The Black Rider (10 page)

“Torreño!” he screamed. “Look! Look! His horse! Once on the back of that red devil, he is gone like the wind! Ride down the hounds. Get to him! Pistols and swords, my friends, if you love me! If he escapes today, we are but murdered men tomorrow!”

They heard him with a shout of rage, gave their horses the spur, and instantly they were among the pack and rushing fast upon the runner. But though they rode hard and recklessly down that slope like true cavaliers, their speed was nothing compared with the unburdened stallion. He came like a loose lightning flash, down the slope and into the hollow. Straight beside Taki he rushed, and swerving there, with hardly abated gallop, they saw the fugitive fling himself at the bay, grapple the mane with one hand, take a long, winged leap as he was jerked forward by the running horse, and then rebound upward to his back.

But he was not yet free. The pursuit came hot behind him, and now their guns were out. But heavy horse pistols fired from the backs of running horses strike a target by chance rather than by skill. A dozen bullets combed the air about him as he lay flat on the back of the horse. But he guided the stallion by the touch of his hand to the left. Twenty paces before the pursuit he reached the next grove of oaks. And the voice of Guadalmo was a moan of desperation.

Through the open grove they pushed, bringing blood with every stroke of their spurs. The pack of boar hounds strained far, far to the rear now, setting up what seemed a foolish clamor. As well might they try to catch the wind as to overtake this fugitive. He was work for their masters. Too much work, indeed, even for them. For when they gained the open again, the red bay was racing over the next hilltop, and when they reached the next hilltop, he was entering a broken copse of oak in the hollow.

For another ten minutes they labored with curses and whip and spurs; but at the end of that time Richard Gidden had vanished from among the hills! The chase halted. All were silent. Torreño’s brow was black as a thundercloud. The lips of Guadalmo were twitching in a passion which he dared not release in words for fear lest words alone would not suffice him. But the eye which he turned upon Torreño was the very soul of eloquence.

So they came back toward the house. The dogs followed on through the hills unregarded. Later, servants would pursue them a weary distance and bring them in once more. But they would bring no consolation to Torreño or to Guadalmo. Those captains rode with faces averted from one another and so regained their quarters. And the view of them as they came in with failure printed on their brows brought joy to one person only— and that was the
Señorita
Lucia. Anna d’Arquista had come running to her and found her in prayer at the foot of the altar in her little private chapel—passionate prayer, with her face pressed against the cold stone. She rose and ran to the window, and looking out, she cried: “God has heard me! God has heard me!”

T
he son,
Señor
Don Carlos Torreño, had enjoyed the race after Taki—or Richard Gidden, to give him his true name—as much as any man. But when the red stallion appeared and swept the fugitive away to safety he was the dreariest of all the party who turned back toward the house—with the single exception of
Señor
Guadalmo. The duelist was thinking of death; Don Carlos was thinking of his lady; it would have been hard to say which of the two had the colder heart.

But, in the meantime, there was the bustle of starting on that day’s journey, and during that time he was able to avoid the eye of Lucia. And when the carriage was lumbering along the road, at last, he was spared a face-to-face encounter with the girl again. For Hernandez Guadalmo had found it necessary to change direction in which he was traveling and had decided to accompany the cavalcade of Torreño. There was no doubt in the minds of the others that he was moved by fear of Richard Gidden. But such an opinion could not, of course, be shown. The important thing was to make the celebrated Guadalmo welcome, and for that purpose both the elder and the younger Torreño rode at his side

It was a gloomy day’s journey, and, at the close of it, when they reached the third rest house of Torreño, built for the comfort and for the honor of Lucia d’Arquista,
Don Carlos realized by something in the glance which she cast upon him that the interview had been postponed—not dulled by the delay!

And she had hardly gone to her chambers when one of her serving maids came to him. She wished to see him, and at once. And poor Don Carlos girded up the loins of his resolution and prepared for trouble. It came almost the instant he was before her.

She sat beneath a window of her room with the dust of her journey still upon her clothes, tapping at the big stone flags upon the floor with a tapered riding whip. And while he talked, her glance went continually from the floor to his face to the floor; and every time she looked at him, he felt as though he had been struck by the lithe body of the whip itself!

