Short Fiction by O. Henry (librera reader txt) 📕

pleading in the harmonious Spanish tongue, and then two figures tumbled out into the light of the lanterns. One was the old woman; the other was a man clothed with a sumptuous and flashing splendour. The woman seemed to clutch and beseech from him something against his will. The man broke from her and struck her brutally back into the tent, where she lay, whimpering and invisible. Observing Tansey, he walked rapidly to the table where he sat. Tansey recognized him to be Ramon Torres, a Mexican, the proprietor of the stand he was patronizing.

Torres was a handsome, nearly full-blooded descendant of the Spanish, seemingly about thirty years of age, and of a haughty, but extremely courteous demeanour. Tonight he was dressed with signal magnificence. His costume was that of a triumphant matador, made of purple velvet almost hidden by jeweled embroidery. Diamonds of enormous size flashed upon his garb and his hands. He reached for a chair, and, seating himself at the opposite side of the table, began to roll a finical cigarette.

“Ah, Meester Tansee,” he said, with a sultry fire in his silky, black eyes, “I give myself pleasure to see you this evening. Meester Tansee, you have many times come to eat at my table. I theenk you a safe man⁠—a verree good friend. How much would it please you to leeve forever?”

“Not come back any more?” inquired Tansey.

“No; not leave⁠—leeve; the not-to-die.”

“I would call that,” said Tansey, “a snap.”

Torres leaned his elbows upon the table, swallowed a mouthful of smoke, and spake⁠—each word being projected in a little puff of gray.

“How old do you theenk I am, Meester Tansee?”

“Oh, twenty-eight or thirty.”

“Thees day,” said the Mexican, “ees my birthday. I am four hundred and three years of old today.”

“Another proof,” said Tansey, airily, “of the healthfulness of our climate.”

“Eet is not the air. I am to relate to you a secret of verree fine value. Listen me, Meester Tansee. At the age of twenty-three I arrive in Mexico from Spain. When? In the year fifteen hundred nineteen, with the soldados of Hernando Cortez. I come to thees country seventeen fifteen. I saw your Alamo reduced. It was like yesterday to me. Three hundred ninety-six year ago I learn the secret always to leeve. Look at these clothes I war⁠—at these diamantes. Do you theenk I buy them with the money I make with selling the chili-con-carne, Meester Tansee?”

“I should think not,” said Tansey, promptly. Torres laughed loudly.

“Válgame Dios! but I do. But it not the kind you eating now. I make a deeferent kind, the eating of which makes men to always leeve. What do you think! One thousand people I supply⁠—diez pesos each one pays me the month. You see! ten thousand pesos everee month! Que diable! how not I wear the fine ropa! You see that old woman try to hold me back a little while ago? That ees my wife. When I marry her she is young⁠—seventeen year⁠—bonita. Like the rest she ees become old and⁠—what you say!⁠—tough? I am the same⁠—young all the time. Tonight I resolve to dress myself and find another wife befitting my age. This old woman try to scr-r-ratch my face. Ha! ha! Meester Tansee⁠—same way they do entre los Americanos.”

“And this health-food you spoke of?” said Tansey.

“Hear me,” said Torres, leaning over the table until he lay flat upon it; “eet is the chili-con-carne made not from the beef or the chicken, but from the flesh of the señorita⁠—young and tender. That ees the secret. Everee month you must eat of it, having care to do so before the moon is full, and you will not die any times. See how I trust you, friend Tansee! Tonight I have bought one young ladee⁠—verree pretty⁠—so fina, gorda, blandita! Tomorrow the chili will be ready. Ahora si! One thousand dollars I pay for thees young ladee. From an Americano I have bought⁠—a verree tip-top man⁠—el Capitán Peek⁠—que es, Señor?”

For Tansey had sprung to his feet, upsetting the chair. The words of Katie reverberated in his ears: “They’re going to eat me, Sam.” This, then, was the monstrous fate to which she had been delivered by her unnatural parent. The carriage he had seen drive up from the Plaza was Captain Peek’s. Where was Katie? Perhaps already⁠—

Before he could decide what to do a loud scream came from the tent. The old Mexican woman ran out, a flashing knife in her hand. “I have released her,” she cried. “You shall kill no more. They will hang you⁠—ingrato⁠—encatador!”

Torres, with a hissing exclamation, sprang at her.

“Ramoncito!” she shrieked; “once you loved me.”

The Mexican’s arm raised and descended. “You are old,” he cried; and she fell and lay motionless.

Another scream; the flaps of the tent were flung aside, and there stood Katie, white with fear, her wrists still bound with a cruel cord.

“Sam!” she cried, “save me again!”

Tansey rounded the table, and flung himself, with superb nerve, upon the Mexican. Just then a clangour began; the clocks of the city were tolling the midnight hour. Tansey clutched at Torres, and, for a moment, felt in his grasp the crunch of velvet and the cold facets of the glittering gems. The next instant, the bedecked caballero turned in his hands to a shrunken, leather-visaged, white-bearded, old, old, screaming mummy, sandalled, ragged, and four hundred and three. The Mexican woman was crawling to her feet, and laughing. She shook her brown hand in the face of the whining viejo.

“Go, now,” she cried, “and seek your señorita. It was I, Ramoncito, who brought you to this. Within each moon you eat of the life-giving chili. It was I that kept the wrong time for you. You should have eaten yesterday instead of tomorrow. It is too late. Off with you, hombre! You are too old for me!”

“This,” decided Tansey, releasing