it was not with a light heart that i returned to mickie's hotel. i had made my cast, and fortune was against me. in the afternoon i had left alisanda smiling down upon me from the balcony of her inn window; i was returning at nightfall to meet—señorita vallois. though to the last she and don pedro might hold to the familiar "juan," how little might even her smiles lighten the shadow of a hopeless parting!
as i entered the inn door, mickie bustled forward to inform me, with an air of vast importance, that at the request of the spanish grandee, he had arranged to serve the evening meal to the señor's party above stairs. when he added that a plate was to be laid for myself, i hastened to my own room for a change of linen.
my heart was too heavy for me to linger over foppish details of dress. it was not long before i found myself at the door of the room set apart for the private dining-parlor. chita, who was overlooking the spreading of the cloth by the negro attendants of the inn, conducted me through to the balcony, where i found the don indolently puffing at his cigarro.
before i could take the seat to which he waved me, alisanda floated out into the moonlight from the window behind him. she was a vision all heavenly white but for her scarlet lips and sombre eyes and brows. even the soft tresses of her hair were hidden beneath the gauzy white drape of tulle and lace which took the place of her black mantilla.
"buenas noches, juan," she greeted me, in a tone of liquid silver.
"god be with you, alisanda!" i responded.
"be seated, amigo," urged don pedro. "you have a weary look."
"i bring what to me is heavy news," i replied.
"you had in mind to ask a favor of general wilkinson," said alisanda. "you have asked the favor, and—he has refused it?"
the note of sympathy in her voice soothed my despairing anger. i did not stop to wonder at the intuition by which she had divined the object of my visit to the general. it was enough for me that she had perceived my heaviness, and held out to me her sympathy.
"it is true," i said, and in a few words i told them of my shattered plans,—how i had hoped to gain fame by leading an expedition of exploration to the west, as lewis and clark were exploring the northwest, and as my friend pike had explored the headwaters of the mississippi; and how the statements of colonel burr had led me to hope for still greater fame as a sharer in the freeing of mexico.
don pedro leaned toward me, his eyes glowing with friendly fire. "por dios! your one thought was to help us break the yoke! you would give your life for the winning of liberty!"
i looked across at alisanda, and the soft loveliness of her beauty in the moonlight filled me to overflowing with the bitterness of my blasted hopes.
"do not think me so noble!" i replied. "i thought to fight for the freedom of your country, but it was in hope of a reward a thousandfold greater than my service!"
alisanda raised her fan and gazed at me above its fluted edge with widened eyes,—i feared in resentful wonder at my audacity. but don pedro was too intent upon his own thoughts to perceive the meaning of my words.
"por dios!" he protested. "those who have risen against spanish oppression have ever met with short shrift. shall not they who brave death in our cause look for glorious reward in the hour of victory?"
"that is true of those who may be blessed with the chance to join your ranks. as for me, the opportunity which i had thought to be golden has turned to ashes in my grasp."
"sabe dios!" murmured alisanda in so soft a tone that the words came to me like a whisper of the evening breeze. was it possible that after all i still had cause for hope?
chita's voice, drawling the usual spanish phrase, summoned us to the table. we rose, and alisanda accepted my arm with a queenly graciousness of manner which in the same moment thrilled and disheartened me. i read it to mean that she was in a kindly mood, but that the kindliness was due to the condescension of señorita vallois, and not to the frank companionship of my fellow-traveller alisanda. this surmise was borne out by her manner at table, where she rallied her uncle and myself upon our gravity, and with subtle skill, confined the talk to the lightest of topics. the don was as abstemious as most of his countrymen, and mickie's wine was a libel on the name, yet he soon mellowed to the gay chit-chat of his niece.
