"You're not afraid of ghosts, Helen! I know you're not."

"I was when a child. Now I fear neither the living nor the dead. I can dare both, having nought to make me care for life--"

"Come on!" cries Jessie, interrupting the melancholy train of reflection, "Let us to the garden. If we meet a monk in hood and cowl, I shall certainly--"

"Do what?"

"Run back into the house fast as feet can carry me. Come along!"

Keeping up the jocular bravado, the younger sister leads the way out.

Arm-in-arm the two cross the _patio_, then the outer courtyard, and on through a narrow pa.s.sage communicating with the walled enclosure at back; once a grand garden under careful cultivation, still grand in its neglect.

After entering it, the sisters make stop, and for a while stand surveying the scene. The moon at full, coursing through a cloudless sky, flings her soft light upon gorgeous flowers with corollas but half-closed, in the sultry southern night giving out their fragrance as by day. The senses of sight and smell are not the only ones gratified; that of hearing is also charmed with the song of the _czentzontle_, the Mexican nightingale. One of these birds perched upon a branch, and pouring forth its love-lay in loud pa.s.sionate strain, breaks off at sight of them. Only for a short interval is it silent; then resuming its lay, as if convinced it has nought to fear from such fair intruders.

Its song is not strange to their ears, though there are some notes they have not hitherto heard. It is their own mocking-bird of the States, introducing into its mimic minstrelsy certain variations, the imitations of sounds peculiar to Texas.

After having listened to it for a short while, the girls move on down the centre walk, now under the shadow of trees, anon emerging into the moonlight; which shimmering on their white evening robes, and reflecting the sparkle of their jewellery, produces a pretty effect.

The garden ground slopes gently backward; and about half-way between the house and the bottom wall is, or has been, a fountain. The basin is still there, and with water in it, trickling over its edge. But the jet no longer plays, and the mason-work shows greatly dilapidated. So also the seats and statues around, some of the latter yet standing, others broken off, and lying alongside their pedestals.

Arriving at this spot, the sisters again stop, and for a time stand contemplating the ruins; the younger making a remark, suggested by a thought of their grandeur gone.

"Fountains, statues, seats under shade trees, every luxury to be got out of a garden! What Sybarites the Holy Fathers must have been!"

"Truly so," a.s.sents Helen. "They seem to have made themselves quite comfortable; and whatever their morals, it must be admitted they displayed good taste in landscape gardening, with an eye on good living as well. They must have been very fond of fruit, and a variety of it-- judging by the many sorts of trees they've planted."

"So much the better for us," gleefully replies Jessie. "We shall have the benefit of their industry, when the fruit season comes round. Won't it be a grand thing when we get the walks gravelled, these statues restored, and that fountain once more in full play. Luis has promised me it shall be done, soon as the cotton crop is in. Oh! it will be a Paradise of a place!"

"I like it better as it is."

"You do. Why?"

"Ah! that _you_ cannot understand. You do not know--I hope never will-- what it is to live only in the past. This place has had a past, like myself, once smiling; and now like me all desolation."

"O sister! do not speak so. It pains me--indeed it does. Besides your words only go half-way. As you say, it's had a smiling past, and's going to have a smiling future. And so will you sis. I'm determined to have it all laid out anew, in as good style as it ever was--better.

Luis shall do it--must, _when he marries, me_--if not before."

To the pretty bit of bantering Helen's only answer is a sigh, with a sadder expression, as from some fresh pang shooting through her heart.

It is even this; for, once again, she cannot help contrasting her own poor position with the proud one attained by her sister. She knows that Dupre is in reality master of all around, as Jessie will be mistress, she herself little better than their dependant. No wonder the thought should cause her humiliation, or that, with a spirit imperious as her's, she should feel it acutely. Still, in her crushed heart there is no envy at her sister's good fortune. Could Charles Clancy come to life again, now she knows him true--were he but there to share with her the humblest hut in Texas, all the splendours, all the grandeurs of earth, could not add to that happiness, nor give one emotion more.

