'Pardon, senor, you haf mistake, The Saltillo haf for three hundred year no stain, no blot upon him. Eet is not now--the last of the race--who shall confess that he haf sit at a board of disgrace and dishonor!' And then it is that the band begin to play, and the animals stand on their hind leg and waltz, and behold, the row he haf begin!"I ran over to him, and fairly hugged him. But he put me aside with a gentle and philosophical calm. "Ah, eet is nothing, Pancho. It is, believe me, all the same a hundred years to come, and where are you, then? The earth he turn round, and then come el temblor, the earthquake, and there you are! Bah! eet is not of the board that Ihave asked you to come; it is something else I would tell you. Go and wash yourself of thees journey, my leetle brother, as I have"--looking at his narrow, brown, well-bred hands--"wash myself of the board. Be very careful of the leetle old woman, Pancho; do not wink to her of the eye! Consider, my leetle brother, for one hundred and one year he haf been as a nun, a saint! Disturb not her tranquillity."Yes, it was the old Enriquez; but he seemed graver,--if I could use that word of one of such persistent gravity; only his gravity heretofore had suggested a certain irony rather than a melancholy which I now fancied I detected. And what was this "something else"he was to "tell me later"? Did it refer to Mrs. Saltillo? I had purposely waited for him to speak of her, before I should say anything of my visit to Carquinez Springs. I hurried through my ablutions in the hot water, brought in a bronze jar on the head of the centenarian handmaid; and even while I was smiling over Enriquez's caution regarding this aged Ruth, I felt I was getting nervous to hear his news.
I found him in his sitting-room, or study,--a long, low apartment with small, deep windows like embrasures in the outer adobe wall, but glazed in lightly upon the veranda. He was sitting quite abstractedly, with a pen in his hand, before a table, on which a number of sealed envelopes were lying. He looked SO formal and methodical for Enriquez.
"You like the old casa, Pancho?" he said in reply to my praise of its studious and monastic gloom. "Well, my leetle brother, some day that is fair--who knows?--it may be at your disposicion; not of our politeness, but of a truth, friend Pancho. For, if I leave it to my wife"--it was the first time he had spoken of her--"for my leetle child," he added quickly, "I shall put in a bond, an obligacion, that my friend Pancho shall come and go as he will.""The Saltillos are a long-lived race," I laughed. "I shall be a gray-haired man, with a house and family of my own by that time."But I did not like the way he had spoken.
"Quien sabe?" he only said, dismissing the question with the national gesture. After a moment he added: "I shall tell you something that is strrange, so strrange that you shall say, like the banker say, 'Thees Enriquez, he ees off his head; he ees a crank, a lunatico;' but it ees a FACT; believe me, I have said!"He rose, and, going to the end of the room, opened a door. It showed a pretty little room, femininely arranged in Mrs. Saltillo's refined taste. "Eet is pretty; eet is the room of my wife. Bueno!
attend me now." He closed the door, and walked back to the table.
"I have sit here and write when the earthquake arrive. I have feel the shock, the grind of the walls on themselves, the tremor, the stagger, and--that--door--he swing open!""The door?" I said, with a smile that I felt was ghastly.
"Comprehend me," he said quickly; "it ees not THAT which ees strrange. The wall lift, the lock slip, the door he fell open; it is frequent; it comes so ever when the earthquake come. But eet is not my wife's room I see; it is ANOTHER ROOM, a room I know not.
My wife Urania, she stand there, of a fear, of a tremble; she grasp, she cling to someone. The earth shake again; the door shut.
I jump from my table; I shake and tumble to the door. I fling him open. Maravilloso! it is the room of my wife again. She is NOTthere; it is empty; it is nothing!"
I felt myself turning hot and cold by turns. I was horrified, and--and I blundered. "And who was the other figure?" I gasped.
"Who?" repeated Enriquez, with a pause, a fixed look at me, and a sublime gesture. "Who SHOULD it be, but myself, Enriquez Saltillo?"A terrible premonition that this was a chivalrous LIE, that it was NOT himself he had seen, but that our two visions were identical, came upon me. "After all," I said, with a fixed smile, "if you could imagine you saw your wife, you could easily imagine you saw yourself too. In the shock of the moment you thought of HERnaturally, for then she would as naturally seek your protection.
You have written for news of her?"
"No," said Enriquez quietly.
"No?" I repeated amazedly.
"You understand, Pancho! Eef it was the trick of my eyes, why should I affright her for the thing that is not? If it is the truth, and it arrive to ME, as a warning, why shall I affright her before it come?""Before WHAT comes? What is it a warning of?" I asked impetuously.
"That we shall be separated! That I go, and she do not."To my surprise, his dancing eyes had a slight film over them. "Idon't understand you," I said awkwardly.
