"YES, the governor himself came in a carriage behind the soldiers, and took the poor angel away. That was not more than an hour after you left with Don Gabriel. It was a thing to make the heart rage, and not even Doña Carlota permitted to go with her."
Cecilia spoke in low tones, distrustful of every shadow that moved. She had taken her visitors into her cabin, which was the farthest removed of all the laborers' dwellings from Don Abrahan's mansion on account of the corral for the goats which ran out from its corners. As they talked with her in the dark, the sound of the goats champing the cuds they had gathered during the day, the shuffling of the feet of such restless ones as had not yet lain down to their night's repose, came into the little cabin. Liseta could be heard breathing in her throbbing excitement where she sat on her cowhide cot against the wall, her head dimly seen against the open window.
"What is Don Abrahan doing about it?" Gabriel inquired, speaking softly, impressed by Cecilia's caution.
"Nothing, Don Gabriel. There seems to be some new arrangement. General Verdugo, as you know, has been put out of his place by the governor."
"Verdugo out?" Felipe exclaimed in incredulous surprise. "Who told you this, Cecilia?"
"One of the soldiers, Don Felipe. There is nothing a soldier will not tell me if I can speak a little while with him. My husband was a soldier in his day."
"Then Colonel Ybarra is in command. He is worse, Gabriel, far worse, than the other."
"Is it possible you have heard nothing of this big news?" Cecilia asked, in vast surprise. "I thought they must know at Monterey by now that Roberto has been made general by the governor."
"Roberto! What general, even of forty men!"
Henderson was almost amused, in spite of Helena Sprague's uncertain situation in the hands of this vengeful youth.
"He is a military man; he held the rank of colonel," Felipe explained, no amusement in the matter of Roberto's elevation apparent to him.
"There is a cannon," said Cecilia gravely. "I have heard it will shoot through the wall of a church."
"It is an admirable arrangement they have made of it," Felipe said. "Don Abrahan must have given up all his share in the division of Helena's estate to the governor. He could afford it, having the civil and military power now in his hands."
"There is justice to be thankful for in one quarter," Cecilia said. "Simon is still in the prison where you locked him, Don Gabriel. No key can be found to let him out. I pray God it is lost forever!"
"What does it mean when they wouldn't permit her aunt to go with her, Felipe? What do you suppose they've done, or design to do?"
Gabriel's concern was great. In his agitation he went to the door, closed in Cecilia's caution, opened it and stood gazing toward the pueblo as if for his answer out of the dark.
Cecilia came softly, pushed him back into the room, and closed the door.
"There will be somebody passing," she said.
As for the window, that did not seem to trouble her. It opened upon the goat corral; the strong scent of the animals came in with the slow breeze.
"It has a bad color, that," Felipe said, trouble in his tone.
"I'm going to the pueblo to find out," Gabriel declared.
"Don Gabriel, Don Gabriel! It would be death—to go!"
Liseta sprang from her cot as she made this protest, the first word she had spoken since the visitors entered the door.
"She speaks the truth," Cecilia whispered.
"I heard Don Roberto swear he would burn you, tied to the very cross where you tied him today," Liseta said.
"Thanks for your warning, Liseta; you always were a good friend to me," Gabriel said. "But I must go; I am burning up my time."
"Soldiers were sent to hunt for you and Don Felipe. I saw them from the hill when I gathered in the goats this evening."
"Which way were they going, Liseta?"
"Toward the pass, Don Gabriel. I heard Don Abrahan say you would try to escape to the north."
"That is very good," Gabriel said, touching Felipe's arm in the dark. "Every one of them that's away will be one less for us to face in the pueblo. Are you ready, Felipe?"
"There will be a matter of an extra horse for Helena," Felipe said. "Who watches the stable, since Simon is in prison, Cecilia?"
"Old Vincente, the carpenter, has been around this evening. I doubt if anybody watches."
"There will be no difficulty," Felipe said.
Felipe left something in Cecilia's hand as they parted from her at the door, that was more than unemphasized thanks to the poor widow living out her hopeless peonage under the beneficent Don Abrahan's shadow.