it was beyond me to enter into this spirit of merriment. i forced myself to smile outwardly and to meet their lively quips and sallies with such nimbleness of wit as i possessed. but it went no deeper than show on my part. the longer we sat, the heavier grew my heart. i had no joy of my food. even the peaches and the other fruits of the lower river tasted bitter in my mouth. for with each fresh turn of the conversation i saw my alisanda slipping farther away from me, her kindly glance giving place to the haughty gaze of the spanish lady of blood, her familiar address cooling to stately condescension. i was no longer "juan," but "doctor" and "señor," and, near the end, "doctor robinson."
we had come to the sweetmeats, and i noted with despair that she was on the point of withdrawing. she had even thrust back her chair to rise, when, with scant ceremony, a young soldier in uniform entered and stated that his excellency, general wilkinson, desired the immediate presence of señor vallois.
"carambo!" exclaimed don pedro, looking regretfully at the sweetmeats. "he might have chosen a fitter time! it is in my mind to wait."
"is not your business with him the affair of others no less than your own?" murmured alisanda.
"santisima virgen! you do well to remind me! juan, with your permission—"
"adios! good fortune to you!" i cried, as he rose.
another moment and he and the soldier had left the room. i was alone with alisanda. she rose, with a trace of inquietude beneath her calm hauteur. i moved around the table to join her.
"spare yourself the trouble," she said, with repellent sharpness. "it is unkind to take a man of english blood from his wine."
"señorita," i answered, "since we came in to table, you have told me all too plainly that you no longer wish to conform to the customs of the country. i do not wonder. our voyage as fellow-travellers is at an end. there is no longer need for such slight service as i was able to render—"
"service?" she repeated, with a curl of her scarlet lip.
though cut to the quick, i could not give over.
"alisanda," i said, "has it been nothing to you, all these golden days since we met on the monongahela?"
she raised her hand to arrange her scarf, letting fall a loose strand of hair down her cheek.
"santisima virgen!" she murmured, with fine-drawn irony. "it has ever been a marvel to me—so chance a meeting."
"chance, indeed!" i replied. "chance that the utmost of my effort could not trace the road by which you left washington; chance that colonel burr gave me the clew for which i sought; chance that of the nine horses i rode to a stand between philadelphia and elizabethtown, none failed me in my need."
she gave me a mocking glance over her fan. "madre de los dolores! what a pity! a little time, and the gulf will roll between."
"i will cross that gulf!"
"not so; for it is the gulf of the cross," she mocked. "i go the way of vera cruz—the true cross. no heretic may pass that way."
the words struck down my last hope. it was the truth—a double truth. the way of my body was barred by the city of the cross; the way of my spirit by that which to her the cross symbolized.
"so this is the end," i replied. "we have come to the parting of the ways. do not fear that i shall weary you with annoying persistence. i shall go my way before sunrise to-morrow. only—let me ask that this last hour with you may hold its share of sweetness with the bitterness of parting,—alisanda!"
"an hour?" she repeated. "the air in here is close."
she laid her fingers lightly upon my arm, and we passed out into the moonlit balcony. for a time we sat silent, she gazing out across the broken slopes of the town, i gazing at her still white face and shadowy eyes. her loveliness was part with the night and the moonlight and the scarlet bloom of the climber upon the balcony rail.
at last i could no longer endure the thought that she was lost to me; i could no longer deny utterance to my love and longing.
"alisanda! dearest one! is there then no hope that i may win you? i have no gallant speeches—my love is voiceless; no less is it a love that shall endure always. alisanda! my dearest one! is my love of no worth to you? let your heart speak! can it not give me one word of hope?"
my voice failed me. throughout my passionate appeal i failed to see the slightest change in her calm face. i had failed to stir her even to mockery. truly all was now at an end! i bowed my head and groaned in most unmanly fashion.
the low murmur of her voice roused me to despairing eagerness. she spoke in a tone of light inconsequence, yet i seized upon the words as the drowning man clutches at straws.
"love?—love?" she repeated. "the word has become a jest. men protest that they know the meaning of love—that they suffer its bitterest pangs. yet speak to them of the days of chivalry, when gallant knights bore the colors of their ladies through deadly battle, and the ogling beaux turn an epigram on les sauvages nous ancêtres!"
