CHAPTER II
ON THE PRAIRIE

When the last bandit had disappeared in the darkness, the horseman turned to his generous defender, in order to thank him; but the latter was no longer by his side, and he saw him galloping some distance off on the plain.

The horseman knew not to what he should attribute this sudden departure – (for the stranger was following a direction diametrically opposite to that on which the pirate had fled) – till he saw him return, leading another horse by the bridle.

The stranger had thought of the young lady he had so miraculously saved; and on seeing the horses of the killed bandits galloping about, he resolved at once to capture the best of them, in order to enable her to continue her journey more comfortably; and when the animal was lassoed, he returned slowly towards the man to whom he had rendered so great a service.

"Señor," the horseman said, as soon as they met again, "all is not over yet; I have a further service to ask of you."

"Speak, Caballero," the stranger replied, starting at the sound of the voice, which he fancied he recognised. "Speak, I am listening to you."

"A woman, an unhappy girl – my sister, in a word, is lost in this horrible desert. Some of the scoundrels started in pursuit of her, and I know not what may have happened to her. I am in mortal agony, and must rejoin her at all risks; hence do not leave the good action you have so well begun unfinished; help me to find my sister's track, – join with me in seeking her."

"It is useless," the stranger answered, coldly.

"What, useless!" the horseman exclaimed with horror; "Has any misfortune happened to her? Ah! I remember now; I fancied, while I was flying, that I heard several shots. Oh, Heaven, Heaven!" he added, writhing his hands in despair, "My poor sister, my poor Marianita!"

"Reassure yourself, Caballero," the stranger continued in the same cold deliberate accent; "your sister is in safety, temporarily at least, and has nothing to fear. Heaven permitted that I should cross her path."

"Are you stating truth?" he exclaimed, joyfully. "Oh, bless you, Señor, for the happy news! Where is she? Let me see her! Let me press her to my heart. Alas! How shall I ever acquit my debt to you?"

"You owe me nothing," the stranger answered in a rough voice; "it was chance, or God, if you prefer it, that did everything, and I was only the instrument. My conduct would have been the same to any other person; so keep your gratitude – which I do not ask of you. Who knows," he added ironically, "whether you may not some day repent of having contracted any obligations toward me?"

The horseman felt internally pained at the way in which his advances were received by a man who scarce five minutes previously had saved his life. Not knowing to what he should attribute this sudden change of temper, he pretended not to notice anything offensive the words might contain, and said, with exquisite politeness —

"The spot is badly chosen for a lengthened conversation, Caballero. We are still, if not strangers, at least unknown to each other. I trust that ere long all coldness and misunderstanding will cease between us, and make room for perfect confidence."

The other smiled bitterly.

"Come," he said, "your sister is near here, and must be impatient to see you."

The horseman followed him without replying; but asking himself mentally who this singular man could be, who risked his life to defend him, and yet appeared anxious to treat him as an enemy.

All the sounds of the combat had reached the maiden's ear: she had heard them while kneeling on the ground, half dead with terror, and searching her troubled memory in vain for a prayer to address to Heaven.

Then the firing had ceased: a mournful silence again spread over the desert – a silence more terrifying a thousandfold than the terrible sounds of the fight, and she remained crouching in a corner and suffering from nameless agony, alone, far from all human help, not daring to retain a single hope, and fearing at each moment to see a frightful death awaiting her. The poor girl could not have said how long she remained thus crushed beneath the weight of her terror. A person must really have suffered, to know of how many centuries a minute is composed when life or death is awaited.

Suddenly she started: her strong nerves relaxed, a fugitive flush tinged her cheek, she fancied she had heard a few words uttered in a low voice not far from her. Were her enemies again pursuing her? Or was her saviour returning to her side?

She remained anxious and motionless, not daring to make a movement or utter a cry to ask for help; for a movement might reveal her presence, a cry hopelessly ruin her.

But, ere long, the bushes were parted by a powerful hand; and two horsemen appeared at the base of the rock. The maiden stretched out her hands to them with an exclamation of delight; and, too weak to support this last emotion, she fainted.

She had recognised in the men, who arrived side by side, her brother and the stranger to whom she owed her life.

When she regained her senses, she was lying on furs in front of a large fire. The two men were sitting on her right and left; while in the rock cave, three horses were eating their provender of alfalfa.

Somewhat in the shadow a few paces from her, the maiden perceived a mass, whose form it was impossible for her to distinguish at the first glance, but which a more attentive examination enabled her to recognise as a bound man lying on the ground.

The maiden was anxious to speak and thank her liberator; but the shock she had received was so rude, the emotion so powerful, that it was impossible for her to utter a word – so weak did she feel. She could only give him a glance full of all the gratitude she felt, and then fell back into a state of feverish exhaustion and morbid apathy, which almost completely deprived her of the power of thinking and feeling, and which rendered her involuntarily ignorant of all that was going on around her.