"Don Felipe," she said earnestly, "tell me, is it true the Americans are coming to set free all the poor ones who are enslaved by unjust debts?"
"It is true, Cecilia."
"I pray the sun may not set three times before they come!" she said.
There seemed the very breath of romance in the night as Henderson and Felipe rode away toward the pueblo, Felipe leading the horse taken from Don Abrahan's corral. To Henderson it seemed as if the dark were charged with the suspense of mystery. There was the scent of lemon blossoms from Don Abrahan's orchard, and of jasmine from some humble door.
"It will be a late moon," said Felipe.
"So much the better for us."
"Yes, people will be awake until midnight these times, talking over this great news of war. I have a friend who will know all that has happened today. His home is behind the church; we can leave our horses a little way off to keep any suspicion of complicity from his door."
The pueblo of Los Angeles, called by the Franciscans who founded the place La Ciudad de Nuestra Señora La Reina de Los Angeles, or The City of Our Lady Queen of the Angels, was a village of a few score houses at that time, most of them the mean dwellings of the poor. These were clustered around the church, which stood on one side of the plaza, the governor's mansion, so called, and the military barracks facing it. This plaza was the gulf between consequence and obscurity, most of the influential and wealthy people living on the governor's side.
All about the little city were the pastures and fields, orange orchards and vineyards of the great estates of the hidalgos who had received their grants from the king. Many of these estates had passed from the grantees' hands into the possession of others, generally less worthy, in the rebellion against the authority of Spain, yet the face of things had not changed, the new owners being no more progressive than the old.
It was not yet midnight when Henderson and Felipe rode into the town. Contrary to Felipe's prediction, there was no waking over the news. The houses were dark and silent, even the house of Felipe's friend.
"This is a strange business," said Felipe, his voice made low as if he stood among sleepers.
They had come to a halt a little distance from his friend's house, a white-plastered adobe of considerable size, which stood in a grove of orange and fig trees. The wasted moon was then rising redly above the valley of San Gabriel; its faint light discovered the dark masses of the orange trees, the white arms of the fig trees. It also was strong enough to make their present situation one of insecurity from the eyes of any person who might pass, or come to the window of the neighboring house a little way along the thinly-built street.
"If you will take the horses back among the oak trees," Felipe suggested, pointing to an unfenced common that seemed to stretch away into the wilds, "I will sound on his door and see if he will come."
Henderson withdrew to the shadow of the oaks, where he dismounted, holding the reins of the three horses to be ready for any emergency. If he distrusted Felipe a little, surely he was not to be blamed, having had his lesson in treachery and betrayal so lately. The house to which Felipe was supposed to have gone displayed no light; there was not so much as the bark of a dog to break the straining pitch of Henderson's expectation as he subdued his breath to listen.
Felipe had not gone to betray him to the authorities. Henderson abased himself in his own conscience for harboring such a suspicion when he heard his little friend returning with cautious tread. It seemed that he had been gone long enough to gather not only the history of one day, but of all the years since the founding of the pueblo.
"Here is an unexpected thing!"
These were Felipe's words as he came up in high excitement. He touched Henderson's arm, as if to calm him for the revelation he was about to make.
"What have you found out, Felipe?" Henderson inquired, far steadier in voice and pulse than his friend.
"There has been a disagreement already between the governor and his new general, and the general, determined to have his way, has suspended the civil law."
"You mean the town is under martial law, Felipe?"
"That is it. Here is a difficulty, a great difficulty, unforeseen."
"What have they done with Helena Sprague?"
Henderson's voice was not so steady when he asked this, the first and greatest thing in the hearts of both of them, try as Felipe might to hold it back for whatever kind purpose that he would.
"The coward has tried and condemned her. She will be shot at the first light of dawn."
"Roberto? Would he dare defy his father to this length?"
"It is true, Gabriel. My friend is in confidence of a captain of the military; he has heard all. It was over this trial and condemnation that Roberto and the governor quarreled. The governor would not have gone so far."
"Where do they—where will it be done?"
