Hearts of Three 33

Hearts of Three 33

He shook his father out of his prayers, announcing:

 

“The sand no longer is noisy. It is as silent as the grave. And I have

seen the enemy of the rich Gringo pass across the sand without sound. He

is not devoid of sin, this Alvarez Torres, yet did the sand make no

sound. The sand has died. The voice of the sand is not. Where the sinful

may walk, you and I, old father, may walk.”

 

Inside the circle, the old Maya, with trembling forefinger in the sand,

traced further cabalistic characters; and the sand did not shout back at

him. Outside the circle it was the same——because the sand had become

wet, and because it was the way of the sand to be vocal only when it was

bone-dry under the sun. He fingered the knots of the sacred writing

tassel.

 

“It says,” he reported, “that when the sand no longer talks it is safe

to proceed. So far I have obeyed all instruction. In order to obey

further instruction, let us now proceed.”

 

So well did they proceed, that, shortly beyond the barking sands, they

overtook Torres and Mancheno, which worthy pair slunk off into the brush

on one side, watched the priest and his son go by, and took up their

trail well in the rear. While Henry, taking a short cut, missed both

couples of men.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XV

 

 

“Even so, it was a mistake and a weakness on my part to remain in

Panama,” Francis was saying to Leoncia, as they sat side by side on the

rocks outside the cave entrance, waiting Henry’s return.

 

“Does the stock market of New York then mean so much to you?” Leoncia

coquettishly teased; yet only part of it was coquetry, the major portion

of it being temporization. She was afraid of being alone with this man

whom she loved so astoundingly and terribly.

 

Francis was impatient.

 

“I am ever a straight talker, Leoncia. I say what I mean, in the

directest, shortest way——”

 

“Wherein you differ from us Spaniards,” she interpolated, “who must

garnish and dress the simplest thoughts with all decorations of speech.”

 

But he continued undeterred what he had started to say.

 

“There you are a baffler, Leoncia, which was just what I was going to

call you. I speak straight talk and true talk, which is a man’s way. You

baffle in speech, and flutter like a butterfly——which, I grant, is a

woman’s way and to be expected. Nevertheless, it is not fair ... to me.

I tell you straight out the heart of me, and you understand. You do not

tell me your heart. You flutter and baffle, and I do not understand.

Therefore, you have me at a disadvantage. You know I love you. I have

told you plainly. I? What do I know about you?”

 

With downcast eyes and rising color in her cheeks, she sat silent,

unable to reply.

 

“You see!” he insisted. “You do not answer. You look warmer and more

beautiful and desirable than ever, more enticing, in short; and yet you

baffle me and tell me nothing of your heart or intention. Is it because

you are woman? Or because you are Spanish?”

 

She felt herself stirred profoundly. Beyond herself, yet in cool control

of herself, she raised her eyes and looked steadily in his as steadily

she said:

 

“I can be Anglo-Saxon, or English, or American, or whatever you choose

to name the ability to look things squarely in the face and to talk

squarely into the face of things.” She paused and debated coolly with

herself, and coolly resumed. “You complain that while you have told me

that you love me, I have not told you whether or not I love you. I shall

settle that forever and now. I do love you——”

 

She thrust his eager arms away from her.

 

“Wait!” she commanded. “Who is the woman now? Or the Spaniard? I had not

finished. I love you. I am proud that I love you. Yet there is more. You

have asked me for my heart and intention. I have told you part of the

one. I now tell you all of the other: I _intend_ to marry Henry.”

 

Such Anglo-Saxon directness left Francis breathless.

 

“In heaven’s name, why?” was all he could utter.

 

“Because I love Henry,” she answered, her eyes still unshrinkingly on

his.

 

“And you ... you say you love _me_?” he quavered.

 

“And I love you, too. I love both of you. I am a good woman, at least I

always used to think so. I still think so, though my reason tells me

that I cannot love two men at the same time and be a good woman. I don’t

care about that. If I am bad, it is I, and I cannot help myself for

being what I was born to be.”

 

She paused and waited, but her lover was still speechless.

