Hearts of Three 11

Hearts of Three 11

He tried to draw away from the armful of deliciousness, and only half

succeeded. Still, at such slight removal of distance, he essayed the

intellectual part, rather than the emotional part he desired all too

strongly to act.

 

“And now I know at last what a frame-up is,” he assured her, farthest

from the promptings of his heart. “If these Latins of your country

thought more coolly instead of acting so passionately, they might be

building railroads and developing their country. That trial was a

straight passionate frame-up. They just _knew_ I was guilty and were so

eager to punish me that they wouldn’t even bother for mere evidence or

establishment of identity. Why delay? They _knew_ Henry Morgan had

knifed Alfaro. They _knew_ I was Henry Morgan. When one knows, why

bother to find out?”

 

Deaf to his words, sobbing and struggling to cling closer while he

spoke, the moment he had finished she was deep again in his arms,

against him, to him, her lips raised to his; and, ere he was aware, his

own lips to hers.

 

“I love you, I love you,” she whispered brokenly.

 

“No, no,” he denied what he most desired. “Henry and I are too alike. It

is Henry you love, and I am not Henry.”

 

She tore herself away from her own clinging, drew Henry’s ring from her

finger, and threw it on the floor. Francis was so beyond himself that he

knew not what was going to happen the next moment, and was only saved

from whatever it might be by the entrance of the Comisario, watch in

hand, with averted face striving to see naught else than the moments

registered by the second-hand on the dial.

 

She stiffened herself proudly, and all but broke down again as Francis

slipped Henry’s ring back on her finger and kissed her hand in farewell.

Just ere she passed out the door she turned and with a whispered

movement of the lips that was devoid of sound told him: “I love you.”

 

* * * * *

 

Promptly as the stroke of the clock, at ten o’clock Francis was led out

into the jail patio where stood the gallows. All San Antonio was

joyously and shoutingly present, including much of the neighboring

population and Leoncia, Enrico Solano, and his five tall sons. Enrico

and his sons fumed and strutted, but the Jefe Politico, backed by the

Comisario and his gendarmes, was adamant. In vain, as Francis was forced

to the foot of the scaffold, did Leoncia strive to get to him and did

her men strive to persuade her to leave the patio. In vain, also, did

her father and brothers protest that Francis was not the man. The Jefe

Politico smiled contemptuously and ordered the execution to proceed.

 

On top the scaffold, standing on the trap, Francis declined the

ministrations of the priest, telling him in Spanish that no innocent man

being hanged needed intercessions with the next world, but that the men

who were doing the hanging were in need of just such intercessions.

 

They had tied Francis’ legs, and were in the act of tying his arms, with

the men who held the noose and the black cap hovering near to put them

on him, when the voice of a singer was heard approaching from without;

and the song he sang was:

 

“Back to back against the mainmast,

Held at bay the entire crew....”

 

Leoncia, almost fainting, recovered at the sound of the voice, and cried

out with sharp delight as she descried Henry Morgan entering, thrusting

aside the guards at the gate who tried to bar his way.

 

At sight of him the only one present who suffered chagrin was Torres,

which passed unnoticed in the excitement. The populace was in accord

with the Jefe, who shrugged his shoulders and announced that one man was

as good as another so long as the hanging went on. And here arose hot

contention from the Solano men that Henry was likewise innocent of the

murder of Alfaro. But it was Francis, from the scaffold, while his arms

and legs were being untied, who shouted through the tumult:

 

“You tried me! You have not tried him! You cannot hang a man without

trial! He must have his trial!”

 

And when Francis had descended from the scaffold and was shaking Henry’s

hand in both his own, the Comisario, with the Jefe at his back, duly

arrested Henry Morgan for the murder of Alfaro Solano.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER IV

 

 

“We must work quickly—that is the one thing sure,” Francis said to the

little conclave of Solanos on the piazza of the Solano hacienda.

 

“One thing sure!” Leoncia cried out scornfully ceasing from her

anguished pacing up and down. “The one thing sure is that we must save

him.”

 

As she spoke, she shook a passionate finger under Francis’ nose to

emphasize her point. Not content, she shook her finger with equal

emphasis under the noses of all and sundry of her father and brothers.

 

“Quick!” she flamed on. “Of course we must be quick. It is that, or....”

Her voice trailed off into the unvoiceable horror of what would happen

to Henry if they were not quick.

 

“All Gringos look alike to the Jefe,” Francis nodded sympathetically.

She was splendidly beautiful and wonderful, he thought. “He certainly

runs all San Antonio, and short shrift is his motto. He’ll give Henry no

more time than he gave us. We must get him out to-night.”

 

“Now listen,” Leoncia began again. “We Solanos cannot permit this ...

this execution. Our pride ... our honor. We cannot permit it. Speak! any

of you. Father—you. Suggest something....”

