THE TEWANA
BY
HERMAN WHITAKER
Reprinted from _The Blue Mule_ _A Western Magazine of Stories_, ofFebruary, 1906 by permission
SHE WAS a Tewana of the Tehuantepec Isthmus, a primal woman,round-armed, deep-breasted, shapely as the dream on which Canova modeledVenus. Her skin was of the rich gold hue that marks the blood unmuddiedby Spanish strain; to see her, poised on a rich hip by the river'sbrink, wringing her tresses after the morning bath, it were justifiableto mistake her for some beautiful bronze. Moreover, it were easy to seeher, for, in Tehuantepec, innocence is thoughtless as in old Eden. WhenPaul Steiner passed her one morning, she gave him the curious open-eyedstare of a deer, bade him a pleasant "_Buenos dias, Senor!_" and wouldhave proceeded, undisturbed, with her toilet, but that he spoke. In thishe was greatly mistaken. Gringos there are--praise the saints!--who canjudge Tehuantepec by the insight of kindred purity, but Paul had tolearn by the more uncomfortable method of a stone in the face.
He ought not, however, to be too severely handled for his dulness.Though a mining engineer, nature had endowed him with little beyond thealgebraic qualities necessary to the profession; a German-American, adull birth and heredity had predestined him for that class which clothesits morality in fusty black and finds safety in following its neighborin the cut of its clothes and conduct. As then, he was not planned fororiginal thinking, it is not at all surprising that he should--whenpitchforked by Opportunity into the depths of tropical jungles--lose hismoral bearings, fail to recognize a virtue that went in her own goldenskin, and so go down before a temptation that, of old, populated thesexless desert.
That his error continued in the face of Andrea's stone is certainly moreremarkable, though this also should be charged rather against hermismarksmanship than to the wearing quality of his electro-platemorality. It is doubtful if even the ancient Jews had found "stoning" asefficacious a "cure for souls" had they thrown wide as she. Anyway, Paulstood "unconvicted," as the revivalists have it, and being moved tochagrin instead of shame, he carried the story of Andrea's surprisingmodesty to Bachelder.
Here was a man of other parts. An artist, he had traced the spinningmeridians over desert and sea, following the fluttering wing of the musetill she rewarded his deathless hope by pausing for him in this smallIndian town. Expecting to stay a week, he had remained fifteen years,failing to exhaust in that long time a tithe of its form and color.Screened by tropical jungle, a mask of dark palms laced with twining_bejucas_, it sat like a wonderfully blazoned cup in a wide green saucerthat was edged with the purple of low environing hills--a brimming cupof inspiration. Save where some oaken grill supplied an ashen note, itsadobe streets burned in smoldering rose, purple and gold--the latteralways predominant. It glowed in the molten sunlight, shone in the softsatin of a woman's skin; the very dust rose in auriferous clouds fromthe wooden-wheeled ox-carts. But for its magenta tiling, the pillaredmarket stood, a huge monochrome, its deep yellows splashed here andthere with the crimson of the female hucksters' dresses. This was theirevery-day wear--a sleeveless bodice, cut low over the matchlessamplitudes and so short that the smooth waist showed at each uplift ofthe round, bronze arms; a skirt that was little more than a cloth woundabout the limbs; a shawl, all of deep blood color. Small wonder that hehad stayed on, and on, and on, while the weeks merged into months, andmonths into years.
He lived in the town's great house, an old feudal hacienda with wallstwo yards thick, recessed windows oaken grilled, and a pleasant patiowhere the hidalgo could take his ease under cocoanut palms and lemontrees while governments went to smash without. Here Bachelder was alwaysto be found in the heat of the day, and here he listened with hugedisgust to Paul's story. Because of their faith, strength andpurity--according to their standards--he had always sworn by the Tewanawomen, setting them above all others, and though a frank sinner againstaccepted moral codes, he would never have confused nudity with vice.
"Man!" he exclaimed--so loudly that Rosa, his housekeeper, imagined thatsomething was going wrong again with the painting--"Man! all the dollarsyou will ever earn would buy nothing more than her stone! If you wanther, you will have to marry her."