After her enthusiastic outburst, to which there has been no rejoinder, Jessie continues on toward the bottom of the garden, giving way to pleasant fancies, dreams of future designs, with her fan playfully striking at the flowers as she pa.s.ses them.

In silence Helen follows; and no word is exchanged between them till they reach the lower end; when Jessie, turning round, the two are face to face. The place, where they have stopped is another opening with seats and statues, admitting the moonlight. By its bright beam the younger sister sees anguish depicted on the countenance of the older.

With a thought that her last words have caused or contributed to this, she is about to add others that may remove it. But before she can speak, Helen makes a gesture that holds her silent.

Near the spot where they are standing two trees overshadow the walk, their boughs meeting across it. Both are emblematic--one symbolising the most joyous hour of existence, the other its saddest. They are an orange, and a cypress. The former is in bloom, as it always is; the latter only in leaf, without a blossom on its branches.

Helen, stepping between them, and extending an arm to each, plucks from the one a sprig, from the other a flower. Raising the orange blossom between her white fingers, more attenuated than of yore, she plants it amid Jessie's golden tresses. At the same time she sets the cypress sprig behind the plaits of her own raven hair; as she does so, saying:--

"That for you, sister--this for me. We are now decked as befits us--as we shall both soon be--_you for the bridal, I for the tomb_!"

The words, seeming but too prophetic, pierce Jessie's heart as arrow with poisoned barb. In an instant, her joy is gone, sunk into the sorrow of her sister. Herself sinking upon that sister's bosom, with arms around her neck, and tears falling thick and fast over her swan-white shoulders.

Never more than now has her heart overflowed with compa.s.sion, for never as now has Helen appeared to suffer so acutely. As she stood, holding in one hand the symbol of bright happy life, in the other the dark emblem of death, she looked the very personification of sorrow. With her magnificent outline of form, and splendid features, all the more marked in their melancholy, she might have pa.s.sed for its divinity. The ancient sculptors would have given much for such a model, to mould the statue of Despair.

CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT.

A BLANK DAY.

On the frontier every settlement has its professional hunter. Often several, seldom less than two or three; their _metier_ being to supply the settlers with meat and game--venison, the standing dish--now and then bear hams, much relished--and, when the place is upon prairie-land, the flesh of the antelope and buffalo. The wild turkey, too--grandest of all game birds--is on the professional hunter's list for the larder; the lynx and panther he will kill for their pelts; but squirrels, rac.o.o.ns, rabbits, and other such "varmints," he disdains to meddle with, leaving them to the amateur sportsman, and the darkey.

Usually the professional votary of Saint Hubert is of solitary habit, and prefers stalking alone. There are some, however, of more social inclining, who hunt in couples; one of the pair being almost universal a veteran, the other a young man--as in the case of Sime Woodley and Ned Heywood. By the inequality of age the danger of professional jealousy is avoided; the younger looking up to his senior, and treating him with the deference due to greater knowledge and experience.

Just such a brace of professionals has come out with the Armstrong colony--their names, Alec Hawkins and Cris Tucker--the former an old bear-hunter, who has slain his hundreds; the latter, though an excellent marksman, in the art of _venerie_ but a tyro compared with his partner.

Since their arrival on the San Saba, they have kept the settlement plentifully supplied in meat; chiefly venison of the black-tailed deer, with which the bottom-land abounds. Turkeys, too, in any quant.i.ty; these n.o.ble birds thriving in the congenial climate of Texas, with its nuts and berry-bearing trees.

But there is a yet n.o.bler game, to the hunting of which Hawkins and his younger a.s.sociate aspire; both being eager to add it to the list of their trophies. It is that which has tempted many an English Nimrod to take three thousand miles of sea voyage across the Atlantic, and by land nearly as many more--the buffalo. Hawkins and Tucker, though having quartered the river bottom, for ten miles above and below the mission-building, have as yet come across none of these grand quadrupeds, nor seen "sign" of them.