 

And while the discussion went on, Francis, for the time being silent,

wrestled deep in the throes of sadness. Leoncia’s fervor was

magnificent, but it was for another man and it did not precisely

exhilarate him. Strong upon him was the memory of the jail patio after

he had been released and Henry had been arrested. He could still see,

with the same stab at the heart, Leoncia in Henry’s arms, Henry seeking

her hand to ascertain if his ring was on it, and the long kiss of the

embrace that followed.

 

Ah, well, he sighed to himself, he had done his best. After Henry had

been led away, had he not told Leoncia, quite deliberately and coldly,

that Henry was her man and lover, and the wisest of choices for the

daughter of the Solanos?

 

But the memory of it did not make him a bit happy. Nor did the rightness

of it. Right it was. That he never questioned, and it strengthened him

into hardening his heart against her. Yet the right, he found in his

case, to be the sorriest of consolation.

 

And yet what else could he expect? It was his misfortune to have arrived

too late in Central America, that was all, and to find this flower of

woman already annexed by a previous comer—a man as good as himself, and,

his heart of fairness prompted, even better. And his heart of fairness

compelled loyalty to Henry from him—to Henry Morgan, of the breed and

blood; to Henry Morgan, the wild-fire descendant of a wild-fire

ancestor, in canvas pants, and floppy sombrero, with a penchant for the

ears of strange young men, living on sea biscuit and turtle eggs and

digging up the Bull and the Calf for old Sir Henry’s treasure.

 

* * * * *

 

And while Enrico Solano and his sons talked plans and projects on their

broad piazza, to which Francis lent only half an ear, a house servant

came, whispered in Leoncia’s ear, and led her away around the ell of the

piazza, where occurred a scene that would have excited Francis’

risibilities and wrath.

 

Around the ell, Alvarez Torres, in all the medieval Spanish splendor of

dress of a great haciendado-owner, such as still obtains in Latin

America, greeted her, bowed low with doffed sombrero in hand, and seated

her in a rattan settee. Her own greeting was sad, but shot through with

curiousness, as if she hoped he brought some word of hope.

 

“The trial is over, Leoncia,” he said softly, tenderly, as one speaks of

the dead. “He is sentenced. To-morrow at ten o’clock is the time. It is

all very sad, most very sad. But....” He shrugged his shoulders. “No, I

shall not speak harshly of him. He was an honorable man. His one fault

was his temper. It was too quick, too fiery. It led him into a mischance

of honor. Never, in a cool moment of reasonableness, would he have

stabbed Alfaro——”

 

“He never killed my uncle!” Leoncia cried, raising her averted face.

 

“And it is regrettable,” Torres proceeded gently and sadly, avoiding any

disagreement. “The judge, the people, the Jefe Politico, unfortunately,

are all united in believing that he did. Which is most regrettable. But

which is not what I came to see you about. I came to offer my service in

any and all ways you may command. My life, my honor, are at your

disposal. Speak. I am your slave.”

 

Dropping suddenly and gracefully on one knee before her, he caught her

hand from her lap, and would have instantly flooded on with his speech,

had not his eyes lighted on the diamond ring on her engagement finger.

He frowned, but concealed the frown with bent face until he could drive

it from his features and begin to speak.

 

“I knew you when you were small, Leoncia, so very, very charmingly

small, and I loved you always.—No, listen! Please. My heart must speak.

Hear me out. I loved you always. But when you returned from your

convent, from schooling abroad, a woman, a grand and noble lady fit to

rule in the house of the Solanos, I was burnt by your beauty. I have

been patient. I refrained from speaking. But you may have guessed. You

surely must have guessed. I have been on fire for you ever since. I have

been consumed by the flame of your beauty, by the flame of you that is

deeper than your beauty.”

 

He was not to be stopped, as she well knew, and she listened patiently,

gazing down on his bent head and wondering idly why his hair was so

unbecomingly cut, and whether it had been last cut in New York or San

Antonio.

 

“Do you know what you have been to me ever since your return?”

 

She did not reply, nor did she endeavour to withdraw her hand, although

his was crushing and bruising her flesh against Henry Morgan’s ring. She

forgot to listen, led away by a chain of thought that linked far. Not in

such rhodomontade of speech had Henry Morgan loved and won her, was the

beginning of the chain. Why did those of Spanish blood always voice

their emotions so exaggeratedly? Henry had been so different. Scarcely

had he spoken a word. He had acted. Under her glamor, himself glamoring

her, without warning, so certain was he not to surprise and frighten

her, he had put his arms around her and pressed his lips to hers. And

hers had been neither too startled nor altogether unresponsive. Not

until after that first kiss, arms still around her, had Henry begun to speak at all.