"show me the way to the battlefield—i ask no more!" i cried.
"words—words!" she mocked. "the cid would have found his way to the field of glory without asking. were the way barred, el campeador would have hewn his way through, though the barrier were of solid rock! but the men of to-day—!"
"wait!" i broke in. "have you not yourself said that the way of the gulf is impassable for me?"
"true," she assented, "true! and not alone the gulf, but the barrier—the gulf of water and of the cross; the barrier of rock and of blood."
"blue blood and red have been known to intermingle," i argued.
"with love for solvent!" she murmured. the softness was only for the instant. "yet what of that other barrier?" she demanded. "between your land and the land to which i go lies the blood of christ."
"is it then religion that is the insurmountable barrier—the impassable gulf? you have not lived all your life in spain. i had hoped that not even your faith could close your heart against me, if only i might prove to you the greatness of my love."
she sat silent for what seemed an endless time, toying idly with her fan. when at last she spoke, it was again in that light, inconsequential tone: "to the eastward or northeastward of santa fe lies a vast snow-clad sierra. my kinsman once saw it from a great distance. he says it is called the sangre de cristo."
"sangre de cristo—the blood of christ!" i said, lost in wonderment. then a great light flashed upon me. i knelt on one knee and caught to my lips a white hand that did not seek to escape my grasp. "the barrier—the barrier of rock!—alisanda! you give me hope! if i come to you there—if i cross that barrier? dearest one!—dearest! can you doubt it? though i have to find my way alone among the fierce savages of the vast prairies; though i find that snowy range a mountain of ice and fire, i will come to you, alisanda—my love!"
i saw the quick rise of her bosom and the blush that suffused her cheeks with glorious scarlet before she could raise her masking fan.
"santisima virgen!" she murmured, and broke into a little quavering, uncertain laugh. "they speak of the cold blood of your race!"
"alisanda!—dearest one! tell me i may come!"
she rose quietly, already calm again, and cold as the moonlight which shone full upon her face. i rose with her, still clasping her hand.
"tell me, alisanda, may i come?"
"why ask me that?" she said, in an even voice. "could i prevent if you wished to try?"
"if i cross the barrier, may i hope?"
"there would yet be the gulf."
"gulf or barrier, i swear i will find my way to you, though it be through fire and flood! i will seek you out and win you, though you hide your beauty beneath a nun's veil!"
such was the force of my passion, i again saw her bosom rise to a deep-drawn breath and the edges of her sensitive nostrils quiver. yet this time she did not blush, and her voice cut with its fine-drawn irony: "words—words!"
"i offer love. i ask nothing in turn but a word or a token—nothing but—my lady's colors."
she turned and opened her eyes full to my gaze as she had opened them at our parting in far-off washington, and i looked down into their depths, vainly seeking to penetrate the darkness. at last it seemed to me i saw a gleam far down in the wells of mystery—a glow, faint yet warm, that seemed to light my way to hope.
suddenly the glow burst into a flame of golden glory—she was swaying toward me, a line of pearls showing between her curving lips. but even as i sought to clasp her in my arms, she eluded me and glided away, vanishing through the farther window.
half mad with delight, yet unable to believe my own eyes, i sought to follow, the blood drumming in my ears from the wild intoxication of my love. none too soon i heard behind me the sharp call of don pedro: "hola, amigo! have you gone deaf, that you do not answer?"
this, then, was why she had eluded me! it was his return which had robbed me of that moment of all moments. my look as i turned was as bitter as his was keen. my voice sounded to me like that of another man: "what! back so soon, señor?"
"señor?" he repeated, taken aback by the formal address. "yet it is as well, juan. all our plans are blasted. hereafter it would seem we are to be strangers. i have no faith in the promises of that man."
"you do well to distrust him," i said. "i might have foreseen the outcome of plans in which he was to play a part."
