The Lone Ranch by Mayne Reid (new reading .txt) 📕

“What delays Valerian? What can be keeping him?”

These questions came from Adela Miranda, on the evening of that same day, standing in the door of her brother’s house, with eyes bent along the road leading to Albuquerque. Valerian was her brother’s baptismal name, and it was about his absence she was anxious.

For this she had reasons—more than one. Though still only a young girl, she quite understood the political situation of the Mexican Republic; at all times shifting, of late more critical than usual. In her brother’s confidence, she had been kept posted up in all that transpired in the capital, as also the district over which he held military command, and knew the danger of which he was himself apprehensive—every day drawing nigher and nigher.

Shortly after his leaving her she had heard shots, with a distant murmur of voices, in the direction of the town. From the azolea, to which she had ascended, she could note these noises more distinctly, but fancied them to be salutes, vivas, and cheers. Still, there was nothing much in that. It might be some jubilation of the soldiery at the ordinary evening parade; and, remembering that the day was a fiesta, she thought less of it.

But, as night drew down, and her brother had not returned, she began to feel some slight apprehension. He had promised to be back for a dinner that was long since due—a repast she had herself prepared, more sumptuous than common on account of the saint’s day. This was it that elicited the anxious self-asked interrogatories.

After giving utterance to them, she paced backward and forward; now standing in the portal and gazing along the road; now returning to the sola de comida, to look upon the table, with cloth spread, wines decantered, fruits and flowers on the épergne—all but the dishes that waited serving till Valerian should show himself.

To look on something besides—a portrait that hung upon the wall, underneath her own. It was a small thing—a mere photographic carte-de-visite. But it was the likeness of one who had a large place in her brother’s heart, if not in her own. In hers, how could it? It was the photograph of a man she had never seen—Frank Hamersley. He had left it with Colonel Miranda, as a souvenir of their short but friendly intercourse.

Did Colonel Miranda’s sister regard it in that light? She could not in any other. Still, as she gazed upon it, a thought was passing through her mind somewhat different from a sentiment of simple friendship. Her brother had told her all—the circumstances that led to his acquaintance with Hamersley; of the duel, and in what a knightly manner the Kentuckian had carried himself; adding his own commentaries in a very flattering fashion. This, of itself, had been enough to pique curiosity in a young girl, just escaped from her convent school; but added to the outward semblance of the stranger, by the sun made lustrous—so lustrous inwardly—Adela Miranda was moved by something more than curiosity. As she stood regarding the likeness of Frank Hamersley she felt very much as he had done looking at hers—in love with one only known by portrait and repute.

In such there is nothing strange nor new. Many a reader of this tale could speak of a similar experience.

While gazing on the carte-de-visite she was roused from the sweet reverie it had called up by hearing footsteps outside. Someone coming in through the saggan.

“Valerian at last!”

The steps sounded as if the man making them were in a hurry. So should her brother be, having so long delayed his return.

She glided out to meet him with an interrogatory on her lips.

“Valerian?”—this suddenly changing to the exclamation, “Madre de Dios! ’Tis not my brother!”

It was not, but a man pale and breathless—a peon of the establishment—who, on seeing her, gasped out,—

“Señorita! I bring sad news. There’s been a mutiny at the cuartel—a pronunciamento. The rebels have had it all their own way, and I am sorry to tell you that the colonel, your brother—”

“What of him? Speak! Is he—”

“Not killed, nina; only wounded, and a prisoner.”

Adela Miranda did not swoon nor faint. She was not of the nervous kind. Nurtured amid dangers, most of her life accustomed to alarms from Indian incursions, as well as revolutionary risings, she remained calm.

She dispatched messengers to the town, secretly, one after another; and, while awaiting their reports, knelt before an image of the Virgin, and prayed.

Up till midnight her couriers went, and came. Then one who was more than a messenger—her brother himself!

As already reported to her, he was wounded, and came accompanied by the surgeon of the garrison, a friend. They arrived at the house in hot haste, as if pursued.

And they were so, as she soon after learnt.

There was just time for Colonel Miranda to select the most cherished of his penates; pack them on a recua of mules, then mount, and make away.

They had scarce cleared the premises when the myrmidons of the new commandant, led by the man himself, rode up and took possession of the place.

By this time, and by good luck, the ruffian was intoxicated—so drunk he could scarce comprehend what was passing around him. It seemed like a dream to him to be told that Colonel Miranda had got clear away; a more horrid one to hear that she whom he designed for a victim had escaped from his clutches.

When morning dawned, and in soberer mood he listened to the reports of those sent in pursuit—all telling the same tale of non-success—he raved like one in a frenzy of madness. For the escape of the late Commandant of Albuquerque had robbed him of two things—to him the sweetest in life—one, revenge on the man he heartily hated; the other, possession of the woman he passionately loved.