sense of the word.
Hermosa, brought up at the hacienda, had only paid a few short visits, at long intervals, to the great centers of the Mexican Confederation. Their manners were entirely strange to her. Accustomed to lead the free and untrammelled life of a bird, and to express her thoughts aloud, her frankness and innocent simplicity were extreme, while her sweetness of temper made her adored by all the inhabitants of the hacienda, over whose welfare she watched with constant care.
Nevertheless, owing to the peculiar kind of education she had received, – exposed on this distant frontier to the frequent sound of the frightful war whoop of the redskins, and to be present during horrible scenes of carnage, – she had accustomed herself from an early age to look perils in the face, if not coldly, at all events with a courage and strength of mind scarcely to be expected in so delicate a child.
In conclusion, the influence she exercised over all who approached her was incomprehensible: it was impossible to know her without loving her, or without feeling a wish to lay down one's life for her.
On several occasions, in the attacks made on the hacienda by those ferocious plunderers of the desert the Apaches and Comanches, some wounded Indians had fallen into the hands of the Mexicans. Doña Hermosa, far from suffering these wretches to be maltreated, had ordered every care to be taken of them, and restored them to liberty as soon as their wounds were healed.
From this course of action it resulted that the redskins by degrees renounced their attacks upon the hacienda, and that the girl, attended by only one man – with whom we shall soon make the reader acquainted – unconcernedly took long rides in the wilderness, and often, carried away by the ardour of the chase, rambled off to a great distance from the hacienda; while the Indians who saw her pass not only abstained from injuring her, but laid no obstacles in her way. On the contrary, these primitive beings, having conceived a superstitious veneration for her, contrived, while remaining out of sight themselves, to remove from her path any dangers she might otherwise have encountered.
The redskins, with that natural tone of poetry which distinguishes them, had called her "the White Butterfly," so light and fragile did she seem to them as she bounded like a frightened fawn through the tall prairie grasses, which hardly bent under her weight.
One of her most favourite resting places in these excursions was a rancho, (a farm) seven or eight miles from the hacienda. The rancho, built in a charming situation and surrounded by fields well looked after and carefully cultivated, was inhabited by a woman of fifty and her son, a tall and handsome man of twenty-five or twenty-six with a proud eye and a warm heart, named Estevan Diaz. Na Manuela, as they called the old woman, and Estevan had an affection for the girl which knew no bounds. Manuela had nursed Hermosa when an infant, and the foster mother almost looked upon her young mistress as her own child, so deep was the love she bore her. The woman belonged to a class of domestics, now unhappily extinct in Europe, who form, as it were a part of the family, and are looked upon by their masters more as friends than servants.
It was under Estevan's escort that Hermosa took those long rides of which we spoke above. These continual têtes-à-têtes between a girl of sixteen and a man of twenty-five, which in our hypocritical and prudish world would be considered compromising, seemed very natural to the inhabitants of the hacienda. They knew the profound respect and loyal affection which bound Estevan to his mistress, whom he had dandled on his knees when a child, and whose first steps he had supported. Hermosa, who was as laughing, playful, and teasing as most girls of her age, took very great pleasure in being with Estevan, whom she could torment and plague to her heart's delight without his ever attempting to turn restive at the capricious vagaries of his young mistress. Did he not endure all her caprices with a patience beyond praise?
Don Pedro manifested an affectionate esteem for Manuela and her son. He had great confidence in both, and for the last two years had entrusted Estevan with the important post of major-domo– a post he shared, as far as the land was concerned, with Luciano Pedralva, who, however, was placed under his orders.
Thus Estevan Diaz and his mother were, next to the proprietor, the persons of greatest account at the hacienda, where they were treated with infinite respect, not only on account of the post they occupied, but also for the sake of their character, which was duly appreciated by all.
The Mexican hacenderos, whose properties are of immense extent, have a practice at certain times of the year of making a progress through their estates, in order to cast over their holding that "eye of the master" which, according to the favourite saying in Southern America, makes the crops ripen and the cattle fatten. Don Pedro never failed to undertake these tours, on which he was anxiously expected by the inferior persons in his employ, and by the peones of the haciendas, to whom the casual presence of their master brought some temporary alleviation of their miserable lives.
In Mexico slavery, abolished in principle by the Declaration of Independence, no longer exists by right; but it exists de facto through the whole extent of the Confederation; and the following is the adroit manner in which the law is eluded by the rich owners of the soil: – Every hacienda necessarily employs a great number of individuals as peones, vaqueros, tigreros, (herdsmen, hunters), &c. All these people are Indios mansos, or civilized Indians – that is to say, they have been baptised, and practise, after their own fashion, a religion they will not take the trouble to understand, and which they mix up with most absurd and ridiculous customs derived from their old creeds.
Brutalised by misery, the peones hire themselves, at very moderate wages, to the hacenderos, for the sake of satisfying their two chief vices, – gambling and drunkenness. But as Indians are the most thriftless beings in creation, their petty wages never suffice to feed and clothe them; and every day they are liable to die of hunger, if they cannot contrive to procure the ordinary necessaries of life from some source independent of their pay. It is when they have reached this climax that the rich proprietors trap them.
The capataz and major-domo keep in every hacienda, by order of their master, stores filled with clothing, arms, household utensils, and so forth, which are open to the peones, who pawn their labour for the needful articles advanced to them; the prices of the articles being always ten times their value.
It follows, from this simple combination, that the poor devils of peones not only never touch an infinitesimal fraction of the nominal wages allotted to them, but find themselves always on the debit side of the hacendero's balance sheet; and in a few months owe sums they could not possibly pay off in a lifetime. As the law is positive in these cases, the peones are compelled to remain in the service of their masters until, by their labour, this debt is liquidated. Unfortunately for them, their necessities are so imperious at all times, their position so precarious, that, after a life spent in incessant toil, the peones die insolvent. They have lived as slaves, fatally, adscripti glebæ, shamelessly worked, without mercy, down to their latest sigh, by men whom their sweat and their labour have enriched tenfold.
Doña Hermosa, good natured, as girls usually are when brought up in the bosom of their families, generally accompanied her father in these annual progresses, and pleased herself by leaving bounteous marks of her welcome visit with the poor peones.
This year, as in the preceding ones, she had attended Don Pedro de Luna, signalizing her visit to each rancho by relieving, in some way or other, the infirm, the old, and the children.
About forty-eight hours before the day on which our story commences, Don Pedro had left a silver mine he was working some leagues off in the desert, and set off for Las Norias de San Antonio. When he had got within twenty leagues of the hacienda, he felt convinced that his escort was not needed so near his own property, and sent forward Don Estevan and the armed retainers to announce his return, keeping with him only the capataz, Luciano Pedralva, and three or four peones.
Don Estevan had tried to dissuade his master from remaining in the desert almost single-handed, pointing out to him that the Indian frontiers were infested by freebooters and marauders of the vilest kind, who, skulking among the thickets, would be upon the watch for an opportunity of attacking his little band; but, by a singular fatality, Don Pedro, convinced that he had