"Oh, don't look so chopfallen!" he went on, scornfully, when Paulblinked. "I mean marriage as she counts it. You will have to court herfor a couple of months--flowers, little gifts, small courtesies, thatsort of thing; then, if she likes you, she will come and keep yourhouse. When, later, you feel like settling down in the bosom ofrespectability, there won't be a shred of law to hold you."
Now if Paul lacked wit to analyze and apply to his own government amoral law that has evolved from the painful travail of the generations,it does not follow that he was too stupid to feel irony. Reddening, heput forth the usual declaimer of honorable intention with the glibtongue of passion. He meant well by the girl! Would give her a goodhome, find her better than she had ever been found in her life! As formarrying? He was not of the marrying kind! Never would! and so on,finishing with a vital question--did Bachelder know where she lived?
His color deepened under the artist's sarcastic glance. "So that's whatyou're after? I wondered why you picked me for a father confessor. Well,I don't, but you won't have any trouble in finding her. All the womensell something; she's sure to be on the market in the morning. You willget her quite easily. The girls seem to take pride in keeping a Gringo'shouse--I don't know why, unless it be that they are so dazzled by thethings we have that they cannot see us for what we are."
* * * * *
A thousand crimson figures were weaving in and out the market's chromepillars when Paul entered next morning, but though it was hard to singleone person from the red confusion, luck led him almost immediately towhere Andrea stood, a basket of tortillas at her feet. Lackingcustomers, just then, she leaned against a pillar, her scarlet flamingagainst its chrome, thoughtful, pensive, as Bachelder painted her for"The Enganchada," the girl sold for debt. Her shawl lay beside herbasket, so her hair, that had flown loose since the morning bath, fellin a cataract over the polished amplitudes of bosom and shoulders. Savewhen feeling shot them with tawny flashes--as waving branches filtermottled sunlight on brown waters--her eyes were dark as the pools ofLethe, wherein men plunge and forget the past. They broughtforgetfulness to Paul of his moral tradition, racial pride, thecarefully conned apology which he did not remember until, an hour later,he fed her entire stock in trade to his dog. It was better so. Black,brown or white women are alike sensitive to the language of flowers, andthe lilies he left in her basket served him more sweetly than could hisstammering tongue. Next morning, curiosity replaced hostility in herglance, and when he left the market, her brown gaze followed him beyondthe portals. Needs not, however, to linger over the courtship.Sufficient that color of skin does not affect the feminine trait thatforgiveness comes easier when the offense was provoked by one's ownbeauty; the story goes on from the time that Andrea moved into his housewith a stock of household gear that extorted musical exclamations fromall her girl friends.
To their housekeeping Andrea contributed only her handsome body with acontained cargo of unsuspected qualities and virtues that simplydazzled Paul as they cropped out upon the surface. In public a Tewanabears herself staidly, carrying a certain dignity of expression that ofitself reveals how, of old, her forbears came to place limits to theambition of the conquering Aztec and made even Spanish dominion littlemore than an uncomfortable name. Though, through courtship, Andrea'sstern composure had shown no trace of a thaw, it yet melted like snowunder a south wind when she was once ensconced in their little home.Moreover, she unmasked undreamed of batteries, bewildering Paul withinfinite variety of feminine complexities. She would be arch, gay,saucy, and in the next breath fall into one of love's warm silences,watching him with eyes of molten bronze. She taught him the love of thetropics without transcending modesty. Also she astonished him,negatively, by the absence of those wide differences of nature andfeeling between her and the cultured women of his o
wn land that readingin the primal school of fiction had led him to expect. He learned fromher that woman is always woman under any clime or epoch. The greaterstrength of her physique lessened, perhaps, the vine-like tendency, yetshe clung sufficiently to satisfy the needs of his masculinity; and shedisplayed the feminine unreason, at once so charming and irritating,with sufficient coquetry to freshen her love. Her greatest charm,however, lay in the dominant quality of brooding motherhood, thebirthright of primal women and the very essence of femininity. After oneof those sweet silences, she would steal on him from behind, and pullhis head to her bosom with such a squeeze as a loving mother gives herson.
