Gaspar Ruiz Page 8

  VIII

  "SENORES," related the General to his guests, "though my thoughts wereof love then, and therefore enchanting, the sight of that house alwaysaffected me disagreeably, especially in the moonlight, when its closeshutters and its air of lonely neglect appeared sinister. Still I wenton using the bridle-path by the ravine, because it was a short cut.The mad Royalist howled and laughed at me every evening to his completesatisfaction; but after a time, as if wearied with my indifference, heceased to appear in the porch. How they persuaded him to leave off I donot know. However, with Gaspar Ruiz in the house there would have beenno difficulty in restraining him by force. It was part of their policyin there to avoid anything which could provoke me. At least, so Isuppose.

  "Notwithstanding my infatuation with the brightest pair of eyes inChile, I noticed the absence of the old man after a week or so. A fewmore days passed. I began to think that perhaps these Royalists had goneaway somewhere else. But one evening, as I was hastening towards thecity, I saw again somebody in the porch. It was not the madman; it wasthe girl. She stood holding on to one of the wooden columns, tall andwhite-faced, her big eyes sunk deep with privation and sorrow. I lookedhard at her, and she met my stare with a strange, inquisitive look.Then, as I turned my head after riding past, she seemed to gathercourage for the act, and absolutely beckoned me back.

  "I obeyed, senores, almost without thinking, so great was myastonishment. It was greater still when I heard what she had to say. Shebegan by thanking me for my forbearance of her father's infirmity,so that I felt ashamed of myself. I had meant to show disdain, notforbearance! Every word must have burnt her lips, but she never departedfrom a gentle and melancholy dignity which filled me with respectagainst my will. Senores, we are no match for women. But I could hardlybelieve my ears when she began her tale. Providence, she concluded,seemed to have preserved the life of that wronged soldier, who nowtrusted to my honour as a caballero and to my compassion for hissufferings.

  "'Wronged man,' I observed coldly. 'Well, I think so too: and you havebeen harbouring an enemy of your cause.'

  "'He was a poor Christian crying for help at our door in the name ofGod, senor,' she answered simply.

  "I began to admire her. 'Where is he now?' I asked stiffly.

  "But she would not answer that question. With extreme cunning, and analmost fiendish delicacy, she managed to remind me of my failure insaving the lives of the prisoners in the guard-room, without woundingmy pride. She knew, of course, the whole story. Gaspar Ruiz, she said,entreated me to procure for him a safe-conduce from General SanMartin himself. He had an important communication to make to theCommander-in-Chief.

  "Por Dios, senores, she made me swallow all that, pretending to be onlythe mouthpiece of that poor man. Overcome by injustice, he expected tofind, she said, as much generosity in me as had been shown to him by theRoyalist family which had given him a refuge.

  "Hal It was well and nobly said to a youngster like me. I thought hergreat. Alas! she was only implacable.

  "In the end I rode away very enthusiastic about the business, withoutdemanding even to see Gaspar Ruiz, who I was confident was in the house.

  "But on calm reflection I began to see some difficulties which I had notconfidence enough in myself to encounter. It was not easy to approacha commander-in-chief with such a story. I feared failure. At last Ithought it better to lay the matter before my general-of-division,Robles, a friend of my family, who had appointed me his aide-de-camplately.

  "He took it out of my hands at once without any ceremony.

  "'In the house! of course he is in the house,' he said contemptuously.'You ought to have gone sword in hand inside and demanded his surrender,instead of chatting with a Royalist girl in the porch. Those peopleshould have been hunted out of that long ago. Who knows how many spiesthey have harboured right in the very midst of our camps? A safe-conductfrom the Commander-in-Chief! The audacity of the fellow! Ha! ha! Nowwe shall catch him to-night, and then we shall find out, without anysafe-conduct, what he has got to say, that is so very important. Ha! ha!ha!'