"whom can we trust in this self-seeking age! i find myself doubting even the fair promises of your great statesman burr."
"of our discredited politician burr!" i cried. "don pedro, he has no claim upon me, and you have many. let me tell you, i begin to doubt him, even as i doubt our pompous general. i have reason to believe that colonel burr plans to take your country from spain, not for the benefit of you and your friends, but for his own aggrandizement. he thinks himself a second napoleon."
"por dios! i see it now. he plots to sell us to spain, that spain may aid his plot to make himself king of your western country,—king of all that part which extends from the alleghanies even here to new orleans and north and west to the pacific. i know; for did he not enter into negotiations with marquis de casa yrujo?"
"with the spanish minister?" i exclaimed.
"with casa yrujo, after the death of pitt deprived him of the hope of british ships and money."
"so—he is but a crack-brained trickster," i muttered. "we have chased his rainbows and landed in the mire. this is the end, señor. i go now. tomorrow's sun will see me on my way up-river to st. louis. may you find brave men enough in your own land to win freedom, without the costly aid of tricksters!"
"there are others than tricksters that share my plans—true-hearted men at new orleans. the mexican association stands pledged,—three hundred and more loyal workers in the cause of my country's freedom."
"creoles," i said. "you could count upon a hundred of my backwoods countrymen to do more, should it come to the setting of triggers."
"we shall see. but there are others than creoles in the association. already señor clark has made two voyages to vera cruz, to spy out the defences. i go now to tell him more. you know something as to the power of our religious orders. at new orleans are two such. but what is all this to you now?"
"much, don pedro! my heart is with the success of your plans!"
"muchas gracias, amigo! would that you might journey with me to my people! but the gate at vera cruz is narrow for heretics. adios!"
"adios, don pedro. may we meet under brighter skies!"
"god grant it, juan!" he cried, with unfeigned friendliness.
i clasped his hand, and hastened away. my heart was too full for words.
early as i expected to start in the morning, i did not seek my bed. i could not sleep. having bargained for my upstream passage with a st. louis friend, in command of a keelboat, i wandered out and strolled through the sloping streets of the town. but even the wild revelry of the rivermen, for which natchez is so evilly noted, failed to win from me more than passing heed. my own thoughts were in wilder turmoil. in beside the memory of the golden love-glory which had shone in her eyes, and fit mate to the bitter disappointment of the loss that don pedro's entrance had cost me, there had crept into my mind a maddening doubt that i had seen clearly,—a fear that the glow in her eyes, the swaying of her dear form nearer to me, had been only the fantasies of my passion.
unable to endure the torment of such doubt, i hastened back, to linger in the shadow beneath my lady's balcony. after a time, so great was my longing, i found courage to murmur the refrain of a song we had sung together on the river. i dared not raise my voice for fear don pedro would hear and divine my purpose, and my low notes seemed lost in the drunken ditties and outcries of the carousers in the tavern taproom.
an hour dragged by its weary length, and no soft whisper floated down to me from above, no graceful vision appeared at the vine-clad balustrade. despair settled heavily upon my heart. the cadenced spanish vowels died away upon my lips. i turned to go. a small white object dropped lightly from above and fell at my feet.
in a trice my despair had given place to hope and joy no less extravagant. i snatched up the message, and rushed in to open it before the waxen taper, in the privacy of my room. the wrapping was a lace-edged handkerchief of finest linen, in the corner of which was an embroidered "a. v."—my lady's initials.
but when i opened it, thinking to find a written missive, there appeared only a great, sweet-scented magnolia bloom. yet was not this enough? was it not far more than i had expected—than had been my right to expect?
i held it close before my eyes, my thoughts upon the sender, whose cheeks were still more delicate in texture than these creamy petals. i turned the blossom around to view its perfections. she had held it in her hand!
upon one of the delicate petals faint lines had appeared. they darkened into clear letters under my gaze, and those letters spelled "au revoir!"
