CAPÍTULO 14.

 

            NOEL, secure in his love, and scarce envying even Maynard the superior rights which he held – for was not the soul of his beloved his own? – abandoned himself to the enjoyment of the evening's revelries. He had the pick of the prettiest girls to dance with: he chatted with the men; raced and played with the children; and, in short, made himself the idol and soul of the party, until the time came when all must cease; and then he jumped upon his mule and started up the hill, hoping to find his way to bed without disturbing any one in the house.

 

            The moon had disappeared from all the lower region of that side of the mountain on which the hacienda was situated. As Noel ascended the mountain he emerged into its light. Strange and weird to him seemed the long horizontal bars of alternate light and darkness that shot athwart his path from the nearly level orb through the great pines. As they flitted, phantom-like, by him, now gliding past, now hovering round him, and striking him with their far-reaching arms of silver and ebony, he found it difficult to avoid the impression that he was journeying through a haunted forest, where every tree enclosed a human life, and moved its limbs in supplication or menace as he passed. When he approached the edge of the clearing the impression that human figures were moving near him became so strong that he several times stopped and peered into the chequered gloom; but, detecting nothing, he went on, and turning his mule into the corral, entered the house. All there was still; but the excitement of the day was yet too fresh for him to think of sleep; so he opened a window and stepped into the verandah, and leant over the railing as he smoked a cigarette.

 

            With a man of Edmund Noel's temperament, such a scene as he then surveyed could not but evoke the deepest feelings

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of his nature. The moon had so far retreated that the spot where he stood was almost out of the range of the few gleams she could cast through the forest; and the contrast of the intense repose and softened shade with the turmoil and glare of the scene which he had just left, strangely affected his spirit, making him keenly sensitive to the position he occupied in regard to those around him.

 

            Severed by but a step or two from her he loved, and from him who hindered, and whom, nevertheless, he loved also, the thought that he alone was watching over their safety while they slept amid the mysterious haunted forest that lowered and frowned around their dwelling, mingled with a deep feeling of compassion for the friend whose life was blighted by the hopelessness of love – took possession of him, and in that moment he felt for James all the intensity of the agony that he knew must have been his own, had he, too, failed to gain the love of Margaret. And the satisfaction of his sympathy was without any alloy of remorse, for he could say to himself –

 

            ‘I have not won her affections from him. I have not even sought them for myself. It was a necessity of our natures that we should love whenever we should meet. Mated by Nature, the wrong is in the circumstances that kept us apart until too late. Too late! is it ever too late to repair a wrong? Has man a right to perpetuate such wrong? Surely the ills of accident are but aggravated by the artificial enactments with which he supplements the Divine decrees of nature: and the really immoral consists in obeying man rather than God. I suppose James would call this sophistry. I wonder how he would act under my circumstances. Poor fellow; it is more to the point to know how he would act in his own, did he but know them. His reasoning is not always to be trusted where his feelings are concerned. Whose is P He loves to plague Margaret with perplexing paradoxes, intimating his sense of her moral deficiencies. I believe the healthiest advice I could get would be from Sophia Bevan. Yet I doubt its perfect applicability to our case. I can fancy I hear her animated voice now, saying – “The Absolute will be your bane until you accept the world as it is, and pay some respect to Proportion. You make Love everything, and Duty nothing. Whereas Love, which is but one-half of the moral world, could not exist without its corresponding half to balance it. Love is the centripetal force that draws us towards the object of attraction;

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and duty is the centrifugal force that detains us from it. It is only by the right balance of the two that the harmony of things is preserved. The world would rush to the sun, and be burnt up in no time, on your principle.” ’

 

            Noel smiled at the vivid vision of her familiar voice and manner, and at the answer which he would have been prompted to make had she really been present; and which was to the effect that she always seemed to him to overrate the regard due to conventional laws, and to pay more respect to marriage than she would probably be disposed to show if she had had a husband of her own. For the degree of regard that ought to be accorded respectively to the inner promptings of the individual spirit, and to the ordinances of society, was one of the points on which agreement between Sophia Bevan and Edmund Noel was hopeless; although they had fought over it with all the eagerness of disputants expecting to gain converts. She had ventured even to excite his disgust by blaspheming Tennyson’s ‘Love and Duty,’ (which he considered as indicating an insight far beyond that of any of his previous poems,) as suggested by ‘some difficulty about settlements.’