 

“And who’s the Anglo-Saxon now?” she queried, with a slight smile, half

of bravery, half of amusement at the dumbness of consternation her words

had produced in him. “I have told you, without baffling, without

fluttering, my full heart and my full intention.”

 

“But you can’t!” he protested wildly. “You can’t love me and marry

Henry.”

 

“Perhaps you have not understood,” she chided gravely. “I intend to

marry Henry. I love you. I love Henry. But I cannot marry both of you.

The law will not permit. Therefore I shall marry only one of you. It is

my intention that that one be Henry.”

 

“Then why, why,” he demanded, “did you persuade me into remaining?”

 

“Because I loved you. I have already so told you.”

 

“If you keep this up I shall go mad!” he cried.

 

“I have felt like going mad over it myself many times,” she assured him.

“If you think it is easy for me thus to play the Anglo-Saxon, you are

mistaken. But no Anglo-Saxon, not even you whom I love so dearly, can

hold me in contempt because I hide the shameful secrets of the impulses

of my being. Less shameful I find it, for me to tell them, right out in

meeting, to you. If this be Anglo-Saxon, make the most of it. If it be

Spanish, and woman, and Solano, still make the most of it, for I am

Spanish, and woman——a Spanish woman of the Solanos——”

 

“But I don’t talk with my hands,” she added with a wan smile in the

silence that fell.

 

Just as he was about to speak, she hushed him, and both listened to a

crackling and rustling from the underbrush that advertised the passage

of humans.

 

“Listen,” she whispered hurriedly, laying her hand suddenly on his arm,

as if pleading. “I shall be finally Anglo-Saxon, and for the last time,

when I tell you what I am going to tell you. Afterward, and for always,

I shall be the baffling, fluttering, female Spaniard you have chosen for

my description. Listen: I love Henry, it is true, very true. I love you

more, much more. I shall marry Henry ... because I love him and am

pledged to him. Yet always shall I love you more.”

 

Before he could protest, the old Maya priest and his peon son emerged

from the underbrush close upon them. Scarcely noticing their presence,

the priest went down on his knees, exclaiming, in Spanish:

 

“For the first time have my eyes beheld the eyes of Chia.”

 

He ran the knots of the sacred tassel and began a prayer in Maya, which,

could they have understood, ran as follows:

 

“O immortal Chia, great spouse of the divine Hzatzl who created all

things out of nothingness! O immortal spouse of Hzatzl, thyself the

mother of the corn, the divinity of the heart of the husked grain,

goddess of the rain and the fructifying sun-rays, nourisher of all the

grains and roots and fruits for the sustenance of man! O glorious Chia,

whose mouth ever commands the ear of Hzatzl, to thee humbly, thy priest,

I make my prayer. Be kind to me, and forgiving. From thy mouth let issue

forth the golden key that opens the ear of Hzatzl. Let thy faithful

priest gain to Hzatzl’s treasure——Not for himself, O Divinity, but for

the sake of his son whom the Gringo saved. Thy children, the Mayas,

pass. There is no need for them of the treasure. I am thy last priest.

With me passes all understanding of thee and of thy great spouse, whose

name I breathe only with my forehead on the stones. Hear me, O Chia,

hear me! My head is on the stones before thee!”

 

For all of five minutes the old Maya lay prone, quivering and jerking as

if in a catalepsy, while Leoncia and Francis looked curiously on,

themselves half-swept by the unmistakable solemnity of the old man’s

prayer, non-understandable though it was.

 

Without waiting for Henry, Francis entered the cave a second time. With

Leoncia beside him, he felt quite like a guide as he showed the old

priest over the place. The latter, ever reading the knots and mumbling,

followed behind, while the peon was left on guard outside. In the avenue

of mummies the priest halted reverently——not so much for the mummies as

for the sacred tassel.

 

“It is so written,” he announced, holding out a particular string of

knots. “These men were evil, and robbers. Their doom here is to wait

forever outside the inner room of Maya mystery.”

 

Francis hurried him past the heap of bones of his father before him, and

led him into the inner chamber, where first of all, he prostrated

himself before the two idols and prayed long and earnestly. After that,

he studied certain of the strings very carefully. Then he made an

announcement, first in Maya, which Francis gave him to know was

unintelligible, and next in broken Spanish: