Rainbow's End Part 2

Don Mario de Castano, who was facing the door, stopped in the midst of a ribald song to cry: "G.o.d be praised! What's this I see?"

The others looked and then burst into merriment, for across the litter of cards and dice and empty gla.s.ses they saw a dimpled girl and boy, as like as two peas. They were just out of bed; they were peering through the smoke, and blinking like two little owls. Their evident embarra.s.sment amused the guests hugely.

"So! You awaken the household with your songs," some one chided Don Mario.

"Two cherubs from heaven," another exclaimed.

And a third cried, "A toast to Esteban's beautiful children."

But the father lurched forward, a frown upon his face. "What is this, my dears?" he inquired, thickly. "Run back to your beds. This is no place for you."

"We love Evangelina," piped the twins. "You must not let Don Pablo have her--if you please."

"Evangelina?"

They nodded. "We love her. ... She plays with us every day. ... We want her to stay here. ... She belongs to us."

Accustomed as they were to prompt compliance with their demands, they spoke imperiously; but they had never seen a frown like this upon their father's face, and at his refusal their voices grew squeaky with excitement and uncertainty.

"Go to your rooms, my sweethearts," Don Esteban directed, finally.

"We want Evangelina. She belongs to us," they chorused, stubbornly.

Don Pablo shook with laughter. "So! She belongs to you, eh? And I'm to be robbed of my winnings. Very well, then, come and give me a kiss, both of you, and I'll see what can be done."

But the children saw that Don Pablo's face was strangely flushed, that his eyes were wild and his magnificent beard was wet with wine; therefore they hung back.

"You won your bet fairly," Esteban growled at him. "Pay no heed to these babies."

"Evangelina is ours," the little ones bravely repeated.

Then their father exploded: "The devil! Am I dreaming? Where have you learned to oppose me? Back to your beds, both of you." Seeing them hesitate, he shouted for his wife. "Ho, there! Isabel, my love! Come put these imps to rest. Or must I teach them manners with my palm? A fine thing, truly! Are they to be allowed to roam the house at will and get a fever?"

Mere mention of their stepmother's name was enough for Rosa and Esteban; they scuttled away as fast as they could go, and when Dona Isabel came to their rooms, a few moments later, she found them in their beds, with their eyes deceitfully squeezed shut. Evangelina was cowering in a corner. Isabel had overheard the wager, and her soul was evilly alight; she jerked the slave girl to her feet and with a blow of her palm sent her to her quarters. Then she turned her attention to the twins. When she left them they were weeping silently, both for themselves and for Evangelina, whom they dearly loved.

Meanwhile Don Mario had resumed his singing.

Day was breaking when Esteban Varona bade his guests good-by at the door of his house. As he stood there Sebastian came to him out of the mists of the dawn. The old man had been waiting for hours. He was half crazed from apprehension, and now cast himself p.r.o.ne before his master, begging for Evangelina.

Don Pablo, in whom the liquor was dying, cursed impatiently: "Caramba!

Have I won the treasure of your whole establishment?" he inquired.

"Perhaps you value this wench at more than a thousand pesos; if so, you will say that I cheated you."

"No! She's only an ordinary girl. My wife doesn't like her, and so I determined to get rid of her. She is yours, fairly enough," Varona told him.

"Then send her to my house. I'll breed her to Salvador, my cochero.

He's the strongest man I have."

Sebastian uttered a strangled cry and rose to his feet. "Master! You must not--"

"Silence!" ordered Esteban. Wine never agreed with him, and this morning its effects, combined with his losses at gambling, had put him in a nasty temper. "Go about your business. What do you mean by this, anyhow?" he shouted.

But Sebastian, dazed of mind and sick of soul, went on, unheeding. "She is my girl. You promised me her freedom. I warn you--"

"Eh?" The planter swayed forward and with blazing eyes surveyed his slave. Esteban knew that he had done a foul thing in risking the girl upon the turn of a card, and an inner voice warned him that he would repent his action when he became sober, but in his present mood this very knowledge enraged him the more. "You warn me? Of what?" he growled.

