Part 36

With quivering hands she dressed, and stole out of the house. After the first few seconds she found herself strangely strong; she did not tremble; her feet trod firm on the ground. “Oh, miracle!” she thought, as she hastened down the garden-walk; “I am well again! Alessandro is near!” So vivid was the impression, that when she reached the willows and found the spot silent, vacant, as when she had last sat there, hopeless, broken-hearted, she experienced a revulsion of disappointment. “Not here!” she cried; “not here!” and a swift fear shook her. “Am I mad? Is it this way, perhaps, people lose their senses, when they are as I have been!”

But the young, strong blood was running swift in her veins. No! this was no madness; rather a newly discovered power; a fulness of sense; a revelation. Alessandro was near.

Swiftly she walked down the river road. The farther she went, the keener grew her expectation, her sense of Alessandro's nearness. In her present mood she would have walked on and on, even to Temecula itself, sure that she was at each step drawing nearer to Alessandro.

As she approached the second willow copse, which lay perhaps a quarter of a mile west of the first, she saw the figure of a man, standing, leaning against one of the trees. She halted. It could not be Alessandro. He would not have paused for a moment so near the house where he was to find her. She was afraid to go on. It was late to meet a stranger in this lonely spot. The figure was strangely still; so still that, as she peered through the dusk, she half fancied it might be an optical illusion. She advanced a few steps, hesitatingly, then stopped. As she did so, the man advanced a few steps, then stopped. As he came out from the shadows of the trees, she saw that he was of Alessandro's height. She quickened her steps, then suddenly stopped again. What did this mean? It could not be Alessandro. Ramona wrung her hands in agony of suspense. An almost unconquerable instinct urged her forward; but terror held her back. After standing irresolute for some minutes, she turned to walk back to the house, saying, “I must not run the risk of its being a stranger. If it is Alessandro, he will come.”

But her feet seemed to refuse to move in the opposite direction. Slower and slower she walked for a few paces, then turned again. The man had returned to his former place, and stood as at first, leaning against the tree.

“It may be a messenger from him,” she said; “a messenger who has been told not to come to the house until after dark.”

Her mind was made up. She quickened her pace to a run. A few moments more brought her so near that she could see distinctly. It was--yes, it was Alessandro. He did not see her. His face was turned partially away, his head resting against the tree; he must be ill. Ramona flew, rather than ran. In a moment more, Alessandro had heard the light steps, turned, saw Ramona, and, with a cry, bounded forward, and they were clasped in each other's arms before they had looked in each other's faces. Ramona spoke first. Disengaging herself gently, and looking up, she began: “Alessandro--” But at the first sight of his face she shrieked. Was this Alessandro, this haggard, emaciated, speechless man, who gazed at her with hollow eyes, full of misery, and no joy! “O God,” cried Ramona, “You have been ill! you are ill! My God, Alessandro, what is it?”

Alessandro passed his hand slowly over his forehead, as if trying to collect his thoughts before speaking, all the while keeping his eyes fixed on Ramona, with the same anguished look, convulsively holding both her hands in his.

“Senorita,” he said, “my Senorita!” Then he stopped. His tongue seemed to refuse him utterance; and this voice,--this strange, hard, unresonant voice,--whose voice was it? Not Alessandro's.

“My Senorita,” he began again, “I could not go without one sight of your face; but when I was here, I had not courage to go near the house. If you had not come, I should have gone back without seeing you.”

Ramona heard these words in fast-deepening terror, What did they mean? Her look seemed to suggest a new thought to Alessandro.

“Heavens, Senorita!” he cried, “have you not heard? Do you not know what has happened?”

“I know nothing, love,” answered Ramona. “I have heard nothing since you went away. For ten days I have been sure you were dead; but to-night something told me that you were near, and I came to meet you.”

At the first words of Ramona's sentence, Alessandro threw his arms around her again. As she said “love,” his whole frame shook with emotion.

“My Senorita!” he whispered, “my Senorita! how shall I tell you! How shall I tell you!”

“What is there to tell, Alessandro?” she said. “I am afraid of nothing, now that you are here, and not dead, as I thought.”

But Alessandro did not speak. It seemed impossible. At last, straining her closer to his breast, he cried: “Dearest Senorita! I feel as if I should die when I tell you,--I have no home; my father is dead; my people are driven out of their village. I am only a beggar now, Senorita; like those you used to feed and pity in Los Angeles convent!” As he spoke the last words, he reeled, and, supporting himself against the tree, added: “I am not strong, Senorita; we have been starving.”

