第15章

The last note of the Angelus had just rung out of the crumbling fissures in the tower of the mission chapel of San Buena-ventura.

The sun which had beamed that day and indeed every day for the whole dry season over the red-tiled roofs of that old and happily ventured pueblo seemed to broaden to a smile as it dipped below the horizon, as if in undiminished enjoyment of its old practical joke of suddenly plunging the Southern California coast in darkness without any preliminary twilight.The olive and fig trees at once lost their characteristic outlines in formless masses of shadow;only the twisted trunks of the old pear trees in the mission garden retained their grotesque shapes and became gruesome in the gathering gloom.The encircling pines beyond closed up their serried files; a cool breeze swept down from the coast range and, passing through them, sent their day-long heated spices through the town.

If there was any truth in the local belief that the pious incantation of the Angelus bell had the power of excluding all evil influence abroad at that perilous hour within its audible radius, and comfortably keeping all unbelieving wickedness at a distance, it was presumably ineffective as regarded the innovating stage-coach from Monterey that twice a week at that hour brought its question-asking, revolver-persuading and fortune-seeking load of passengers through the sleepy Spanish town.On the night of the 3d of August, 1856, it had not only brought but set down at the Posada one of those passengers.It was a Mr.Ezekiel Corwin, formerly known to these pages as "hired man" to the late Squire Blandford, of North Liberty, Connecticut, but now a shrewd, practical, self-sufficient, and self-asserting unit of the more cautious later Californian immigration.As the stage rattled away again with more or less humorous and open disparagement of the town and the Posada from its "outsiders," he lounged with lazy but systematic deliberation towards Mateo Morez, the proprietor.

"I guess that some of your folks here couldn't direct me to Dick Demorest's house, could ye?"The Senor Mateo Morez was at once perplexed and pained.Pained at the ignorance thus forced upon him by a caballero; perplexed as to its intention.Between the two he smiled apologetically but gravely, and said: "No sabe, Senor.I 'ave not understood.""No more hev I," returned Ezekiel, with patronizing recognition of his obtuseness."I guess ez heow you ain't much on American.You folks orter learn the language if you kalkilate to keep a hotel."But the momentary vision of a waistless woman with a shawl gathered over her head and shoulders at the back door attracted his attention.She said something to Mateo in Spanish, and the yellowish-white of Mateo's eyes glistened with intelligent comprehension.

"Ah, posiblemente; it is Don Ricardo Demorest you wish?"Mr.Ezekiel's face and manner expressed a mingling of grateful curiosity and some scorn at the discovery."Wa'al," he said, looking around as if to take the entire Posada into his confidence, "way up in North Liberty, where I kem from, he was allus known as Dick Demorest, and didn't tack any forrin titles to his name.Et wouldn't hev gone down there, I reckon, 'mongst free-born Merikin citizens, no mor'n aliases would in court--and I kinder guess for the same reason.But folks get peart and sassy when they're way from hum, and put on ez many airs as a buck nigger.And so he calls hisself Don Ricardo here, does he?""The Senor knows Don Ricardo?" said Mateo politely.

"Ef you mean me--wa'al, yes--I should say so.He was a partiklar friend of a man I've known since he was knee-high to a grasshopper."Ezekiel had actually never seen Demorest but once in his life.He would have scorned to lie, but strict accuracy was not essential with an ignorant foreign audience.

He took up his carpet-bag.

"I reckon I kin find his house, ef it's anyway handy."But the Senor Mateo was again politely troubled.The house of Don Ricardo was of a truth not more than a mile distant.It was even possible that the Senor had observed it above a wall and vineyard as he came into the pueblo.But it was late--it was also dark, as the Senor would himself perceive--and there was still to-morrow.

To-morrow--ah, it was always there! Meanwhile there were beds of a miraculous quality at the Posada, and a supper such as a caballero might order in his own house.Health, discretion, solicitude for oneself--all pointed clearly to to-morrow.

What part of this speech Ezekiel understood affected him only as an innkeeper's bid for custom, and as such to be steadily exposed and disposed of.With the remark that he guessed Dick Demorest's was "a good enough hotel for HIM," and that he'd better be "getting along there," he walked down the steps, carpet-bag in hand, and coolly departed, leaving Mateo pained, but smiling, on the doorstep.

"An animal with a pig's head--without doubt," said Mateo, sententiously.

"Clearly a brigand with the liver of a chicken," responded his wife.