HENDERSON felt his wits revolving for a moment like a straw in a whirlpool. The unlucky arrival of Don Roberto, the doubly unfortunate chance upon the lost shoe by his companion, had forced him into a situation that would require either great audacity or greater diplomacy to come out of with the lady's honor untouched in the eyes of those jealous and biased moralists.
He recalled her vividly in the light of the brief description she had given of herself, but with nothing of either the insignificance or the humility of the worm. She had not been present at the celebration before that day; her appearance among the belles of the ranchos, whose dark beauty was becoming rather tiresome, had been like a green hill to the mariner's eye.
He had puzzled over her that day, trying to account for the wide difference of type she presented, not knowing that Yankee marriages were common among the first families of California. Her hair was of a reddish brown, dusky in its depths where the Saxon strain mastered the Latin; her fair skin was dashed, as she had said, with a little partridge flight of freckles across her nose. Not of a prettiness such as would be appealing to these fast-maturing youths; rather a sober and melancholy type, her gray eyes wise and clear of the small pretenses and subterfuges of feminine vanity. There was a thinness in her cheek, as if whetted by a sorrow, the reflection of trouble in her eyes. This he remembered, picturing her again, swiftly, as he stood trying to make fast a line to his swirling thoughts.
He must get hold of the shoe; he must create some sort of diversion that would lead the two strollers away from the tree, whatever their curious humor to pry into his supposed romance might be. The girl must be brought down out of the tree and taken to the house by some sequestered way, and all must be done in a matter of minutes, before her absence from the side of her duenna could connect her with the lost shoe.
The two young men had stopped beneath the tree, laughing over their discovery. Henderson feared the girl's fright might betray her, not knowing how improbable it was that a Mexican gentleman would look in a tree for a lady, though the rustling of her movement might be plain in his ears.
"What kind of a shoe is this—a sheepskin sandal?" Don Roberto inquired, a laugh in his voice over the thought of this interrupted lovescene between his valet and some day-laborer's girl. "Come to the moonlight with this precious discovery, Don Fernando; let us see."
Don Fernando, the young man who had stumbled upon the shoe, hesitated, the small thing in his hand.
"It seems to be a lady's dancing-shoe. I believe such as might be meeting your servant under a tree by night would not wear a shoe of this kind, Don Roberto. Somebody has lost it in a stroll, and could not find it again in the dark."
"Is it possible?" Don Roberto asked, something more than surprise in his voice, a thing ominous, suspicious." Let us have a look at it over here."
"It is just a little thing of silk and kid," said Don Fernando, temporizing as if undecided what to do.
"Step into the moonlight, Don Fernando—it is half as bright as day. We'll see this pretty shoe, then watch for the mate of it. What a joke it will be to give back her shoe!"
"Oh, Don Roberto, Don Roberto!" his friend protested gently.
"But the shoe—give me the shoe, then, Don Fernando."
"If you will pry into a Jady's misfortune," Don Fernando laughed, passing the shoe to his friend's outstretched hand.
"Permit me," said Henderson, snatching the shoe from Roberto's fingers.
"Impertinent dog!"
Roberto sprank back a step with the malediction thrown in his servant's face, as if to be out of reach of violence that he expected to follow it. The leap carried him into the moonlight, where he stood with hand at his sash, feeling for the weapon which, for the occasion, was not there.
"Restore me the shoe! This instant give it back!" he commanded.
"I was sent for it; I will restore it to the owner," Henderson replied, his manner lofty and severe.
"Who commands you?"
"That is for me to know, Don Roberto."
"Very well," said Roberto, indifferently, as if the humor of the situation had mended the affront given him by his valet; "go on, then, and take the shoe to its owner. We will accompany you; we will go by your side, to see the pretty foot that it fits."
"No, Don Roberto. Let the poor fellow have his hour of romance, if he can. I am not one with you to pry into it, or into the lady's confusion, let her be whom she may."
Fernando turned away with these words, going toward the house. Henderson felt his heart warm to the young fellow, glad to know there was some of the delicacy of chivalry still living in that race.
"Yankee thief! you'll feel the bite of rawhide for this," Roberto threatened. "Come, take me to the owner of this shoe."
Henderson stood in the bright moonlight confronting this petulant tyrant who believed himself master not only of the present situation but the future as well. The little shoe was soft in Henderson's hand; he held its pliant, thin sole bent in his palm, hiding it from Roberto's curiously hungry eyes. It was a moment for swift consideration, quick arrival upon a course that would save the shoe's owner from the blight of scandal. Don Fernando was walking away rapidly; he passed out of sight among the low-hanging branches of the pepper trees.
"Very well," Henderson yielded, after what seemed a struggle against himself.
"Half of your lashes will be remitted for this, my fine Gabriel," Roberto generously declared. "But for snatching the shoe out of my hand, may rats eat my heart if I do not find your ribs with my whip tomorrow!"
"This way, then," said Henderson, leading off in the direction of the laborers' huts below the brow of the hill.
Where there had been merely contempt for Roberto's pampered pride, his oppression and disdain, there leaped hot in Henderson's breast this moment a desire to bring him low. The snarl of the fellow's heavy lips when he threatened the lash, the greedy tightening of his eyes, betrayed the cruelty that lay under his callow exterior. As quick as the flash of his vengeful desire, Henderson's lively mind contrived a way.
"Who is there in this direction wearing the shoes of a lady?" Roberto inquired, halting suspiciously after they had gone a few rods from the tree.
"It remains for you to see," Henderson replied. If Don Roberto had been schooled in the inflections of the human voice, he would have turned back that moment.
