The Crusade of the Excelsior Part 27

"Well, you see, she had an idea that a former husband was on board of the Excelsior."

He stopped suddenly, remembering from the astonished faces of Keene and Markham that the secret was not known to them, while they, impressed with the belief that the story was a sudden invention of Brimmer's, with difficulty preserved their composure. But the women were quick to notice their confusion, and promptly disbelieved Brimmer's explanation.

"Well, as there's no Mister Montgomery here, she's probably mistaken,"

said Mrs. Markham, with decision, "though it strikes ME that she's very likely had the same delusion on board of some other s.h.i.+p. Come along, James; perhaps after you've had a bath and some clean clothes, you may come out a little more like the man I once knew. I don't know how Mrs.

Brimmer feels, but I feel more as if I required to be introduced to you--than your friend's friend, Mrs. Montgomery. At any rate, try and look and behave a little more decent when you go over to the Presidio."

With these words she dragged him away. Mr. Brimmer, after a futile attempt to appear at his ease, promptly effected the usual marital diversion of carrying the war into the enemy's camp.

"For heaven's sake, Barbara," he said, with ostentatious indignation, "go and dress yourself properly. Had you neither money nor credit to purchase clothes? I declare I didn't know you at first; and when I did, I was shocked; before Mrs. Markham, too!"

"Mrs. Markham, I fear, has quite enough to occupy her now," said Mrs.

Brimmer shortly, as she turned away, with hysterically moist eyes, leaving her husband to follow her.

Oblivious of this comedy, Richard Keene and Eleanor had already wandered back, hand in hand, to their days of childhood. But even in the joy that filled the young girl's heart in the presence of her only kinsman, there was a strange reservation. The meeting that she had looked forward to with eager longing had brought all she expected; more than that, it seemed to have been providentially antic.i.p.ated at the moment of her greatest need, and yet it was incomplete. She was ashamed that after the first recognition, a wild desire to run to Hurlstone and tell HIM her happiness was her only thought. She was shocked that the bright joyous face of this handsome lovable boy could not shut out the melancholy austere features of Hurlstone, which seemed to rise reproachfully between them. When, for the third and fourth time, they had recounted their past history, exchanged their confidences and feelings, d.i.c.k, pa.s.sing his arm around his sister's waist, looked down smilingly in her eyes.

"And so, after all, little Nell, everybody has been good to you, and you have been happy!"

"Everybody has been kind to me, d.i.c.k, far kinder than I deserved. Even if I had really been the great lady that little Dona Isabel thought I was, or the important person the Commander believed me to be, I couldn't have been treated more kindly. I have met with nothing but respect and attention. I have been very happy, d.i.c.k, very happy."

And with a little cry she threw herself on her brother's neck and burst into a childlike flood of inconsistent tears.

Meantime the news of the arrival of the relief-party had penetrated even the peaceful cloisters of the Mission, and Father Esteban had been summoned in haste to the Council. He returned with an eager face to Hurlstone, who had been anxiously awaiting him. When the Padre had imparted the full particulars of the event to his companion, he added gravely,--

"You see, my son, how Providence, which has protected you since you first claimed the Church's sanctuary, has again interfered to spare me the sacrifice of using the power of the Church in purely mundane pa.s.sions. I weekly accept the rebuke of His better-ordained ways, and you, Diego, may comfort yourself that this girl is restored directly to her brother's care, without any deviousness of plan or human responsibility. You do not speak, my son!" continued the priest anxiously; "can it be possible that, in the face of this gracious approval of Providence to your resolution, you are regretting it?"

The young man replied, with a half reproachful gesture:

"Do you, then, think me still so weak? No, Father Esteban; I have steeled myself against my selfishness for her sake. I could have resigned her to the escape you had planned, believing her happier for it, and ignorant of the real condition of the man she had learnt to--to--pity. But," he added, turning suddenly and almost rudely upon the priest, "do you know the meaning of this irruption of the outer world to ME? Do you reflect that these men probably know my miserable story?--that, as one of the pa.s.sengers of the Excelsior, they will be obliged to seek me and to restore me," he added, with a bitter laugh, "to MY home, MY kindred--to the world I loathe?"

"But you need not follow them. Remain here."

"Here!--with the door thrown open to any talebearer OR PERHAPS TO MY WIFE HERSELF? Never! Hear me, Father," he went on hurriedly: "these men have come from San Francisco--have been to Mazatlan. Can you believe that it is possible that they have never heard of this woman's search for me? No! The quest of hate is as strong as the quest of love, and more merciless to the hunted."

"But if that were so, foolish boy, she would have accompanied them."

"You are wrong! It would have been enough for her to have sent my exposure by them--to have driven me from this refuge."

"This is but futile fancy, Diego," said Father Esteban, with a simulated a.s.surance he was far from feeling. "Nothing has yet been said--nothing may be said. Wait, my child."

"Wait!" he echoed bitterly. "Ay, wait until the poor girl shall hear--perhaps from her brother's lips--the story of my marriage as bandied about by others; wait for her to know that the man who would have made her love him was another's, and unworthy of her respect? No!

it is I who must leave this place, and at once."