  "General Robles, peace to his soul, was a short, thick man, with round,staring eyes, fierce and jovial. Seeing my distress he added:

  "'Come, come, chico. I promise you his life if he does not resist. Andthat is not likely. We are not going to break up a good soldier if itcan be helped. I tell you what! I am curious to see your strong man.Nothing but a general will do for the picaro--well, he shall have ageneral to talk to. Ha! ha! I shall go myself to the catching, and youare coming with me, of course.'

  "And it was done that same night. Early in the evening the house and theorchard were surrounded quietly. Later on the general and I left a ballwe were attending in town and rode out at an easy gallop. At some littledistance from the house we pulled up. A mounted orderly held our horses.A low whistle warned the men watching all along the ravine, and wewalked up to the porch softly. The barricaded house in the moonlightseemed empty.

  "The general knocked at the door. After a time a woman's voice withinasked who was there. My chief nudged me hard. I gasped.

  "' It is I, Lieutenant Santierra,' I stammered out, as if choked. 'Openthe door.'

  "It came open slowly. The girl, holding a thin taper in her hand, seeinganother man with me, began to back away before us slowly, shading thelight with her hand. Her impassive white face looked ghostly. I followedbehind General Robles. Her eyes were fixed on mine. I made a gesture ofhelplessness behind my chief's back, trying at the same time to give areassuring expression to my face. Neither of us three uttered a sound.

  "We found ourselves in a room with bare floor and walls. There was arough table and a couple of stools in it, nothing else whatever. An oldwoman with her grey hair hanging loose wrung her hands when we appeared.A peal of loud laughter resounded through the empty house, very amazingand weird. At this the old woman tried to get past us.

  "'Nobody to leave the room,' said General Robles to me.

  "I swung the door to, heard the latch click, and the laughter becamefaint in our ears.

  "Before another word could be spoken in that room I was amazed byhearing the sound of distant thunder.

  "I had carried in with me into the house a vivid impression of abeautiful, clear, moonlight night, without a speck of cloud in the sky.I could not believe my ears. Sent early abroad for my education, I wasnot familiar with the most dreaded natural phenomenon of my native land.I saw, with inexpressible astonishment, a look of terror in my chief'seyes. Suddenly I felt giddy! The general staggered against me heavily;the girl seemed to reel in the middle of the room, the taper fell out ofher hand and the light went out; a shrill cry of Misericordia! from theold woman pierced my ears. In the pitchy darkness I heard the plasteroff the walls falling on The floor. It is a mercy there was no ceiling.Holding on to the latch of the door, I heard the grinding of theroof-tiles cease above my head. The shock was over.

  "'Out of the house! The door! Fly, Santierra, fly!' howled the general.You know, senores, in our country the bravest are not ashamed of thefear an earthquake strikes into all the senses of man. One never getsused to it.

  "Repeated experience only augments the mastery of that nameless terror.

  "It was my first earthquake, and I was the calmest of them all. Iunderstood that the crash outside was caused by the porch, with itswooden pillars and tiled roof projection, falling down. The nextshock would destroy the house, maybe. That rumble as of thunder wasapproaching again. The general was rushing round the room, to find thedoor, perhaps. He made a noise as though he were trying to climb thewalls, and I heard him distinctly invoke the names of several saints.'Out, out, Santierra!' he yelled.

  "The girl's voice was the only one I did not hear.

  "'General,' I cried, 'I cannot move the door. We must be locked in.'

  "I did not recognise his voice in the shout of malediction and despairhe let out. Senores I know many men in my country, especially in theprovinces most subject to earthquakes, who will neither eat, sleep,pray, nor
even sit down to cards with closed doors. The danger is notin the loss of time, but in this--that the movement of the walls mayprevent a door being opened at all. This was what had happened to us. Wewere trapped, and we had no help to expect from anybody. There is no manin my country who will go into a house when the earth trembles. Therenever was--except one: Gaspar Ruiz.

