The Bells of San Juan | Page 5

maid daughter taught the school here; various other individuals and family groups to be disposed of with a word and a careless wave of a cigarette. Already for the fair stranger Ignacio had skimmed the cream of the cream.
The girl sighed, as though her question had been no idle one and his reply had disappointed her. For a moment her brows gathered slightly into a frown that was like a faint shadow; then she smiled again brightly, a quick smile which seemed more at home in her eyes than the frown had been.
Ignacio glanced from her to the weeds, then, squinting his eyes, at the sun. There was ample time, it would be cooler presently. So, describing a respectful arc about her, he approached the Mission wall, slipped into the shade, and eased himself in characteristic indolence against the white-washed adobe. She appeared willing to talk with him; well, then, what pleasanter way to spend an afternoon? She sought to learn this and that of a land new to her; who to explain more knowingly than Ignacio Chavez? After a little he would pluck some of the newly opened yellow rosebuds for her, making her a little speech about herself and budding flowers. He would even, perhaps, show her his bells, let her hear just the suspicion of a note from each. . . .
A sharp sound came to her abruptly out of the utter stillness but meant nothing to her. She saw a flock of pigeons rise above the roofs of the more distant houses, circle, swerve, and disappear beyond the cottonwoods. She noted that Ignacio was no longer leaning lazily against the wall; he had stiffened, his mouth was a little open, breathless, his attitude that of one listening expectantly, his eyes squinting as they had been just now when he fronted the sun. Then came the second sound, a repetition of the first, sharp, in some way sinister. Then another and another and another, until she lost count; a man's voice crying out strangely, muffled. Indistinct, seeming to come from afar.
It was an incongruous, almost a humorous, thing to see the sun-warmed passivity of Ignacio Chavez metamorphosed in a flash into activity. He muttered something, leaped away from the Mission wall, dashed through the tangle of the garden, and raced like a madman to the eastern arch. With both hands he grasped the dangling bell-ropes, with all of his might he set them clanging and shouting and clamoring until the reverberation smote her ears and set the blood tingling strangely through her. She had seen the look upon his face. . . .
Suddenly she knew that those little sharp sounds had been the rattle of pistol-shots. She sprang to her feet, her eyes widening. Now all was quiet save for the boom and roar of the bells. The pigeons were circling high in the clear sky, were coming back. . . . She went quickly the way Ignacio had gone, calling out to him:
"What is it?"
He seemed all unmoved now as he made his bells cry out for him; it was for him to be calm while they trembled with the event which surely they must understand.
"It is a man dead," he told her as his right hand called upon the Captain for a volume of sound from his bronze throat. "You will see. And there will be more work for Roderico Nortone!" He sighed and shook his head, and for a moment spoke softly with his jangling bells. "And some day," he continued quietly, "it will be Roderico's time, no? And I will ring the bells for him, and the Captain and the Dancer and Lolita, they will all put tears into men's eyes. But first, Santa Maria! let it be that I ring the others for him when he marries himself with the banker's daughter."
"A man dead?" the girl repeated, unwilling to grasp fully.
"You will see," returned Ignacio.
CHAPTER II
THE SHERIFF OF SAN JUAN
The girl in the old Mission garden stood staring at Ignacio Chavez a long time, seeming compelled by a force greater than her own to watch him tugging and jerking at his bells. Plainly enough she understood that this was an alarm being sounded; a man dead through violence, and the bell-ringer stirring the town with it. But when presently he let two of the ropes slip out of his hands and began a slow, mournful tolling of the Captain alone, she shuddered a little and withdrew.
That it might be merely a case of a man wounded, even badly, did not once suggest itself to her. Ignacio had spoken as one who knew, in full confidence and with finality. She should see! She returned to the little bench which one day was to be a bright green, and sat down. She could see