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The sight of so much wealth arouses the cupidity of the knaves, and they at once brew a plot to murder the huntsman in his sleep. Luckily Gabriela overhears their scheming, and puts the Prince upon his guard. The assassins find him prepared for their assault, and ready to defend himself to the last drop of blood. Fortunately matters do not come to a climax.
Father," she added, turning to the priest who stood beside her, "may I speak a few words to this generous friend?" "Yes, my daughter," answered the venerable minister. Then Gabriela asked me: "Where is he?" "He is absent " "May God bless him and make him happy! When you see him, ask him to forgive me even as I believe God has already forgiven me.
Gabriela looked at the judge with an expression of infinite love, as a mother would look at the child she worshiped, and answered: "By a single word I could drag this man into the depths with me. But I will not. No one shall ever know his name, for he has loved me and I love him. Yes, I love him, although I know he will do nothing to save me!"
We were soon to learn that his judicial superstition was to be fully justified. The evening of the day of my arrival we were seated in his office, reading the last reports of the police, who had been vainly attempting to trace Gabriela, when an officer entered and handed the judge a note which read as follows: "In the Hotel of the Lion there is a lady who wishes to speak to Judge Zarco."
"Good news, judge, grand news!" he said when he recovered breath. "We have won!" The man was the prosecuting attorney. "Explain yourself, my dear friend," said the judge, motioning him to a chair. "What remarkable occurrence could have brought you hither in such haste and at this hour of the morning?" "We have arrested Gabriela Zahara." "Arrested her?" exclaimed the judge joyfully.
Fortunately, no one was looking at the judge, all eyes being fixed upon Gabriela, whose marvelous beauty and quiet demeanor carried to all an almost irresistible conviction of her innocence. The judge recovered himself, and then, like a man who is staking more than life upon the cast of a die, he ordered the guard to open the black box.
She chanted these archaic trifles although, tacit and hidden away amongst her private thoughts, she had her own version of a Hail Mary: "Hell Mary Juana, full of recalcitrance, the Lordess, Santa Gabriela, be with thee. Blessed art thou in the salubrious realm of illegal substances and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, beer and chewing tobacco.
The physician who had been called in had not thought to look for the head of the nail, which was concealed by the hair of the victim, nor was he in any sense to blame for this oversight. The judge immediately issued a warrant for the arrest of Doña Gabriela Zahara del Valle, widow of Señor Romeral. "Tell me," I asked the judge one day, "do you think you will ever capture this woman?"
Then her eyes fell upon me, and she blushed slightly. The judge now seemed to awaken from his stupor and asked in a harsh voice: "What is your name?" "Gabriela Zahara, widow of Romeral," answered the accused in a soft voice. Zarco trembled. He had just learned that his Blanca had never existed; she told him so herself she who only three hours before had consented to become his wife!
Twenty days later the Court of Appeals confirmed the sentence, and Gabriela Zahara was placed in the death cell. The morning of the day fixed for the execution came, and still the judge had not returned. The scaffold had been erected in the center of the square, and an enormous crowd had gathered.
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