 

            Noel was smiling over these vivid reminiscences when his impression that there was some one in the forest, was converted into a certainty by a sound as of a scuffle and of hasty footsteps at but a short distance from the house. As he paused for an instant to ascertain by the sound the exact direction in which the movement was, for the moon was now completely out of sight, and all was pitchy dark beneath the pines, his shot struck against something which lay in the verandah. Stooping to pick it up he found that it was a slung-shot, a favourite and terrible weapon of Californian rowdies, which he was taking home from San Francisco for his collection of curiosities, as an illustration of the manners and customs of that country, and which he had been lately exhibiting to his friends, and had forgotten to put away again. At that instant a faint cry in Spanish reached him, which seemed to be a call for help.

 

            ‘Ayúda! Ladrónes! Ayúda!’ as he made it out to be.

 

            ‘This is fortunate,’ he said, grasping the weapon and fixing it on his wrist; and with a bound he cleared the railing and rushed towards the spot. Reaching the wood he listened intently for an instant. No voice was to be heard; but a rustling sound, as of something heavy being dragged along the ground over the pine leaves.

 

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            The darkness was intense. How he avoided the trees which thickly thronged his path he knew not; but he sped with swift and noiseless steps, and no sound escaped his lips. Presently a sudden gleam of a lantern close before him revealed that for which he sought. No question was needed for explanation. He was alone; the assailants were many; and the victim was one. Still voiceless as death, for he knew the supreme value of mystery in an encounter in the midnight forest, and sudden as the stroke of the Destroying Angel, his uplifted hand, armed with its tremendous weapon, fell with rapid blows upon the ruffian heads around him. At each descent of his arm a man fell, stunned or dead. And, as if in a moment, he heard the steps of some in rapid flight, while none remained erect to offer resistance, or supply food for his vengeance. Presently, as he looked around in search of more foes, his foot caught in a rope which nearly tripped him up, and a groan came as from some one attached to one end. Following it with his hands, for his abnormal power of vision had vanished with the excitement that produced it, he found it to be a lasso, the loop of which was drawn tight around the body of James Maynard, binding his arms to his side.

 

            Loosening this, Noel raised him up, and found that he had been dragged along the ground until almost totally insensible. Unless he recovered it was hopeless for Noel to attempt to get him home, and he could not leave him there, prostrate, among foes, who might rise or return and assail him at any moment, while he went for aid.

 

            So Noel sat down beside his friend, and endeavoured to restore him to consciousness. Presently James murmured something in Spanish. Then he pronounced the words ‘Margaret’ and ‘love.’ Then, as if roused by his own voice, he gave a start, and said –

 

            ‘What is this? Where am I? Who is here?’

 

            ‘I am with you,’ said Noel, cheerfully. ‘You have had an accident, and been a little stunned. As soon as you feel better you shall take my arm up the hill.’

 

            The sound of Noel’s voice served to accelerate James’s return to life and recollection.

 

            ‘How came you here with me?’ he asked, suspiciously.

 

            ‘Say rather how came you to be out in the woods, when I thought that, like a steady married man, you were safe in bed?’

 

            Here Noel’s ear caught a sound as of a slight movement.

 

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            ‘Have you got your knife with you?’ he asked of Maynard. ‘I always have it. What do you want it for?’

 

            ‘Give it me, quick. I want to make something here fast before we go home.’

