The Beautiful Eyes of Ysidria by Charles A. Gunnison (best fiction novels to read txt) 📗

better go to-day between four and five, as it was at the best then, when half of the ruin would be in shadow and the one standing wall receive the full sunlight. I was pleased with the picture, but had I known of the snakes this accident never could have happened. You were looking so intently at me when I discovered your presence that I was startled and even thought of Aunt Ambrosia's skill in the black art, and that you might be some supernatural friend of hers, hence my hasty retreat and consequent disaster."

"It is a pity that I should have been the cause of the mishap," I answered; though truthfully I was much pleased at our novel meeting, and I knew the sprain was but slight. I again took her in my arms and started off at a brisk walk down the hill. It was dusk when we approached the house, and passed along the narrow path, and knocked at the open door of Madre Moreno's little house.

I placed my fair burden in an arm chair, which stood on the veranda and, while waiting for an answer to my knock, looked into her beautiful face which was turned partly away from me, but even in the shadow where she was sitting, the wonderful brilliancy of her eyes was noticeable and seemed to illumine her whole face.

Madre Moreno came to the door; she held a lighted candle, and as she recognized me, looked surprised and said, "Hast thou seen no one on the road Carlos? I have been waiting long for my niece, she went to the ruin this afternoon and has not yet returned; she must have lost her way, for she surely would not stay so late otherwise. I shall go out to search for her; I hope she has met with no accident. Help me search, Carlos."

Madre Moreno seemed very anxious, and to have lost all the happy spirits and buoyancy she had shown in the morning.

"I am here, Aunt Ambrosia, and thanks to this gentleman or I should still be out on the hill, in the moonlight with all the lizards and snakes, and perhaps some of your good friends also," spoke out the girl in a laughing voice.

"That is good, good, good!" exclaimed Madre Moreno. "How didst thou, Ysidria, come to find our friend Carlos de Soto and he to take thee home?" and the Madre began to laugh boisterously. "Stay to sup with us Carlos," she said, when she had enough recovered from her fit of laughter to speak, "or perhaps thou art afraid of the old witch."

In as few words as possible the accident was explained to Madre Moreno, and I again lifted her niece and placed her on a lounge in the house. "The Madre can bring you out all right, if anyone can," I said as I left the room, "I will take the liberty of inquiring for you in the morning."

As I walked down the path to the gate, I spoke aloud, "What beautiful, beautiful eyes!"

"Yes, that they are, Master Carlos!" said a voice seemingly beside me. I turned, the voice sounded like that of the Madre, but no one was to be seen, however, the large black cat which had followed me, put up her back to be stroked and purred and rubbed against my leg. As I closed the gate the same voice sounded again but more faintly. "Beautiful eyes hath Ysidria; beautiful eyes!"

IV.

When I returned home, Catalina had a hot supper ready, and I sat down, forgetting, for the moment, the events of the day, in the odour of the good things on the table.

"What success, Don Carlos, have you found the flowers you were searching for?"

"Yes, Catalina, I found the plants just where I expected to find them, and I also found at the old adobe what I did not look for." I then gave an account of the day, however, making as modest enumeration of the charms of Madre Moreno's niece, as I was able, for fear of exciting Catalina's suspicions.

I began to feel that I was much interested in the beautiful Ysidria, and hated to have old Catalina discover it, for the girls relationship to the Madre would, I knew, be the cause of much disquiet to the good woman.

I sat before the door long after supper, building air castles, in all of which the fair stranger held a place. Her brilliant eyes were always before my mind, as I had first seen them that afternoon, sometimes of a deep blue colour, and then in a moment black as jet, when the dilated pupil covered the iris, and then her pretty smile and graceful form each had a great and wonderful charm for me.

The only thing that troubled me, and I tried to laugh it out of my thoughts, was the connection with the reputed witch, but foolish as I knew such notions to be, I was, however, unable to banish them, and I often wished that the beautiful Ysidria was any one in the world but the niece of Ambrosia Moreno. Not that I had any dislike for the Madre, or that I bore her any ill will for the various misfortunes which had come to my family through her agency, as the country people believed, but it was unpleasant to me to think of this young creature living under the same roof with and under the influence of such a woman as I knew the Moreno to be, aside from her connection with el bueno Diablo, at which I could only laugh, and a story which I knew to be encouraged by the Madre herself, simply for the notoriety it gave her, and the power she was enabled through this belief to exercise over the people.

Ysidria, I had already learned, was as skeptical as myself in regard to Madre Moreno's spells, for the laughing manner in which she had spoken of her aunt's charms and witcheries, when we were on the hill and even in the presence of the Madre herself, convinced me of her intelligence and education. It was not this that troubled me concerning Ysidria, but knowing Madre Moreno as I did, and what an unscrupulous, scheming and heartless woman she was, I felt that she had brought this lovely niece to her home for some purpose known only to herself. Of what that purpose could be I had not the faintest idea, but I knew the Madre never did anything without an object.

