Stronghand: or, The Noble Revenge

CHAPTER IX

A NEW CHARACTER

Although, owing to its position on the shores of the Pacific, Sonora enjoys the blessings of the sea breeze, whose moisture at intervals refreshes the heated atmosphere; still, for three hours in the afternoon, the earth incessantly heated by the torrid sunbeams produces a crushing heat. At such times the country assumes a really desolate aspect beneath the cloudless sky, which seems an immense plate of red-hot iron. The birds suddenly cease their songs, and languidly hide themselves beneath the thick foliage of the trees, which bow their proud crests towards the ground. Men and domestic animals hasten to seek shelter in the houses, raising in their hurried progress a white, impalpable, and calcined dust, which enters mouth and nostrils. For some hours Sonora is converted into a vast desert from which every appearance of life and movement has disappeared.

Everybody is asleep, or at least reclining in the most shady rooms, with closed eyes, and with the body abandoned to that species of somnolency which is neither sleeping nor waking, and which from that very fact is filled with such sweet and voluptuous reveries – inhaling at deep draughts the artificial breeze produced by artfully contrived currents of air, and in a word indulging in what is generally called in the torrid zones a siesta.

These are hours full of enjoyment, of those sweet and beneficent influence on body and mind we busy, active Englishmen are ignorant, but which people nearer the sun revel in. The Italians call this state the dolce far niente, and the Turks, that essentially sensual race, keff.

Like that city in the "Arabian Nights," the inhabitants of which the wicked enchanter suddenly changed into statues by waving his wand, life seemed suddenly arrested at the Hacienda del Toro, for the silence was so profound: peons, vaqueros, craidos, everybody in fact, were enjoying their siesta. It was about three in the afternoon; but that indistinct though significant buzz which announces the awakening of the hour that precedes the resumption of labour was audible. Two gentlemen alone had not yielded to sleep, in spite of the crushing midday heat; but seated in an elegantly furnished cuarto, they had spent the hours usually devoted to slumber in conversation. The cause for this deviation from the ordinary custom must have been most serious. The Hispano-American, and especially the Mexican, does not lightly sacrifice those hours of repose during which, according to a Spanish proverb, only dogs and Frenchmen are to be seen in the sun.

Of these two gentlemen, one, Don Hernando de Moguer, is already known to us. Years, while stooping his back, had furrowed some wrinkles on his forehead, and mingled many silver threads with his hair; but the expression of his face, with the exception of a tinge of melancholy spread over his features by lengthened misfortunes, had remained nearly the same, that is to say, gentle and timid, although clever; slightly sarcastic and eminently crafty.

As for the person with whom Don Hernando was conversing at this moment, he deserves a detailed description, physically at least, for the reader will soon be enabled to appreciate his moral character. He was a short, plump man, with a rubicund face and apoplectic look, though hardly forty years of age. Still his hair, which was almost white, his deeply wrinkled forehead, and his grey eyes buried beneath bushy whiskers, gave him a senile appearance, harmonizing but little with the sharp gesticulation and youthful manner he affected. His long, thin, violet nose was bent like a parrot's beak over a wide mouth filled with dazzling white teeth; and his prominent cheekbones, covered with blue veins, completed a strange countenance, the expression of which bore a striking likeness to that of an owl.

This species of nutcracker, with his prominent stomach and short ill-hung limbs, whose whole appearance was most disagreeable, had such a mobility of face as rendered it impossible to read his thoughts on his features, in the event of this fat man's carcase containing a thought. His cold blue eyes were ever pertinaciously fixed on the person addressing him, and did not reveal the slightest emotion; in short, this man produced at the first contact that invariable antipathy which is felt on the approach of reptiles, and which, after nearer acquaintance, is converted into disgust and contempt.

He was a certain Don Rufino Contreras, one of the richest landowners in Sonora, and a year previously had been elected senator to the Mexican Congress for the province.

At the moment when we enter the cuarto, Don Hernando, with arms folded at his back and frowning brow, is walking up and down, while Don Rufino, seated on a butaca, with his body thrown back, is following his movements with a crafty smile on his lips while striving to scratch off an invisible spot on his knee. For some minutes, the hacendero continued his walk, and then stopped before Don Rufino, who bent on him a mocking, inquiring glance.

"Then," he said, in a voice whose anxious expression he sought in vain to conceal, "you must positively have the entire sum within a week?"

"Yes," the fat man replied, still smiling.

"Why, if that is the case, did you not warn me sooner?"

"It was through delicacy, my dear sir."

"What – through delicacy?" Don Hernando repeated, with a start of surprise.

"You shall judge for yourself."

"I shall be glad to do so."

"I believe you do me the justice of allowing that I am your friend?"

"You have said you are, at least."