  "He had come out of whatever hole he had been hiding in outside, andhad clambered over the timbers of the destroyed porch. Above the awfulsubterranean groan of coming destruction I heard a mighty voice shoutingthe word 'Erminia!' with the lungs of a giant. An earthquake is a greatleveller of distinctions. I collected all my resolution against theterror of the scene. 'She is here,' I shouted back. A roar as of afurious wild beast answered me--while my head swam, my heart sank, andthe sweat of anguish streamed like rain off my brow.

  "He had the strength to pick up one of the heavy posts of the porch.Holding it under his armpit like a lance, but with both hands, hecharged madly the rocking house with the force of a battering-ram,bursting open the door and rushing in, headlong, over our prostratebodies. I and the general, picking ourselves up, bolted out together,without looking round once till we got across the road. Then, clingingto each other, we beheld the house change suddenly into a heap offormless rubbish behind the back of a man, who staggered towards usbearing the form of a woman clasped in his arms. Her long black hairhung nearly to his feet. He laid her down reverently on the heavingearth, and the moonlight shone on her closed eyes.

  "senores, we mounted with difficulty. Our horses, getting up, plungedmadly, held by the soldiers who had come running from all sides. Nobodythought of catching Gaspar Ruiz then. The eyes of men and animals shonewith wild fear. My general approached Gaspar Ruiz, who stood motionlessas a statue above the girl. He let himself be shaken by the shoulderwithout detaching his eyes from her face.

  "'Que guape!' shouted the general in his ear. 'You are the bravest manliving. You have saved my life. I am General Robles. Come to my quartersto-morrow, if God gives us the grace to see another day.'

  "He never stirred--as if deaf, without feeling, insensible.

  "We rode away for the town, full of our relations, of our friends, ofwhose fate we hardly dared to think. The soldiers ran by the side ofour horses. Everything was forgotten in the immensity of the catastropheovertaking a whole country."

  Gaspar Ruiz saw the girl open her eyes. The raising of her eyelidsseemed to recall him from a trance. They were alone; the cries of terrorand distress from homeless people filled the plains of the coast, remoteand immense, coming like a whisper into their loneliness.

  She rose swiftly to her feet, darting fearful glances on all sides."What is it?" she cried out low, and peering into his face. "Where amI?"

  He bowed his head sadly, without a word.

  "... Who are you?"

  He knelt down slowly before her, and touched the hem of her coarse blackbaize skirt. "Your slave," he said.

  She caught sight then of the heap of rubbish that had been the house,all misty in the cloud of dust. "Ah!" she cried, pressing her hand toher forehead.

  "I carried you out from there," he whispered at her feet.

  "And they?" she asked in a great sob.

  He rose, and taking her by the arms, led her gently towards theshapeless ruin half overwhelmed by a land-slide. "Come and listen," hesaid.

  The serene moon saw them clambering over that heap of stones, joists andtiles, which was a grave. They pressed their ears to the interstices,listening for the sound of a groan, for a sigh of pain.

  At last he said, "They died swiftly. You are alone."

  She sat down on a piece of broken timber and put one arm across herface. He waited--then, approaching his lips to her ear, "Let us go," hewhispered.

  "Never--never from here," she cried out, flinging her arms above herhead.

  He stooped over her, and her raised arms fell upon his shoulders. Helifted her up, steadied himself and began to walk, looking straightbefore him.

  "What are you doing?" she asked feebly.

  "I am escaping from my enemies," he said, never once glancing at hislight burden.

  "With me?" she sighed helplessly.

  "Never without you," he said. "You are my strength."

  He pressed her close to him. His face was grave and his footstepssteady. The conflagrations bursting out in the ruins of destroyedvillages dotted the plain with red fires; and the sounds of distantlamentations, the cries of "Misericordia! Misericordia!" made a desolatemurmur in his ears. He walked on, solemn and collected, as if carryingsomething holy, fragile and precious.

  The earth rocked at times under his feet.