 

            Giving it to him with a slow mechanical movement, as if yet hardly conscious of what he was about, Maynard kept his eyes fastened curiously upon Noel as he felt about on the ground, and cut the lasso into pieces, and then, moving along on hands and knees, seemed to be feeling for something, and then to be binding something, first in one spot and then in another. Only one of the bandits uttered any sound as he was being bound, so well had Noel wielded his arm. Maynard heard it, and exclaimed sharply,

 

            ‘What’s that? Who is speaking to you?’

 

            ‘All right. You shall know all about it to-morrow,’ said Noel, rejoining him. ‘Can you manage to get up now and come home?’

 

            Rejecting his offer of aid, Maynard tried to raise himself, but failed, and fell back again.

 

            ‘No. I am best here for the present. Don’t you stay for me. I shall be home as soon – as soon as I care to be.’

 

            There was a surliness in his tone which Noel attributed to his not being quite himself yet; so he took him by the arm, and said encouragingly,

 

            ‘Now, try again.’

 

            With an effort, Maynard stood up, supporting himself by Noel’s arm.

 

            ‘That’s well; now try a few steps.’

 

            These were with difficulty accomplished, but his power seemed to be returning. When about half-way home, Maynard felt as if he really could not go any farther. Perceiving that his mind had now become clear, Noel thought he might now enlighten and stimulate him at the same time. So he said,

 

            ‘Take a few minutes’ rest, and then we will go on again. It is worth the effort, if only in an economical point of view.’

 

            James looked wonderingly at him.

 

            ‘I mean that it will cost less than having to be ransomed by a round sum out of the coffers of the Real.’

 

            ‘What! have I been nearly carried off?’ he cried, suddenly regaining his vigour.

 

            ‘Very nearly indeed, I suspect,’ said Noel; ‘and I don’t consider you are safe now until you get home.’

 

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            ‘But how did you ––?’

 

            ‘I will tell you all about that in the morning. Now, lean on my arm as heavily as you can, and we shall soon be home.’

 

            Nothing more was said during the long effort of reaching the house. It was all dark, as Noel had left it. Clearly no one had been alarmed there. Maynard sat down for a few minutes on the steps of the verandah before entering. Noel asked if he should call any one.

 

            ‘No, no,’ said James, hastily. ‘I will go into your room and sleep there to-night, if you don’t mind taking the hammock or a sofa.’

 

            ‘Very good; but won’t Margaret be alarmed when she wakes up and misses you?’

 

            ‘Oh no, she is used to my ways. I often go out for a walk at night.’

 

            He said this somewhat sheepishly, Noel thought.

 

            Helping him into his own room, Noel saw him to bed, having first ascertained that there were no injuries beyond a few scratches and bruises; and then, taking his pistols and a light he went round to the stables in the rear of the house and called up the men. He felt so indifferent to the fate of the brigands when he had punished so severely, that his first intention had been to go to bed leaving any steps respecting them until the morning. But, acting on second thoughts, he roused the servants and told them what had occurred, and in a little while a party was on its way with mules and cords and lights, to the scene of the encounter. On hunting about they found five bodies extended on the ground. Two appeared to be dead; the others were only insensible. Noel had bound only four, having missed one in the darkness. He could not tell whether any had recovered and gone away, but fancied from the number of knock-down blows he had administered, that several must have done so.

 

            Amid a vast amount of chattering and wonderment on the part of the servants, the marauders were secured and placed on the moles, each with a man riding behind to hold him up; and carried down, to the hacienda, and locked up for the night. Those that were stunned regained their senses during the ride, and Noel could not help being amused by the curious bewilderment of both captors and captured, at the character of the strange procession, and the mystery of the whole business. For he did not reveal to them the secret of the slung-shot, but had

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merely said that he had knocked them down, leaving it to be supposed that his fist was the weapon with which he had cracked all those skulls.

 

            And so the living prisoners plied their supporters with questions which they could not answer; and the dead ones swayed from side to side in silence, at each step taken by the mules as they picked their way down the hill.

 

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