"I fancy I have proved it to you."

"No matter; but let us pass over that."

"Very well. Knowing that you were in a critical position at the moment, I tried to procure the sum by all possible means, as I did not wish to have recourse to you, except in the last extremity. You see, my dear Don Hernando, how delicate and truly friendly my calculations were. Unfortunately, at the present time it is very difficult to get money in, owing to the stagnation of trade produced by the new conflict which threatens to break out between the President of the Republic and the Southern States. It was therefore literally impossible for me to obtain the smallest sum. In such a perplexing position, I leave you to judge what I was obliged to do. The money I must have; you have owed it for a long time, and I applied to you – what else could I do?"

"I do not know. Still, I think you might have sent a peon to warn me, before you left Sonora."

"No, my dear sir, that is exactly what I should not do. I have not come direct to you: in pursuance of the line of conduct I laid down I hoped to collect the required sum on my road, and not be obliged to come all the way to your hacienda."

Don Hernando made no reply. He began his walk again after giving the speaker a glance which would have given him cause for thought, had he noticed it; but the latter gentleman had begun rubbing the invisible spot again with more obstinacy than before. In the meanwhile the sunbeams had become more and more oblique; the hacienda had woke up to its ordinary life; outside the shouts of the vaqueros pricking the oxen or urging on the horses could be heard mingled with the lowing and neighing of the draught cattle. Don Hernando walked up to a window, the shutters of which he threw open, and a refreshing breeze entered the cuarto. Don Rufino gave a sigh of relief and sat up in his butaca.

"Ouf," he said, with an expression of comfort, "I was very tired; not through the long ride I was compelled to make this morning, so much as through the stifling heat."

Don Hernando started at this insinuation, as if he had been stung by a serpent; he had neglected all the laws of Mexican hospitality; for Don Rufino's visit had so disagreeably surprised him, and made him forget all else before the sudden obligation of satisfying the claims of a merciless creditor. But at Don Rufino's remarks he understood how unusual his conduct must have seemed to a weary traveller, hence he rang a bell, and a peon at once came in.

"Refreshment," he said.

The peon bowed, and left the room.

"You will excuse me, Caballero," the hacendero continued, frankly, "but your visit so surprised me, that at the moment I did not think of offering the refreshment which a tired traveller requires so much. Your room is prepared, rest yourself tonight, and tomorrow we will resume our conversation, and arrive at a solution I trust mutually satisfactory."

"I hope so, my dear sir. Heaven is my witness that it is my greatest desire," Don Rufino answered, as he raised to his lips the glass of orangeade brought by the peon. "Unhappily I fear that, with the best will in the world, we cannot come to a settlement unless – "

"Unless!" Don Hernando sharply interrupted. Don Rufino quietly sipped his orangeade, placed the glass on the table, and said, as he threw himself back on the butaca, and rolled a cigarette —

"Unless you pay me in full what you owe me, which, from what you have said, appears to me to be difficult, I confess."

"Ah!" Don Hernando remarked with an air of constraint, "What makes you suppose that?"

"I beg your pardon, my dear sir, I suppose nothing: you told me just now that you were hardly pressed."

"Well, and what conclusion do you derive from that?" the hacendero asked impatiently.

"A very simple thing – that seventy thousand piastres form a rather round sum, and that however rich a man may be, he does not always have it in his hands, especially when he is pressed."

"I can make sacrifices."

"Believe me, I shall be sincerely sorry."

"But can you not wait a few days longer?"

"Impossible, I repeat: let us understand our respective positions, in order to avoid any business misunderstanding, which should always be prevented between honourable gentlemen holding a certain position. I lent you that sum, and only stipulated for small interest, I believe."

"I allow it, Señor, and thank you for it."

"It is not really worth the trouble; I was anxious to oblige you. I did so, and let us say no more about it; but remember that I made one condition which you accepted."

"Yes," Don Hernando said, with an impatient start, "and I was wrong."

"Perhaps so; but that is not the question. This condition which you accepted was to the effect that you should repay me the sum I advanced upon demand."

"Have I said the contrary?"

"Far from it; but now that I want the money, I ask you for it, and that is natural: I have in no way infringed the conditions. You ought to have expected what is happening today, and taken your precautions accordingly."

"Hence, if I ask a month to collect the money you claim?"

"I should be heartbroken, but should refuse; for I want the money, not in a month, but in a week. I can quite put myself in your position, and comprehend how disagreeable the matter must be; but unluckily so it is."

What most hurt Don Hernando was not the recall of the loan, painful as it was to him, so much as the way in which the demand was made; the show of false good nature employed by his creditor, and the insulting pity he displayed. Carried away involuntarily by the rage that filled his heart, he was about to give Don Rufino an answer which would have broken off all friendly relations between them for ever, when a great noise was heard in the hacienda, mingled with shouts of joy and the stamping of horses. Don Hernando eagerly leant out of the window, and at the expiration of a moment turned round to Don Rufino, who was sucking his cigarette with an air of beatitude.