Ramona's face did not reassure him. Even in the dusk he could see its look of incredulous horror. He misread it.

“I only came to look at you once more,” he continued. “I will go now. May the saints bless you, my Senorita, always. I think the Virgin sent you to me to-night. I should never have seen your face if you had not come.”

While he was speaking, Ramona had buried her face in his bosom. Lifting it now, she said, “Did you mean to leave me to think you were dead, Alessandro?”

“I thought that the news about our village must have reached you,” he said, “and that you would know I had no home, and could not come, to seem to remind you of what you had said. Oh, Senorita, it was little enough I had before to give you! I don't know how I dared to believe that you could come to be with me; but I loved you so much, I had thought of many things I could do; and--” lowering his voice and speaking almost sullenly--“it is the saints, I believe, who have punished me thus for having resolved to leave my people, and take all I had for myself and you. Now they have left me nothing;” and he groaned.

“Who?” cried Ramona. “Was there a battle? Was your father killed?” She was trembling with horror.

“No,” answered Alessandro. “There was no battle. There would have been, if I had had my way; but my father implored me not to resist. He said it would only make it worse for us in the end. The sheriff, too, he begged me to let it all go on peaceably, and help him keep the people quiet. He felt terribly to have to do it. It was Mr. Rothsaker, from San Diego. We had often worked for him on his ranch. He knew all about us. Don't you recollect, Senorita, I told you about him,--how fair he always was, and kind too? He has the biggest wheat-ranch in Cajon; we've harvested miles and miles of wheat for him. He said he would have rather died, almost, than have had it to do; but if we resisted, he would have to order his men to shoot. He had twenty men with him. They thought there would be trouble; and well they might,--turning a whole village full of men and women and children out of their houses, and driving them off like foxes. If it had been any man but Mr. Rothsaker, I would have shot him dead, if I had hung for it; but I knew if he thought we must go, there was no help for us.”

“But, Alessandro,” interrupted Ramona, “I can't understand. Who was it made Mr. Rothsaker do it? Who has the land now?”

“I don't know who they are,” Alessandro replied, his voice full of anger and scorn. “They're Americans--eight or ten of them. They all got together and brought a suit, they call it, up in San Francisco; and it was decided in the court that they owned all our land. That was all Mr. Rothsaker could tell about it. It was the law, he said, and nobody could go against the law.”

“Oh,” said Ramona, “that's the way the Americans took so much of the Senora's land away from her. It was in the court up in San Francisco; and they decided that miles and miles of her land, which the General had always had, was not hers at all. They said it belonged to the United States Government.”

“They are a pack of thieves and liars, every one of them!” cried Alessandro. “They are going to steal all the land in this country; we might all just as well throw ourselves into the sea, and let them have it. My father had been telling me this for years. He saw it coming; but I did not believe him. I did not think men could be so wicked; but he was right. I am glad he is dead. That is the only thing I have to be thankful for now. One day I thought he was going to get well, and I prayed to the Virgin not to let him. I did not want him to live. He never knew anything clear after they took him out of his house. That was before I got there. I found him sitting on the ground outside. They said it was the sun that had turned him crazy; but it was not. It was his heart breaking in his bosom. He would not come out of his house, and the men lifted him up and carried him out by force, and threw him on the ground; and then they threw out all the furniture we had; and when he saw them doing that, he put his hands up to his head, and called out, 'Alessandro! Alessandro!' and I was not there! Senorita, they said it was a voice to make the dead hear, that he called with; and nobody could stop him. All that day and all the night he kept on calling. God! Senorita, I wonder I did not die when they told me! When I got there, some one had built up a little booth of tule over his head, to keep the sun off. He did not call any more, only for water, water. That was what made them think the sun had done it. They did all they could; but it was such a dreadful time, nobody could do much; the sheriff's men were in great hurry; they gave no time. They said the people must all be off in two days. Everybody was running hither and thither. Everything out of the houses in piles on the ground. The people took all the roofs off their houses too. They were made of the tule reeds; so they would do again. Oh, Senorita, don't ask me to tell you any more! It is like death. I can't!”

Ramona was crying bitterly. She did not know what to say. What was love, in face of such calamity? What had she to give to a man stricken like this.'