"YOU?" echoed the Padre. "How?"

"By the same means you would have used for her departure. I must take her place in that s.h.i.+p you are expecting. You will give ME letters to your friends. Perhaps, when this is over, I may return--if I still live."

Padre Esteban became thoughtful.

"You will not refuse me?" said the young man, taking the Padre's hand.

"It is for the best, believe me. I will remain secret here until then.

You will invent some excuse--illness, or what you like--to keep them from penetrating here. Above all, to spare me from the misery of ever reading my secret in her face."

Father Esteban remained still absorbed in thought.

"You will take a letter from me to the Archbishop, and put yourself under his care?" he asked at last, after a long pause. "You will promise me that?"

"I do!"

"Then we shall see what can be done. They talk, those Americanos,"

continued the priest, "of making their way up the coast to Punta St.

Jago, where the s.h.i.+p they have already sent for to take them away can approach the sh.o.r.e; and the Comandante has orders to furnish them escort and transport to that point. It is a foolish indiscretion of the Government, and I warrant without the sanction of the Church. Already there is curiosity, discontent, and wild talk among the people. Ah! thou sayest truly, my son," said the old man, gloomily; "the doors of Todos Santos are open. The Comandante will speed these heretics quickly on their way; but the doors by which they came and whence they go will never close again. But G.o.d's will be done! And if the open doors bring thee back, my son, I shall not question His will!"

It would seem, however, as if Hurlstone's fears had been groundless. For in the excitement of the succeeding days, and the mingling of the party from San Antonio with the new-comers, the recluse had been forgotten. So habitual, had been his isolation from the others, that, except for the words of praise and grat.i.tude hesitatingly dropped by Miss Keene to her brother, his name was not mentioned, and it might have been possible for the relieving party to have left him behind--unnoticed. Mr. Brimmer, for domestic reasons, was quite willing to allow the episode of Miss Montgomery's connection with their expedition to drop for the present.

Her name was only recalled once by Miss Keene. When d.i.c.k had professed a sudden and violent admiration for the coquettish Dona Isabel, Eleanor had looked up in her brother's face with a half troubled air.

"Who was this queer Montgomery woman, d.i.c.k?" she said.

d.i.c.k laughed--a frank, rea.s.suring, heart-free laugh.

"Perfectly stunning, Nell. Such a figure in tights! You ought to have seen her dance--my!"

"Hus.h.!.+ I dare say she was horrid!"

"Not at all! She wasn't such a bad fellow, if you left out her poetry and gush, which I didn't go in for much,--though the other fellows"--he stopped, from a sudden sense of loyalty to Brimmer and Markham. "No; you see, Nell, she was regularly ridiculously struck after that man Perkins,--whom she'd never seen,--a kind of schoolgirl wors.h.i.+p for a pirate. You know how you women go in for those fellows with a mystery about 'em."

"No, I don't!" said Miss Keene sharply, with a slight rise of color; "and I don't see what that's got to do with you and her."

"Everything! She was in correspondence with Perkins, and knows about the Excelsior affair, and wants to help him get out of it with clean hands, don't you see! That's why she made up to us. There, Nell; she ain't your style, of course; but you owe a heap to her for giving us points as to where you were. But that's all over now; she left us at Mazatlan, and went on to Nicaragua to meet Perkins somewhere there--for the fellow has always got some Central American revolution on hand, it appears. Until they garrote or shoot him some day, he'll go on in the liberating business forever."

"Then there wasn't any Mr. Montgomery, of course?" said Eleanor.

"Oh, Mr. Montgomery," said d.i.c.k, hesitating. "Well, you see, Nell, I think that, knowing how correct and all that sort of thing Brimmer is, she sort of invented the husband to make her interest look more proper."

"It's shameful!" said Miss Keene indignantly.

"Come, Nell; one would think you had a personal dislike to her. Let her go; she won't trouble you--nor, I reckon, ANYBODY, much longer."

"What do you mean, d.i.c.k?"

"I mean she has regularly exhausted and burnt herself out with her hysterics and excitements, and the drugs she's taken to subdue them--to say nothing of the Panama fever she got last spring. If she don't go regularly crazy at last she'll have another attack of fever, hanging round the isthmus waiting for Perkins."

Meanwhile, undisturbed by excitement or intrusion of the outer world, the days had pa.s.sed quietly at the Mission. But one evening, at twilight, a swift-footed, lightly-clad Indian glided into the sacristy as if he had slipped from the outlying fog, and almost immediately as quietly glided away again and disappeared. The next moment Father Esteban's gaunt and agitated face appeared at Hurlstone's door.

"My son, G.o.d has been merciful, and cut short your probation. The signal of the s.h.i.+p has just been made. Her boat will be waiting on the beach two leagues from here an hour hence. Are you ready? and are you still resolved?"

"I am," said Hurlstone, rising. "I have been prepared since you first a.s.sented."