I laughed at myself for the great interest I so suddenly felt in a person whom I had never seen before, and then only for a few hours. But laugh as I would, I had to own that I was something more than interested in the stranger, and the pleasure with which I looked forward to the promised call in the morning, and my anxiety for her recovery, plainly showed me that my heart was fast being lost, if indeed it were not already gone from me.

Catalina sat at the door with me after her work was done, but I was so deep in my own thoughts, and often did not hear her remarks, that she left me and went to her room.

I did not notice when she left, and not until the clock in the veranda struck eleven did I become aware of the length of time I had been dreaming awake.

The moon was shining clear and full in the blue, cloudless sky, so bright that scarcely a star could be seen, illuminating the whole country so that everything not in shadow could be distinguished as well as if it were noontime.

I walked out from the garden down by the Castilian hedge and along the road where the shadows of the oaks, with their twisted and mistletoe-covered branches, made grotesque forms. I was very fond of these solitary walks on moonlight nights, often going as far as the divide, from which Bolinas and the great ocean can be seen, and where Larsen's wayside inn now stands, but to-night there was a new sensation of loneliness which I had never felt before, and I longed for some one to be with me; then I began to wonder whom I would prefer for a companion, and thought of all my friends, even to old Madre Moreno, but none of them seemed to be the one to break the new and undefinable loneliness. Suddenly the form of the fair stranger, with her bright eyes and expressive face, came up before my fancy, and I exclaimed, "Yes, it is she; it is she alone!"

"Alone!" sounded back upon my ear like a human voice, which startled me from my reverie, and I saw that I was standing beside the old adobe, whither I had wandered without knowing. Close at my feet lay a bit of white cloth which attracted my attention, and I picked it up. It was a handkerchief of fine cambric, in one corner of which was embroidered a name, which I could easily read in the moonlight, "Ysidria."

I read the name aloud, and the great wall with its ivy glistening silver in the light echoed back the name. At the time I was not surprised to hear the the three syllables so fully pronounced by the echo. I enjoyed the sound of the name, and called it again and again. "Ysidria! Ysidria!" each time called back the ruined wall, and at last I had to laugh as I thought of the ludicrous appearance I presented, calling aloud a name and like a child being pleased with the voice of the unseen spirit, but as I laughed, that too, reverberated, but the sound seemed changed, and it made me involuntarily shudder as I remembered the scene of that very morning, when my laugh had produced the same strange feeling, half of awe and half of anger. I looked around as if I expected to find some one at my side. I started at every sound, and the long, creeping shadows made me tremble. I was certainly strong, and had often shown myself courageous in time of danger, but the mysterious awe which fell upon me here completely unnerved me, and a cold perspiration started, when from the wall I heard a whisper, distinctly audible, which pronounced the words, "Ysidria hath beautiful eyes!"

I could not move, it seemed to me as if my heart ceased beating; I listened and strained my ears in agonizing suspense, but the voice did not come again, and the moon dropping suddenly behind the fig trees, cast the whole place into profound darkness.

I felt free again, and pressing the handkerchief to my lips, imprinted a kiss upon it and then at the same moment called myself a fool for so suddenly becoming infatuated with the stranger in whom I had not the slightest reason for taking more than a passing interest at most, no more than common politeness required.

Again I laughed aloud and again the same fearful, hollow echo came back to me from the ruined wall. I could stand it no longer, and turning, ran from the grove, over the brow of the hill to the road, fearing every moment lest the strange spell, from which I had just recovered, should seize me again.

As I ascended the second hill, I saw, as I looked behind me, a female figure slowly walking down to the road from the grove of figs. I knew at once who it was from the odd manner of wearing her reboso, and by the lameness of her gait; it was Madre Moreno, the witch.

The thought suddenly came to me that she must have been hidden in the ruin, and have heard me when I called the name of Ysidria, and I mentally cursed the old hag. Then I thought of the whispered sentence, and of the three syllabled echo; and knew they must have come from her.

"What can the awful woman have in hand?" I asked myself, "What, but some wickedness. I wish she did not follow me so closely. Worse than all, she may tell the fair Ysidria what a fool I made of myself over her handkerchief; I almost wish with Catalina that the good old days were here again." I walked home more slowly, and entering the house quietly, reached my room just as the clock struck two.

V.

The winter went, and the hot summer passed pleasantly.

It was about the beginning of October, when one morning, I walked down to Madre Moreno's house. I had become a constant visitor at the witch's cottage, and often dined there. The accident which had so oddly introduced Ysidria to me was not serious, and in a few days she was completely recovered. Ysidria served at the simple meals of Madre Moreno, and no one ever mixed my wine