"Here are my children, Caballero," he said; "not a word of this affair before them, I entreat."

"I know too well what I owe you, my dear Señor," the other replied, as he prepared to rise. "With your permission, however, I will withdraw, in order to allow you entire liberty for your family joy."

"No, no!" Don Hernando added, "I had better introduce you at once to my son and daughter."

"As you please, my dear sir. I shall be flattered to form the acquaintance of your charming family."

The door opened, and Don José Parades appeared. The majordomo was a half-breed of about forty years of age, tall and powerfully built, with bow legs and round shoulders that denoted his capacity as a horseman; in fact, the worthy man's life was spent in the saddle, galloping about the country. He took a side-glance at Don Rufino, bowed to his master, and lowering his usual rough tone, said —

"Señor amo, the niño and niña have arrived in good health, thanks to Our Lady of Carnerno."

"Thanks, Don José," Don Hernando replied; "let them come in. I shall be delighted to see them."

The majordomo gave a signal outside, and the two young people rushed into the room. With one bound they were in their father's arms, who for a moment pressed them to his heart; but then he pushed them away, remarking that a stranger was present. The young couple bowed respectfully.

"Señor Don Rufino," the Marquis said, "I present to you my son, Don Ruiz de Moguer, and my daughter, Doña Marianita: my children, this is Señor Don Rufino Contreras, one of my best friends."

"A title of which I am proud," Don Rufino replied, with a bow, while giving the young lady a cold searching glance, which made her look down involuntarily and blush.

"Are the apartments ready, Don José?" Don Hernando continued.

"Yes, Excellency," the majordomo said, who was contemplating the young people with a radiant face.

"If Señor Don Rufino will permit it, you can go and lie down, my children," the hacendero said. "You must be tired."

"You will also allow me to rest, Don Hernando?" the Senator then said. The hacendero bowed.

"We will resume our conversation at a more favourable moment," he continued, as he took a side-glance at Donna Marianita, who was just leaving the room with her brother. "However, my dear Señor, do not feel too anxious about my visit; for I believe I have discovered a way of arranging matters without inconveniencing you too much."

And, bowing to his knees to the Marquis, who was astounded at this conduct, which he was so far from expecting, Don Rufino left the room, smiling with an air of protection.

CHAPTER X

DON JOSÉ PAREDES

Several days had elapsed since the return of Don Ruiz and his sister to the hacienda, and Don Rufino had not said a word about the money which occasioned his visit. The hacendero, while employing all the means in his power to procure the necessary sum to pay his debt, had been careful not to allude to the conversation he had held with his creditor on the first day; the more so because Don Rufino seemed to have forgotten the pressing want of money he had at first given as his excuse for not granting any delay.

At the hacienda everything had returned to its old condition. Don Ruiz went out on horseback in the morning with José Paredes, in order to watch the peons and vaqueros, leaving to his father and sister the care of doing the honours to Don Rufino. For the first two or three days Doña Marianita had been considerably embarrassed by their guest's obsequious smiles and passionate glances; but she soon made up her mind, and only laughed at the craving look and absurd postures of the stout gentleman. The latter, while perceiving the effect he produced on the young lady, appeared to take no heed of it, and conscientiously continued his manoeuvres with the tenacity that formed the basis of his character. Probably in acting thus, and by openly paying his court to Doña Marianita, in the presence of her father and brother, Don Rufino was carrying out a pre-arranged plan, in order to gain an end which may be easily guessed.

It was evident to everybody that Don Rufino was seeking to obtain the hand of Doña Marianita. Don Hernando, in spite of the secret annoyance this pursuit caused him, for this man was the last he would have desired as his son-in-law, did not dare, however, let his vexation be seen, owing to his delicate position, and the sword of Damocles which Don Rufino held in suspense over his head. He contented himself with watching him closely, while leaving him free to act, hoping everything from him, and striving to collect all his resources in order to pay him off as speedily as possible; and once liberty was regained, to dismiss him. Unfortunately, money was difficult to obtain. Most of Don Hernando's debtors failed in meeting their engagements; and it was with great difficulty he obtained at the end of a fortnight one quarter the sum he owed Don Rufino, and this sum even could not be employed in liquidating the debt, for it was indispensable for the continuation of the works at the hacienda.

Since his arrival at the hacienda, Don Rufino had sent off messengers in several directions, and received letters. One morning he entered Don Hernando's study with an easy air, where the latter passed nearly the day, engaged in the most abstruse calculations. The hacendero raised his head with amazement on seeing the Senator; it was the first time the latter had come to seek him in this room. He suffered a heart pang; but he succeeded in hiding his emotion, and good-humouredly invited his visitor to take a seat.