At this moment neither master nor man knew exactly what he said or did.

Sebastian raised his hand on high. In reality the gesture was meant to call Heaven as a witness to his years of faithful service, but, misconstruing his intent, Pablo Peza brought his riding-whip down across the old man's back, crying:

"Ho! None of that."

A shudder ran through Sebastian's frame. Whirling, he seized Don Pablo's wrist and tore the whip from his fingers. Although the Spaniard was a strong man, he uttered a cry of pain.

At this indignity to a guest Esteban flew into a fury. "Pancho!" he cried. "Ho! Pancho!" When the manager came running, Esteban explained: "This fool is dangerous. He raised his hand to me and to Don Pablo."

Sebastian's protests were drowned by the angry voices of the others.

"Tie him to yonder grating," directed Esteban, who was still in the grip of a senseless rage. "Flog him well and make haste about it."

Sebastian, who had no time in which to recover himself, made but a weak resistance when Pancho Cueto locked his wrists into a pair of clumsy, old-fas.h.i.+oned manacles, first pa.s.sing the chain around one of the bars of the iron window-grating which Esteban had indicated. Sebastian felt that his whole world was tumbling about his ears. He thought he must be dreaming.

Cueto swung a heavy lash; the sound of his blows echoed through the quinta, and they summoned, among others, Dona Isabel, who watched the scene from behind her shutter with much satisfaction. The guests looked on approvingly.

Sebastian made no outcry. The face he turned to his master, however, was puckered with reproach and bewilderment. The whip bit deep; it drew blood and raised welts the thickness of one's thumb; nevertheless, for the first few moments the victim suffered less in body than in spirit.

His brain was so benumbed, so shocked with other excitations, that he was well-nigh insensible to physical pain. That Evangelina, flesh of his flesh, had been sold, that his lifelong faithfulness had brought such reward as this, that Esteban, light of his soul, had turned against him--all this was simply astounding. More his simple mind could not compa.s.s for the moment. Gradually, however, he began to resent the shrieking injustice of it all, and unsuspected forces gathered inside of him. They grew until his frame was shaken by primitive savage impulses.

After a time Don Esteban cried: "That will do, Cueto! Leave him now for the flies to punish. They will remind him of his insolence."

Then the guests departed, and Esteban staggered into the house and went to bed.

All that morning Sebastian stood with his hands chained high over his head. The sun grew hotter and ever hotter upon his lacerated back: the blood dried and clotted there; a cloud of flies gathered, swarming over the raw gashes left by Cueto's whip.

Before leaving for Don Pablo's quinta Evangelina came to bid her father an agonized farewell, and for a long time after she had gone the old man stood motionless, senseless, scarcely breathing. Nor did the other slaves venture to approach him to offer sympathy or succor. They pa.s.sed with heads averted and with fear in their hearts.

Since Don Esteban's nerves, or perhaps it was his conscience, did not permit him to sleep, he arose about noon-time and dressed himself. He was still drunk, and the mad rage of the early morning still possessed him; therefore, when he mounted his horse he pretended not to see the figure chained to the window-grating. Sebastian's affection for his master was doglike and he had taken his punishment as a dog takes his, more in surprise than in anger, but at this proof of callous indifference a fire kindled in the old fellow's breast, hotter by far than the fever from his fly-blown scores. He was thirsty, too, but that was the least of his sufferings.

Sometime during the afternoon the negro heard himself addressed through the window against the bars of which he leaned. The speaker was Dona Isabel. She had waited patiently until she knew he must be faint from exhaustion and then she had let herself into the room behind the grating, whence she could talk to him without fear of observation.

"Do you suffer, Sebastian?" she began in a tone of gentleness and pity.

"Yes, mistress." The speaker's tongue was thick and swollen.

"La! La! What a crime! And you the most faithful slave in all Cuba!"

"Yes, mistress."

"Can I help you?"

The negro raised his head; he shook his body to rid himself of the insects which were devouring him.