"Here now, Gabriel, give me the foolish shoe and let us be friends," Roberto coaxed, holding out his hand. "I promise you I will forgive you for taking it out of my hand, although you shamed me before a friend. Give it to me, and take my forgiveness."
Henderson looked behind him. They were only a little way from the tree where the girl trembled among the leaves, fearful of losing the good name that was more to her than life; not far from the long tables spread under the trees before the mansion, from which the laughter and clatter of those who fed around them came clearly.
"Why do you hesitate, little Gabriel?" Roberto asked impatiently. "The shoe, and be forgiven."
"Damn your generosity!" Henderson replied. The weight of his body was behind the blow that he struck Roberto under the ear.
Roberto fell as limp as wet leather, for the iron of salt-horse and hard-tack, and months of disciplinary labor, was in that blow. Roberto's fine ruffed shirt made the gag that stopped his mouth, his silk necktie the bond for his hands; the sleeves of his shirt served well to secure his feet, and there the sailor left him, stretched behind the trunk of a great oak, his overfed heart fluttering like a moth caught in wax.
"Quick—your foot!" Henderson whispered, mounting the seat encircling the tree-trunk where Don Roberto's betrothed prayed softly for deliverance among the leaves.
"You haven't killed him, Don Gabriel?" she asked.
She clambered down from her higher perch as she spoke, leaning to lay her hand on his shoulder. He felt the tremor of her body, the dread anxiety of her low-spoken word.
"He'll be ready for the wedding tomorrow, Miss Sprague, if you need him so soon," Gabriel assured her.
"I pray that day will never come!" she said, with such feeling that caution was forgotten. "But I would not have him dead, of all things dead at your hands, Don Gabriel," she added softly, her hand still on his shoulder, her breath on his cheek.
Henderson had found her unshod foot; he was replacing the slipper with such haste that impeded his work, anxious for her to come down and hurry back to her duenna's side. For his own road was calling to him; the moon marked its way over the hill among the greasewood and the sage.
"Now go," he said, having fastened the buckle on its silken strap across her vaulted instep; "run for it, Miss Sprague!"
She came down lightly, her hand in his, her weight thrown on his shoulder, and stood so a moment, as if she had climbed to give him some sweet confidence unseen among the boughs.
"Avaid the man called Fernando—the one who found your shoe," he whispered, his breath short with something that was not fatigue from the fastening of her shoe.
"I know a way," she panted. "I shall be safe now."
It seemed as if shortness of breath were a contagion that had laid hold of both of them under the gray, solemn oak that moonlit night. Both of them knew well enough that they had no moments to gamble away, but she lingered. Her hand was still cold in the chill of her past fright.
"Have you heard from the north?" she asked eagerly, whispering close to his ear.
"The north?"
"I came to ask you; I wanted to know if you were—if you had a friend in the north who had sent you the news?"
"I haven't a friend in California," he replied, thinking in the same breath that he ought to be half-way up the hill by now.
"One, at least," she corrected him, touching his shoulder in assuring comfort, speaking hurriedly, the necessity of the moment urging her now. "Where is Roberto? Have you hurt him much?"
"Behind that tree, not hurt. He's likely to get loose any moment—I must go. Good-bye, Miss Sprague. My greatest wish is for your happiness."
"Go to my estate in the valley over there—it is near San Fernando Mission, the Sprague ranch—everybody knows it. I'll be there before you, unless you are taking a horse?"
"No."
"It is better that way; there would be a legal accusation if you took a horse. Come straight to my home, then. I have something to tell you—there is news from the north."
This last she emphasized as though she believed it had a meaning he would understand. He waited, standing as she left him on the seat, his head among the low branches, watching her until she disappeared under the pepper trees near the house. Then he leaped down and ran to the olive lane, and up the road by which he had arrived on a day that seemed to him now long ago, holding like a vassal to Don Abrahan's stirrup, to be betrayed by the treacherous hospitality of that place.
Henderson was hatless; his finery, his light shoes, were not calculated to withstand the rigors of flight in the rough country where his small chance of safety lay. His velvet and bright satin would mark him in the eyes of every person that met him. He would leave a trail behind him like a fire. But he was confident; he was not flying friendlessly into the unknown.
He knew in a general way where San Fernando Mission was, across the first range of hills in the valley of the same name, twenty miles or more away. There was little likelihood that they would start the pursuit of him tonight, hot as Roberto would be for revenge; the vast assurance of their mighty ability to reach out and drag a fugitive back with their thousand hands would hold them in their beds till day. But the word of his escape was sure to be sent abroad by Indian messengers the moment it was discovered.
Henderson proceeded on his way with a feeling of security in spite of his knowledge of this. He was certain there was no treachery in Miss Sprague's offer of a refuge, and profession of friendship.
Don Felipe had spoken frequently of Roberto's betrothed, but never by name. She had been away, in school at Santa Barbara, Felipe had said. She must have come home only a day or twoago. That accounted for Roberto never having ridden to San Fernando, his valet at his back. Unlucky chance, thought Henderson, for then he would have known the road.
Where the olive lane ended, and the road swept away eastward to the pass and on its way to Buena Ventura and the North, Henderson paused. There was no break in the sound of festivity around the tables beneath the trees; it was certain that Roberto had not broken his insecure bonds and given the alarm. Here the fugitive must leave the highway and take a shorter line across the hills. Little chance that any would find his tracks in the goat path that he must follow up the first steep slope. At dawn Liseta would come with her flock; the tracks of his passing would be cut out of the path by two hundred scrambling hoofs.