“Carlos,” she said, “this morning I begged a small favor of you, which was the life of a slave.”

He sought his first refuge behind a quibble.

“It was no slave, after all,” he said, “but a white man…Richard Gidden. I could have saved a hundred, a thousand Indians, Lucia. But this fellow, Gidden…”

“What had he done?”

Don Carlos waxed warm with a simulated heat.

“You must remember, Lucia! He invaded my father’s house, struck down his servants, took away a guest from his chamber….”

“Tush!” said Lucia d’Arquista. “He came for a professional fighter…a man who murders according to a legal form…Hernandez Guadalmo. He is notorious! He bound two of the servants of that cutthroat. He entered the room of Guadalmo. Did he stab the villain to the heart to revenge the death of his murdered brother? No, no, Carlos. Like a gallant fellow, he took Guadalmo out from the house to a little distance; no matter what Guadalmo says, I know the truth and you have guessed
it, too, and so have all the others. He challenged Guadalmo to a fair fight. And before the fight was ended, in came your father’s men and saved Guadalmo. That is the only crime against Taki…I mean Richard Gidden. I asked that you save this man, Carlos!”

He bit his lip. He was ashamed of his own fear of her.

“Such a man does not need saving,” he said with an attempt at lightness. “He saved himself, you see.”

“He saved himself from the dogs,” said the girl, her anger trembling in her voice now. “Oh, God, that such a thing should be! An honest Christian man hunted with dogs! To be torn to pieces like a wild beast.”

“But he was not!” protested Carlos. “He was saved, Lucia. Surely you know that.”

“Saved by you?” she asked bitterly.

“Lucia, hear reason….”

“I wish to hear much reason. I wish to know, Carlos, why I needed to beg such a favor of you. Why were you not already working with all your might because you loathed such barbarism? Why were you not? Or was it because he had beaten you in a play of foils? Or in your heart, were you not hungering to see that manhunt?”

When the truth is told about us, it carries with it a sting that pierces through our utmost complacency. Don Carlos had been shaken already. Now he was crimson, and panting as he spoke.

“I could not stir my father. I talked until he was in a furious anger. I could not budge him from his purpose, Lucia!”

“Ah,” she said, “if I had been a man, I should have taken my stand at the side of poor Richard Gidden. If the hounds were loosed at him, they should have taken me also!”

He threw out his hands in a gesture of wonder. “After
all, he is the Black Rider…he is a highway robber, Lucia. You forget!”

“I forget nothing. What justice could he have in this country except from his own strength? He came here to revenge his brother. He fell into trouble. He was saved by your father…by accident, I may say. He went into slavery and took to the highway to repay a debt. Was that not like an honest man? He has repaid the debt. Now he is free to turn his hand to Guadalmo. But you catch him and hunt him with dogs! Ah, it sickens me, Carlos! I only wondered if you would truly try to justify it. And I have heard you.”

She turned her back on him and stared out the window. Don Carlos hesitated, turned two or three sentences in his mind, and then decided that the words would not do. He wanted, above all, to have the free blue sky above his head, and he fled at once. He had scarcely left the house when he encountered the last person he wished to meet—his father. Torreño stopped him.

“You have the face of a sick man, Carlos,” he said.

“It is nothing,” stammered Carlos.

“You are white; you are dripping with perspiration. What is it?”

“Nothing,” said Carlos.

“Fool!” thundered Torreño. “Will you attempt to hide from
me?”

The son surrendered on the spot. That ringing voice went through him like a sword.

“It is Lucia,” he said faintly. “She is in a fury because of Gidden and the dogs.”

“She is in a fury?” repeated Torreño. “She has complained to you?”

Don Carlos sighed and shook his head.

“I shall go to her myself,” said Torreño.

Don Carlos caught his arm with an exclamation. “She
is not herself…she does not know what she says!” he pleaded.

“I shall bring her to herself,” said the father roughly and, shaking himself loose, he went to the door of Lucia’s chamber. She herself opened it to him. He stalked in and threw himself unceremoniously into a chair. She remained standing, looking calmly down at him. Her very calmness enraged him the more. For he loved to inspire fear.

“You have been talking with Carlos,” he said sternly.

“He has gone tattling, I see.”

“He has answered his father’s questions, as a respectful son should.”