Henderson's voice was dry, harsh. It seemed that the blasting fire of Roberto's vengeance had leaped and reached him, as Roberto had designed that it should do; it seemed that it had withered the youth in him, leaving only the ashes of a man.
"In the plaza, in the face of all the town. God's pity! we have come too late!"
"No, we are still in time."
"Time? Then for what, my poor Gabriel, but to see her die? Two of us against twenty-five soldiers! My heart breaks, but it is hopeless."
"Twenty-five? Are there only twenty-five soldiers here?" Henderson inquired eagerly.
"Maybe not more than twenty, still ten to one. They have sent several out to hunt for us. They are hurrying like bats through the night, guarding the pass and road."
"Your friend told you this?"
"Yes, he is a man who sees. Fifteen soldiers were sent to overtake us on the road to Monterey, as Liseta told us; others were thrown around here and there."
"There may not be more than ten or fifteen in the garrison tonight."
"Too many, I am afraid, Gabriel. My hope was in the governor; I have friends that I might use as levers to move him, but since he has no power, that hope is gone."
"Your courage is not gone, Felipe," Henderson said, his own strength quick in his sinews again. The first withering shock that dried his heart and left his words weak on his lips was gone. The fire of determination leaped in him. Twenty men? He had the resourcefulness, inspired of Helena's peril, of a regiment.
"I did not know what we'd discover when we arrived here, Gabriel, but I did not expect this," said Felipe sadly. "I knew Helena would be a prisoner, but in the governor's house, I believed, where they would try to frighten her into surrendering her property, or to cajole her with promises of safety for you. But I am ready to stand with you, Gabriel, in anything, to storm the garrison if you say the word. What is your plan?"
"That must rise out of the circumstances, Felipe. Just now I have no plan. How long is it to dawn, do you think?"
"Not more than three hours."
"I'm going to see if I can find out anything. Will you wait for me here, Felipe?"
"But where? To find out what?"
"To the plaza, the garrison. Maybe some soldier drinking"
"Everything is closed—cantinas, all. At eight o'clock the doors were locked; everybody was driven from the streets. But they are not asleep in this pueblo tonight. In every house they sit waiting for the dawn."
"They are eager to see her die!"
"No, they pray that pity will move Roberto. They do not want her shot. It was the plea of the people that moved the governor until he would have pardoned her and set her free. Her youth excused her; she was misled by the Yankee who already had paid the price. And so Roberto, in his rage, becomes the tyrant. Would to God we had the cannon, Gabriel!"
"Will you lend me your knife, Felipe?"
"My rifle, too, if you need it."
"Only the knife. If I fail to come back before daylight, ride away and save yourself, my good friend. All will be at an end."
"Why should I stay here, like a groom, keeping company with horses, when there is the work of a man to be done?" Felipe demanded, the hurt of being left behind in his voice.
"You have risked too much for me, a stranger, already. I can't ask you to risk more."
"If you do not come back, Gabriel, I will hate my life. The horses will be as safe here alone as if I stood at their heads. We will leave them farther back, behind my friend's corral. I know the plaza, I know the streets. Where you would be blind, I can see."
"I couldn't have asked you to take this hazard with me, Felipe. But I'd rather have you than the cannon."
Henderson felt the sincerity of Felipe's fiber, this strange little man whose hidalgo traditions outweighed by far his new republicanism. He recalled the many small acts of kindness Felipe had done him when their situations were quite different, when the mayordomo had nothing to gain by making the lot of Don Abrahan's alien peon any lighter by word or deed.
They led the horses farther back among the trees, tying them directly behind the mud wall of the corral. They would have the benefit of the wall, said Felipe, without compromising his friend, for even a thief might tie his horse behind an honest man's house. The only thing that he deplored was the distance from the plaza.
"If we are obliged to make a run, Gabriel, it will be a long one," he said. "As we go along, make note of the turnings and the landmarks, so you may find your way back if misfortune conspires to keep me behind."
"We must find where she is," said Henderson, desperately eager. "After that—whatever comes. But we must stick together if we can."