"It is well," said the stranger, as he carefully closed a gold mounted flask and concealed it in his bosom. "Now, Caballero, there is nothing more to fear for the Señorita; the draught I have administered to her, by procuring her a calm and healthy sleep, will restore her strength sufficiently for her to be able to continue her journey at sunrise, should it be necessary."

"Caballero," the stranger answered, "you are really performing the part of Providence towards me and my sister, I know not, in truth, how to express to you the lively gratitude I feel for a procedure which is the more generous as I am a perfect stranger to you."

"Do you think so?" he answered sarcastically.

"The more I examine your face, the more convinced I am that I have met you tonight for the first time."

"You would not venture to affirm it?"

"Yes, I would. Your features are too remarkable for me not to remember them if I had seen you before; but I repeat, if you fancy you know me, you are mistaken, and an accidental resemblance to some other person is the cause of your error."

There was a momentary silence, and then the stranger spoke again, with a politeness too affected for the irony it concealed not to be seen —

"Be it so, Caballero," he answered, with a bow; "perhaps I am mistaken. Be good enough, therefore, if you have no objection, to tell me who you are, and by what fortuitous concourse of circumstances I have been enabled to render you what you are kind enough to call a great service?"

"And it is an immense one, in truth, Caballero," the stranger interrupted with warmth.

"I will not discuss that subject any longer with you, Caballero; I am awaiting your pleasure."

"Señor, I will not abuse your patience for long. My name is Don Ruiz de Moguer, and I reside with my father at a hacienda in the vicinity of Arispe. For reasons too lengthy to explain to you, and which would but slightly interest you, the presence of my sister (who has been at school for some years at the Convent of the Conception at El Rosario) became indispensable at the hacienda. By my father's orders I set out for El Rosario a few months ago, in order to bring my sister back to her family. I was anxious to rejoin my father; and hence, in spite of the observations made to me by persons acquainted with the dangers attending so long a journey through a desert country, I resolved to take no escort, but start for home merely accompanied by two peons, on whose courage and fidelity I could rely."

"My sister who had been separated from her family for several years, was as eager as myself to quit the convent; and hence we soon set out. For the first few days all went well; our journey was performed under the most favourable auspices, and my sister and I laughed at the anxiety and apprehensions of our friends, for we had begun to believe ourselves safe from any dangerous encounter."

"But yesterday at sunset, just as we were preparing our camp for the night, we were suddenly attacked by a party of bandits, who seemed to emerge from the ground in front of us, so unforeseen was their apparition. Our poor brave peons were killed while defending us; and my sister's horse, struck by a bullet in the head, threw her. But the brave girl, far from surrendering to the bandits, who rushed forward to seize her, began flying across the savannah. Then I tried to lead the aggressors off the scent, and induce them to pursue me. You know the rest, Caballero; and had it not been for your providential interference, it would have been all over with us."

There was a silence, which Don Ruiz was the first to break.

"Caballero," he said, "now that you know who I am, tell me the name of my saviour?"

"What good is that?" the stranger answered, sadly. "We have come together for a moment by chance, and shall separate tomorrow never to meet again. Gratitude is a heavy burden. Not knowing who I am, you will soon have forgotten me. Believe me, Señor Don Ruiz, it is better that it should be so. Who knows if you may not regret some day knowing me?"

"It is the second time you have said that, Caballero. Your words breathe a bitterness that pains me. You must have suffered very grievously for your thoughts to be so sad and your heart so disenchanted at an age when the future ordinarily appears so full of promise."

The stranger raised his head, and bent on his questioner a glance that seemed trying to read to the bottom of his soul: the latter continued, however, with some degree of vivacity —

"Oh! Do not mistake the meaning I attach to my words, Caballero. I have no intention to take your confidence by surprise, or encroach on your secrets. Every man's life belongs to himself – his actions concern himself alone; and I recognise no claim to a confidence which I neither expect nor desire. The only thing I ask of you is to tell me your name, that my sister and myself may retain it in our hearts."

"Why insist on so frivolous a matter?"

"I will answer – What reason have you to be so obstinate in remaining unknown?"

"Then you insist on my telling you my name?"

"Oh, Caballero, I have no right to insist; I only ask it."

"Very good," said the stranger, "you shall know my name; but I warn you that it will teach you nothing."

"Pardon me, Caballero," Don Ruiz remarked, with a touch of exquisite delicacy, "this name, repeated by me to my father, will tell him every hour in the day that it is to the man who bears it that he owes the life of his children, and a whole family will bless you."

In spite of himself, the stranger felt affected. By an instinctive movement he offered his hand to the young man, which the latter pressed affectionately. But, as if suddenly reproaching himself for yielding to his feelings, this strange man sharply drew back his hand, and reassuming the expression of sternness, which had for a moment departed from him, said, with a roughness in his voice that astonished and saddened the young Mexican, "You shall be satisfied."