"My dear Señor," Don Rufino began, as he comfortably stretched himself out upon a butaca, "excuse me for pursuing you into your last entrenchments, but I want to talk seriously with you, and so I frankly knocked at this door."

"You have done well," Don Hernando answered, with ill-dissembled agony: "you know that I am entirely at your disposal. How can I be of any service to you?"

"I will not trouble you long: I am not fond of lengthy conversations, and have merely come to terminate the affair which we began on the day when I arrived at the hacienda."

The hacendero felt a cold perspiration stand on his temples at this brutally frank avowal.

"I had not forgotten you," he replied: "at this very moment I was making arrangements which, I trust, will enable me to discharge the debt in a few days."

"That is not the point," Don Rufino remarked, airily: "I do not want the money, and request you to hold it for me as long as you possibly can."

Don Hernando looked at him in amazement. "That surprises you," the Senator continued, "and yet the affair is very simple. I was anxious to prove to you that you had in me not a pressing creditor, but a truly devoted friend. When I saw that it would greatly embarrass you to repay me this trifle, and as you are a gentleman I am anxious to oblige, I turned to another quarter."

"Still," Don Hernando, who feared a snare, objected: "you said to me – "

"I believed it," Don Rufino interrupted him. "Fortunately it was not so, as I have recently acquired the proof: not only have I been able to meet my payment, but I have a considerable sum left in my hands which I do not know what to do with, and which I should feel much obliged by your taking; for I do not know a more honourable gentleman than yourself, and I wish to get rid of the money, which is useless to me at the moment."

Don Hernando, confounded by this overture, which he had been so far from expecting from a man who had at first been so harsh with him, was silent, for he knew not what to answer, or to what he should attribute this so sudden and extraordinary change.

"Good gracious!" continued Don Rufino, with a smile; "During the few days I have been with you, my dear Señor, I have been enabled to appreciate the intelligent way in which you manage your immense estate; and it is evident to me that you must realize enormous profits. Unfortunately for you, you are in the position of all men who undertake great things with limited resources. You are short of capital just at the moment when it is most necessary; but as this is a common case, you cannot complain. You have made sacrifices, and will have to make more before obtaining real results. The money you want I have, and I offer it to you. I trust you will not insult me by doubting my friendship, or my desire to be of service to you."

"Certainly, Caballero. Still," Don Hernando stammered, "I am already your debtor to a heavy amount."

"Well, what matter? You will be my debtor for a larger amount, that is all."

"I understand all the delicacy and kindness of your conduct, but I fear – "

"What? – That I may demand repayment at an inconvenient moment?"

"I will not conceal from you – "

"You are wrong, Don Hernando. I wish to deal with you as a friend, and do you a real service. You owe me seventy thousand piastres, I believe?"

"Alas, yes!"

"Why that 'alas?'" the senator asked, with a smile. "Seventy thousand piastres, and fifty thousand more I am going to hand you directly, in six bills payable at sight, drawn on Wilson and Co., Bankers, at Hermosillo, will form a round sum, for which you will give me your acceptance payable – come, what date will suit you best?"

Don Hernando hesitated. Evidently Don Rufino, in making him so strange a proposal, had an object; but that object he could not see. The Senator's love for his daughter could not impel him to do such a generous act: this unexpected kindness evidently concealed a snare; but what was the snare? Don Rufino carefully followed the different feelings that were reflected on Don Hernando's face.

"You hesitate," he said to him, "and you are wrong. Let us talk candidly. You cannot possibly hope to realize any profit within eight months, so it will be impossible for you to pay me so large a sum before that period." Then, opening his pocketbook and taking out the six bills, which he laid on the table, he continued: "Here are the fifty thousand piastres; give me an acceptance for one hundred and twenty thousand, payable at twelve months' date. You see that I give you all necessary latitude to turn yourself round. Well, supposing – which is not probable – that you are unable to pay me when the bill falls due; we will renew it, that is all. ¡Cuerpo de Cristo! I am not a harsh creditor. Come, is the matter settled, or must I take the bills back?"

Money, under whatever shape it presents itself, has an irresistible attraction in the eyes of the speculator and embarrassed man. Don Hernando, in spite of all his efforts – in spite of all the numerous sacrifices he had made, felt himself rapidly going down the incline of ruin, on which it is impossible for a man to stop; but time might save him. Don Rufino, whatever his wishes might be, rendered him an immense service by giving him, not only time, but also the money he required, and which he despaired of obtaining elsewhere. Any longer hesitation on his part would therefore have been unjustifiable; hence he took the bills, and gave his acceptance.