They kept to the shadows as they went toward the plaza, passing so quietly that the dogs did not raise the alarm. The wind that had blown softly from the hills, moving the palm leaves in gentle chafing, with whisperings and sighs as from a people burdened with oppression, was still. A pause had come upon the night; the strident insects in dark acacia bowers were silent. Night murmured no more; its lispings were hushed, its plaints and its dreams dispersed. It was the slack tide in life that falls upon all nature before the miracle of dawn.
"If anybody in this pueblo is asleep, it is the sleep of fever," Felipe said. "Sucha great cruelty as this disturbs the repose. Many eyes will be at windows watching for the day. It will be fortunate if we are not discovered."
"I think even the dogs are asleep," Henderson muttered, his faith in the sympathy of that people very shallow.
"There is a garden beside the church, with peaches and apricots," Felipe said. "I believe the padres have no dogs, either asleep or awake. We can enter there and view the plaza and the barracks."
"Very good."
"Just here, then, we climb the wall. The padres do not trust their fruit to unlocked gates."
If anybody watched in pitiful anxiety for the tragedy of the dawn, the padres were not among them. Everything was hushed around the church and the priests' house that stood near it, white among the orchard trees. Through the barred and locked gates of heavy timbers the two friends looked into the plaza.
The plaza was an empty square of hard-beaten earth, the parade ground for the garrison, the gathering place of the people at evenings and on days of fiesta. There were no trees in it, no growing thing, no seats, fountains nor ornamentations of any description. It was as barren as a desert, excepting only the posts set in the ground before certain shops and cantinas for hitching the horses of customers.
Starlight alone would have revealed this blank spot in all its bleakness; the added illumination of the bright strip of waning moon made it distinct in detail to the men who surveyed it through the padres' garden gate.
Henderson was as empty of any plan as the plaza itself, as he stood straining against the timbers of the gate. The necessity of quick and masterly decision pressed on him with hot frenzy; his thoughts were in a desperate surge. Every moment of the speeding time urged him to action, only to mock the desperate impotency of his hand.
What could two men do against twenty? as Felipe had asked. There the dark garrison lay, a long, low, dun building of adobe bricks, roofed over with red tiles. It had its secret places, its dungeons, Felipe had said. He was as helpless against its mysteries and thick, guarded walls as an ant.
"Every street emptying into the plaza has a soldier at its mouth," Felipe whispered. "It's a good thing for us we came this way."
Somewhere within those walls the condemned prisoner waited with sad eyes for the dawn. Perhaps she had believed for an hour of mocking hope, that he whom she had given the benediction of her lips only a broken day past, would come in all the bravery of her faith, the strength of her belief, and take her from the peril that was drawing upon her to engulf her young life.
Whoever slept under that roof of dull-red tiles, it would not be Helena Sprague. In the morning—only a little while now till the break of day—they would bring her out, wan and steady, her eyes open wide in the hunger of life, in the straining to gather and store against the cold bleakness of the grave some little more of the allotment so brutally denied. Perhaps they might look, lighted for a moment with hope, for the face of a friend.
There would be no pity in Roberto now. What his dagger had failed of in the night, the soldiers' bullets would accomplish that coming dawn. No doubt the mean-hearted victor in this pitiful contest of honor, jealousy and cupidity lay sleeping now, refreshing himself to rise soon to the full enjoyment of his triumph.
There was a dim light in what Henderson knew must be the quarters of the officer of the guard, it being a window without bars. Close by was a door, set deep in the thick wall, a broad, high and ponderous thing like a gate in a city wall, before which a sentry walked a short beat. That was the door they would open to bring her out to die.
With the thought, a door in Henderson's baffled mind sprung wide, revealing the thing that had eluded him.
"Back to the horses!" he whispered, clutching Felipe's arm. "Quick! let us go!"
Felipe felt the shock of a purpose in the quick words, the eagerness of the voice. His own despondent, sad heart jumped with the sound, with the thrilling grasp upon his arm.
"Have you seen something, Gabriel?" he asked, coming down eagerly from the gate.
"I have seen the way," Henderson replied. "To the horses—it is nearly day!"