“I have no doubt,
señor
, that he is a perfect son.”

“You are scornful, Lucia. Now you must understand that in this country all is not done as it is done in Spain. In a rough land rough ways are needed.”

“I think I understand. Men are hunted instead of boars. Why,
señor?
Because they are more helpless?”

Torreño writhed in his chair. His voice doubled its volume.

“What I order,” he said, smiting his hands together, “is never questioned.”

“Do you choose to be obeyed through fear only?” she asked him.

“Obedience is what I demand. The cause of it does not matter.”

“Señor
, I am as yet a free person. If I marry, I shall swear obedience to your son.” And she smiled. The smile maddened Torreño.

“Have a care, girl!” he cried to her. “That marriage has not yet taken place. If you return to Spain unwed

“You threaten with a sword which has no point,
Señor
Torreño,” she said. “I, also, have been thinking of Spain.”

That answer brought Torreño stiffly out of his chair.

He stared at her, bewildered. It came suddenly home to him that this was not mere sham—that this girl could indeed contemplate a petty life in old Spain rather than become the queen of the Torreño estate. It staggered him. It shamed him.

“Is that in your brain?” he said. “However, Lucia, you are not a free agent. The marriage has been contracted for. It shall be celebrated if I have to drag you to the altar with my own hands. And when the ceremony is ended, we shall see if you have not two masters instead of one. That is a thing which we shall see!”

He strode to the door and then turned back to her.

“To those who give me obedience, girl,” he said, “I am gentle as a lamb. To those who cross me, I am a lion. Lucia, beware!”

With this, he left her, and she heard the beat of his heels and the jingling of his spurs as he went down the corridor. She went into the next room and found Anna d’Arquista crouched on a bench in the corner with a stricken face.

“You have heard everything?” asked Lucia.

“He spoke so loudly…”

“Oh, I am glad that you have heard. That doesn’t matter. You see, Aunt Anna, that I have fallen into the hands of hunters. If I cross this frog-faced devil, I suppose that he would set the dogs on me?” She began to laugh, savagely, without mirth.

“Lucia, poor child,” moaned the spinster, “I have had a foreboding of evil to come. Let us pray God to bring you happiness in spite of all!”

“It is time to think and to plan,” said Lucia. “It is time to remember that I am a d’Arquista. It is time to wish that I were a man!”

P
rudence held some sway in even Francisco Torreño, however, and after supper he walked with the girl in the outer garden where they could hear the steady roar of distant water through a ravine, a sullen noise which seemed to come from the quivering ground beneath their feet.

“Now, Lucia,” he said, “while we are alone, and without anger, let us talk over everything and admit that we have made mistakes…both of us. I was wrong in treating you as if you were without a brain and a will of your own. You were wrong in saying that you did not wish to marry Carlos. Shall we begin by admitting these things?”

“Señor
Torreño,” said the girl, “there is no need for sorrow. We have seen the truth about one another. You,
señor
, have no room on all of your lands for more than one person…and that is yourself, of course. I have the same need of room,
señor.
We could never be happy near one another.”

Torreño felt the blind rage swell in his heart. But he controlled himself. He even managed to smile.

“You are still angry,” he said. “Young people remain angry longer than old ones do. Because anger is a childish passion, do you see? But, Lucia, how could your wishes conflict with mine? What is there which we mutually could desire? Will you have rich clothes and many of them? Whatever is made in China or Flanders and all
the lands between is yours! Are you fond of jewels? I already have caskets heaped with them…trays piled deep as your fingers can clutch! But if you wish more, you shall have more. Are you a lover of hunting! The finest English runners shall be brought half the distance around the world and put in your stables…
your
stables, Lucia. Do you hear me? Perhaps you love hawking. We have some falcons already. You shall have more! Do you love rich fittings in a house? You may plate your walls with solid gold if you choose! What more is there that a woman can wish? I have known of some bold hearts among your sex who loved the water. Lucia, there are many waterways where the sea is quiet between the islands and the coast. Aye, Lucia, and if you wish to be alone and reign like a queen and never feel any power, you shall have one of those islands…the largest…for your own. It shall be stocked with cattle and with servants. You shall build a house there according to your will. You shall build ships and trade with them on the seven seas, if you desire.