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It was not yet quite noon of the first day, when Felipe fainted and fell in the wool; and it was only a little past noon of the third, when Juan Canito, who, not without some secret exultation, had taken Senor Felipe's place at the packing, fell from the cross-beam to the ground, and broke his right leg, a bad break near the knee; and Juan Canito's bones were much too old for fresh knitting.
Dinner was a silent and constrained meal, Ramona absent, the fiction of her illness still kept up; Felipe embarrassed, and unlike himself; the Senora silent, full of angry perplexity. At her first glance in Felipe's face, she thought to herself, "Ramona has spoken to him. When and how did she do it?"
With this he deliberately courted slumber. Out of the stillness rattled a wagon. Like Felipe's, it was a lumber rigging, and the driver, a fat Mexican with beady eyes, pulled up his horses and gazed at the disorder. It was but a perfunctory gaze, however, and revealed to him nothing of the true situation.
We were too close to the mountains to run any unnecessary risks, and if Pedro showed fight there, our chance of escape was gone. So I answered, "Yes," and rode along, wondering what would come of it. Every step led us into greater danger. We might run into the arms of the guerillas, in which event Don Felipe's fate was certain; or be stopped by the Royalists, when I should be made prisoner.
Her frequent and calm mention of Alessandro did not deceive him. It did not mean a lessening grief: it meant an unchanged relation. One thing weighed heavily on Felipe's mind, the concealed treasure. A sense of humiliation withheld him, day after day, from speaking of it. But he could have no peace until Ramona knew it.
"I cannot." "Then I will tell you!" shouted the old fellow in Felipe's face. "It means that you are a liar and a rascal. That you have played with Buelna, and that you have deceived me, who have trusted you as a father would have trusted a son. I forbid you to answer me. For the sake of what you were I spare you now. But this I will do. Off of my rancho!" he cried.
"The introduction of this child and woman doesn't prove anything that I can see." "Every Indian in the village," interrupted Don Felipe, "will substantiate what you have just heard. Why, the Señorita herself taught this child to call her mother. But there are still other things which you shall learn in due time." "Chiquita," said the Captain without heeding Don Felipe's words, "speak!
For three days and nights she had scarcely rested, so constant were the demands on her. Between Felipe's illness and Juan Can's, there was not a moment without something to be done, or some perplexing question to be settled, and above all, and through all, the terrible sorrow. Ramona was broken down with grief at the thought of Felipe's death.
That is the reason she likes you so much; she thinks you saved Felipe's life. I mean, that is one reason," added Ramona, smiling, and looking up confidingly at Alessandro, who smiled back, not in vanity, but honest gratitude that the Senorita was pleased to intimate that he was not unworthy of the Senora's regard. "I do not think she likes me," he said.
Senor Felipe's illness, she thought, and the general misery and confusion, had perhaps put everything else out of his head; but now he was going to stay, and it would be good fun having him there, if only Senor Felipe got well, which he seemed likely to do.
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