my utterance. I muttered some directions to the messenger; and to conceal my emotion from him, I turned away and proceeded to the farthest corner of the azotea before reading the note. I called back to the man to go below, and wait for an answer; and, then relieved of his presence, I read as follows: —

“July 18 – .

“Gallant capitan! allow me to bid you a buenas dias, for I presume that, after the fatigues of last night, it is but morning with you yet. Do you dream of your sable belle? ‘Poor devil!’ Ha, ha, ha! Gallant capitan!”

I was provoked at this mode of address, for the “gallant” was rendered emphatic by underlining. It was a letter to taunt me for my ill behaviour. I felt inclined to fling it down, but my eye wandering over the paper, caught some words that induced me to read on.

“Gallant capitan! I had a favourite mare. How fond I was of that creature you may understand, who are afflicted by a similar affection for the noble Moro. In an evil hour, your aim, too true, alas! robbed me of my favourite, but you offered to repay me by robbing yourself, for well know I that the black is to you the dearest object upon earth. Indeed, were I the lady of your love, I should ill brook such a divided affection! Well, mio capitan, I understood the generous sacrifice you would have made, and forbade it; but I know you are desirous of cancelling your debt. It is in your power to do so. Listen!”

Some hard conditions I anticipated would follow; I recked not of that. There was no sacrifice I was not ready to make. I would have dared any deed, however wild, to have won that proud heart – to have inoculated it with the pain that was wringing my own. I read on: