Doctor Therne | Page 8

we were starting I heard a voice behind me calling "senor." Drawing the pistol from my pocket, I swung round to find myself confronted by a Mexican.
"No shoot, senor," he said in broken English, for this man had served upon an American ship, "Me driver, Antonio. My mate go down there," and he pointed to the precipice; "he dead, me not hurt. You run from bad men, me run too, for presently they come look. Where you go?"
"To Mexico," I answered.
"No get Mexico, senor; bad men watch road and kill you with /machete/ so," and he made a sweep with his knife, adding "they not want you live tell soldiers."
"Listen," said Emma. "Do you know the /hacienda/, Concepcion, by the town of San Jose?"
"Yes, senora, know it well, the /hacienda/ of Senor Gomez; bring you there to-morrow."
"Then show the way," I said, and we started towards the hills.
All that day we travelled over mountains as fast as the mules could carry us, Antonio trotting by our side. At sundown, having seen nothing more of the brigands, who, I suppose, took it for granted that we were dead or were too idle to follow us far, we reached an Indian hut, where we contrived to buy some wretched food consisting of black /frijole/ beans and /tortilla/ cakes. That night we slept in a kind of hovel made of open poles with a roof of faggots through which the water dropped on us, for it rained persistently for several hours. To be more accurate, Emma slept, for my nerves were too shattered by the recollection of our adventure with the brigands to allow me to close my eyes.
I could not rid my mind of the vision of that coach, broken like an eggshell, and of those shattered shapes within it that this very morning had been men full of life and plans, but who to-night were-- what? Nor was it easy to forget that but for the merest chance I might have been one of their company wherever it was gathered now. To a man with a constitutional objection to every form of violence, and, at any rate in those days, no desire to search out the secrets of Death before his time, the thought was horrible.
Leaving the shelter at dawn I found Antonio and the Indian who owned the hut conversing together in the reeking mist with their /serapes/ thrown across their mouths, which few Mexicans leave uncovered until after the sun is up. Inflammation of the lungs is the disease they dread more than any other, and the thin night air engenders it.
"What is it, Antonio?" I asked. "Are the brigands after us?"
"No, senor, hope brigands not come now. This senor say much sick San Jose."
I answered that I was very sorry to hear it, but that I meant to go on; indeed, I think that it was only terror of the brigands coupled with the promise of a considerable reward which persuaded him to do so, though, owing to my ignorance of Spanish and his very slight knowledge of English, precisely what he feared I could not discover. In the end we started, and towards evening Antonio pointed out to us the /hacienda/ of Concepcion, a large white building standing on a hill which overshadowed San Jose, a straggling little place, half- town, half-village, with a population of about 3,000 inhabitants.
Just as, riding along the rough cobble-paved road, we reached the entrance to the town, I heard shouts, and, turning, saw two mounted men with rifles in their hands apparently calling to us to come back. Taking it for granted that these were the brigands following us up, although, as I afterwards discovered, they were in fact /rurales/ or cavalry-police, despite the remonstrances of Antonio I urged the jaded mules forward at a gallop. Thereupon the /rurales/, who had pulled up at a spot marked by a white stone, turned and rode away.
We were now passing down the central street of the town, which I noticed seemed very deserted. As we drew near to the /plaza/ or market square we met a cart drawn by two mules and led by a man who had a /serape/ wrapped about his nose and mouth as though it were still the hour before the dawn. Over the contents of this cart a black cloth was thrown, beneath which were outlined shapes that suggested--but, no, it could not be. Only why did Antonio cross himself and mutter /Muerte!/ or some such word?
Now we were in the /plaza/. This /plaza/, where in happier times the band would play, for all Mexicans are musical, and the population of San Jose was wont to traffic in the day and enjoy itself at night, was bordered by an arched colonnade. In its centre stood a basin of