Chata and Chinita, Chapters XXXIII-XXXV [pp. 2-24]

18873 Chata and C/~inita.
More than once Dona Isabel, in the midst upon the bronzed faces of a group of swarthy
of his talk, sank back in the carriage lost in men who strummed upon stringed instrudeep and painful tho~ght, as the wild and ments of various shapes and sizes; while
terrible deeds in which the man had figured another group of mingled men and women
recalled to her mind the horrors of her youth. went through the rhythmic motions of the
Deeds such as these might have been plan- dance, with which the young girl, gazing
ned and executed by the boy, who had once from her cell-like retreat across the court
been the pride, as he was afterwards the bane had long been so frimiliar.
of her life, had he lived; but he was dead. She had never danced since the night that
Yes! thank God, though her heart had bled she had fled from the wedding fiesta into
inwardly for long years! he had made no sign the waiting arms of Dona Isabel. She had
since the tale of his end came-he was dead! thought of the scene and its pleasures only
While she was thus lost in thought, Chinita with anger and disgust; and yet as she
listened with glowing cheek and eyes. Ruiz looked into the red glare and watched the
knew of the meeting with Ramirez to which swaying figures, she longed to rush in and
she looked back with such peculiar and un- throw herself amongst them. To her, as
wearying fascination, and discerning in her to Dona Isabel, the time of suspense was
admiration of his fbn~er leader an unfb~iling growing unbearably long; she was mad for
means of rousing in her a personal attraction action. Unreasonably, she felt that there
which in her passionate nature might become among their caste she might find Pedro —
an absorbing love, he carefully refrained from Pepe-some one who would do her bidding,
giving her any hint of his real sentinients who would not dare put her off as Ruiz was
towards him, and spared no covert word, no doing with tantalizing promises.
mute eloquence of his dark and expressive She knew that instead of following the
eyes, to increase an enthusiasm which had a~ most direct paths, as Dona Isabel had comready led her into such strange defiance of manded, the route on various pretexts had
the plans of Dona Isabel. To reinstate her been changed- she supposed to make comhero in the power from which he had fallen munication with Ramirez possible. She
-became her dream, the aspiration of her had no reason to doubt the good faith of
soul. Ruiz, yet she was impatient and miserable.
On the fifth night - of their journey, it A straggler upon the road had given them
chanced that they entered a village, where the rews that Ramirez had been seen upon
Doffa Isabel and her servants were enabled the hills with a foHorrf and ill-armed troop,
to find a shelter, which after the restricted which bore evidence of the ill fortune, which
and insufficient accomodation of tents, the defeat at El Toro had inaugurated.
seemed absolutely luxurious, primitive and She had conceived a violent and unreasonrude though it was. Doffa Isabel wearied able antagonism to Gonzales, who from his
with travel, and depressed with anxiety at whilom associate, had become the successthe unaccountable delay of Gonzales, who ful opponent and rival of the man whom by
she had supposed would have hastened to childish gift of an amulet she had fancied
take command of the troops which her energy herself endowing with invincible good forand bounty had provided, had early retired tune. Eve~ as she grew older, her faith in
to the room assigned her. Chinita had re- the magic powers of a charm which had
luctantly accompanied her, for a fan dan go been the creation of a wizard and had been
was in progress in the great kitchen, the blessed by Holy Church, scarcely grew less;
charcoal ~raseros flaming red against the dark and the remembrance of it undoubtedly
walls of yellow washed adobe, and shining strengthened the fealty so strangely sworn.