This day, when Armstrong has his dinner party, the hunters bethink themselves of ascending to the upper plain, in the hope of there finding the game so much desired.

The place promising best is on the opposite side of the valley, to reach which the river must be crossed.

There are two fords at nearly equal distances from the old mission-house, one about ten miles above, the other as many below. By the latter the waggons came over, and it is the one chosen by the hunters.

Crossing it, they continue on to the bluffs rising beyond, and ascend these through a lateral ravine, the channel of a watercourse--which affords a practicable pa.s.s to the plain. On reaching its summit they behold a steppe to all appearance; illimitable, almost as sterile as Saara itself. Treeless save a skirting of dwarf cedars along the cliff's edge, with here and there a _motte_ of black-jack oaks, a cl.u.s.ter of cactus plants, or a solitary yucca of the arborescent species--the _palmilla_ of the Mexicans.

Withal, not an unlikely place to encounter the cattle with; hunched backs, and s.h.a.ggy shoulders. None are in sight; but hoping they soon will be the hunters launch out upon the plain.

Till near night they scout around, but without seeing any buffalo.

The descending sun warns them it is time to return home; and, facing for the bluff, they ride back towards it. Some three or four hundred yards from the summit of the pa.s.s is a _motte_ of black-jacks, the trees standing close, in full leaf, and looking shady. As it is more than fifteen miles to the mission, and they have not eaten since morning, they resolve to make halt, and have a sneck. The black-jack grove is right in their way, its shade invites them, for the sun is still sultry.

Soon they are in it, their horses tied to trees, and their haversacks summoned to disgorge. Some corn-bread and bacon is all these contain; but, no better refection needs a prairie hunter, nor cares for, so long he has a little distilled corn-juice to wash it down, with a pipe of tobacco to follow. They have eaten, drunk, and are making ready to smoke, when an object upon the plain attracts their attention. Only a cloud of dust, and far off--on the edge of the horizon. For all that a sign significant. It may be a "gang" of buffaloes, the thing they have been all day vainly searching for.

Thrusting the pipes back into their pouches, they grasp their guns, with eyes eagerly scanning the dust-cloud. At first dim, it gradually becomes darker. For a whiff of wind has blown the "stoor" aside, disclosing not a drove of buffaloes, but instead a troop of horses, at the same time showing them to have riders on their backs, as the hunters can perceive Indians.

Also that the troop is coming towards them, and advancing at such rapid pace, that in less than twenty minutes after being descried, it is close to the clump of black-jacks. Fortunately for Alec Hawkins and Oris Tucker, the Indian hors.e.m.e.n have no intention to halt there, or rest themselves under the shadow of the copse. To all appearance they are riding in hot haste, and with a purpose which carries them straight towards the pa.s.s. They do not even stop on arrival at its--summit; but dash down the ravine, disappearing suddenly as though they had dropped into a trap!

It is some time before the two hunters have recovered from their surprise, and can compare notes about what they have seen, with conjectures as to its bearing. They have witnessed a spectacle sufficiently alarming,--a band of fierce-looking savages, armed with spear and tomahawk--some carrying guns--all plumed and painted, all alike terrible in aspect.

Quick the apparition has pa.s.sed before their eyes, as suddenly disappearing. The haste in which the Indians rode down the ravine tells of their being bent on some fore-arranged purpose that calls for early execution. It may be murder, or only plunder; and the men may be Comanches--as in every likelihood they are.

"They're a ugly-looking lot," says Hawkins, after seeing them file past.

"If there were a hundred, instead o' twenty, I'd predict some danger to our new settlement. They appear to be going that way--at all events they are bound for the river bottom, and the lower crossing. We must follow them, Oris, an' see if we can make out what's their game. The red devils mayn't mean downright robbery, but like enough they intend stealin'. Hitch up, and let's after em'."

In a trice the two hunters are in their saddles; and proceeding to the summit of the pa.s.s, look down at the valley below. Not carelessly, but cautiously. Hawkins is an old campaigner, has fought Indians before, and knows how to deal with them.