We have said that Doña Marianita, in looking round her, fancied she saw the body of a man stretched on the ground a few paces from the fire. The maiden was not mistaken; it was really a man she saw, carefully gagged and bound. It was in a word, one of the two bandits who had pursued her so long, and the one whom the stranger had almost killed with a blow of his rifle butt.

After recommending Don Ruiz to be patient by a wave of his hand, the stranger rose, walked straight up to the bandit, threw him on his shoulders, and laid him at the feet of the young Mexican, perhaps rather roughly – for the pirate, in spite of the thorough Indian stoicism he affected, could not suppress a stifled yell of pain.

"Who is this man, and what do you purpose doing with him?" Don Ruiz asked, with some anxiety.

"This scoundrel," the stranger answered, harshly, "was one of the band that attacked you; we are going to try him."

"Try him?" the young gentleman objected; "We?"

"Of course," the stranger said, as he removed the bandit's gag, and unfastened the rope that bound his limbs. "Do you fancy that we are going to trouble ourselves with the scoundrel till we find a prison in which to place him, without counting the fact that, if we were so simple as to do so, the odds are about fifty to one that he would escape from us during the journey, and slip through our fingers like an opossum, to attack us a few hours later at the head of a fresh band of pirates of his own breed. No, no; that would be madness. When the snake is dead, the venom is dead, too; it is better to try him."

"But by what right can we constitute ourselves the judges of this man?"

"By what right?" the stranger exclaimed, in amazement. "The Border law, which says, 'Eye for eye; tooth for tooth.' Lynch law authorizes us to try this bandit, and when the sentence is pronounced, to execute it ourselves."

Don Ruiz reflected for a moment, during which the stranger looked at him aside with the most serious attention.

"That is possible," the young man at length answered; "perhaps you are right in speaking thus. This man is guilty – he is evidently a miserable assassin covered with blood; and, had my sister and myself fallen into his hands, he would not have hesitated to stab us, or blow out our brains."

"Well?" the stranger remarked.

"Well," the young man continued, with generous animation in his voice; "this certainly does not authorize us in taking justice into our own hands; besides, my sister is saved."

"Then it is your opinion – "

"That as we cannot hand this man over to the police, we are bound to set him at liberty, after taking all proper precautions that he cannot injure us."

"You have, doubtless, carefully reflected on the consequences of the deed you advise?"

"My conscience orders me to act as I am doing."

"Your will be done!" and, addressing the bandit, who throughout the conversation had remained gloomy and silent, though his eyes constantly wandered from one to the other of the speakers, he said to him, "Get up!"

The pirate rose.

"Look at me," the stranger continued; "do you recognise me?"

"No," the bandit said.

The stranger seized a lighted brand, and held it up near his face.

"Look at me more carefully, Kidd," he said, in a sharp, imperious voice.

The scoundrel, who had bent forward, drew himself back with a start of fear.

"Stronghand!" he exclaimed, in a voice choked by dread.

"Ah!" the horseman said, with a sardonic smile; "I see that you recognise me now."

"Yes," the bandit muttered. "What are your orders?"

"I have none. You heard all we have been saying, I suppose?"

"All."

"What do you think of it?"

The pirate did not answer.

"Speak, and be frank! I insist."

"Hum!" he said, with a side-glance.

"Will you speak? I tell you I insist."

"Well!" he answered, in a rather humbling voice, but yet with a tinge of irony easy to notice; "I think that when you hold your enemy, you ought to kill him."

"That is really your opinion?"

"Yes."

"What do you say to that?" the stranger asked, turning to Don Ruiz.

"I say," he replied, simply, "that as this man is not my enemy, I cannot and ought not to take any vengeance on him."

"Hence?"

"Hence, justice alone has the right to make him account for his conduct. As for me, I decline."

"And that is truly the expression of your thoughts?"

"On my honour, Caballero. During the fight I should not have felt the slightest hesitation in killing him – for in that case I was defending the life he tried to take; but now that he is a prisoner, and unarmed, I have no longer aught to do with him."

In spite of the mask of indifference the stranger wore on his face, he could not completely hide the joy he experienced at hearing these noble sentiments so simply expressed.

There was a moment's silence, during which the three men seemed questioning each other's faces. At length Stronghand spoke again, and addressed the bandit, who remained motionless, and apparently indifferent to what was being said —

"Go! You are free!" he said, as he cut the last bonds that held him. "But remember, Kidd, that if it has pleased this Caballero to forget your offences, I have not pardoned them. You know me, so do your best to keep out of my way, or you will not escape, so easily as this day, the just punishment you have deserved. Begone!"

"All right, Stronghand, I will remember," the bandit said, with a covert threat.

And at once gliding into the bushes, he disappeared, without taking further leave of the persons who had given him his life.