Yet, under even this mood, her laughter lay close to the surface, andnothing tapped its merry flow quicker than Paul's Spanish. Picking upthe language haphazard, he had somehow learned to apply the verb_tumblar_ to describe the pouring out of coffee, and he clung to itafter correction with a persistence that surely inhered in his doggedGerman blood. "_Tumbarlo el cafe_!" he would say, and she would repeatit, faithfully mimicking his accent.
"Tumble out the coffee!" following it with peals of laughter. Or,turning up a saucy face, she would ask, "Shall I tumble out morecoffee?" and again the laughter which came as readily at her own misfitattempts at English.
These, few and simple, were learned of Bachelder's woman, and sprung onPaul as surprises on his return from visiting the mining properties,which required his frequent presence. For instance, slipping to his kneeon one such occasion, with the great heart of her pulsing against him,she sighed: "I love thee, lovest thou me?"
A lesson from Bachelder pleased him less. Knowing Paul's pride in hisGerman ancestry, and having been present when, in seasons of swollenpride, he had reflected invidiously in Andrea's presence on Mexico andall things Mexican, the artist, in a wicked moment, taught her to lisp"_Hoch der Kaiser_!" _lese-majeste_ that almost caused Paul afainting-fit.
"You shouldn't have taught her that," he said to Bachelder. But themischief was done. Whenever, thereafter, through torment of insect orobsession of national pride, he animadverted on her country, shesilenced him with the treasonable expression.
She learned other than English from Bachelder's woman, sweating out thedog days in Rosa's kitchen, experimenting with the barbaric dishesGringos love. She slaved for his comfort, keeping his linen, her houseand self so spotlessly clean that as Paul's passion waned, affectiongrew up in its place--the respectful affection that, at home, would haveafforded a permanent basis for a happy marriage. When, a year later,their baby came, no northern benedict could have been more proudlyhappy.
Watching him playing with the child, Bachelder would wonder if his unionalso would terminate like all the others of his long experience. In her,for it was a girl baby, Paul's fairness worked out, as she grew, inmarvelous delicacies of cream and rose, weaving, moreover, a golden woofthrough the brown of her hair. From her mother she took a litheperfection of form. At two she was well started for a raving beauty, andas much through his love for her as for Andrea, Paul had come, likeBachelder, to swear by the Tewana women.
He might have been swearing by them yet, but his company's businesssuddenly called him north, and no man could have bidden a white wifemore affectionate farewell or have been more sure of his own return. "Itis a comfort to know that your woman won't go gadding while you areaway, and that is more than a fellow can make sure of at home." Thesewere his last words to Bachelder.
He was to be absent two months, but after he had reported adversely on amine in Sonora, he was ordered to expert a group in far Guerrera, wherethe mountains turn on edge and earth tosses in horrible tumult. Thencame a third order to report in New York for personal conference. Thusthe months did sums in simple addition while Andrea waited, serenelyconfident of his return. Not that she lacked experience of desertedwives, or based hope on her own attractions. Her furious mother lovesimply could not form, much less harbor, the possibility of Paul'sdeserting their pretty Lola.
And, barring her loneliness, the year was kind to her, feeding hermother love with small social triumphs. For one, Lola was chosen to sitwith three other tots, the most beautiful of Tewana's children, at thefeet of the Virgin in the Theophany of the "Black Christ" at the easternfiesta. From morning to mirk midnight, it was a hard vigil. By day thevaulted church reeked incense; by night a thousand candles gutteredunder the dark arches, sorely afflicting small, weary eyelids; yet Lolasat it out like a small thoroughbred, earning thereby the priest'skindly pat and her mother's devoted worship.
Then, on her third saint day, the small girl donned her first fiestacostume, a miniature of the heirlooms which descend from mother todaughter, each generation striving to increase the magnificence of thecostume just as it strove to add to the gold pieces in the chain whichdid triple duty as hoard, dowry and necklace. Andrea subtracted severalEnglish sovereigns from her own to start Lola's, and, with the Americangold eagle, the gift of Bachelder, her _padrino_, godfather, they madean affluent beginning for so small a girl. As for the costume? Its silk,plush, velours, were worked by Andrea's clever fingers curiously andwondrously, even when judged by difficult Tewana standards. Bachelderpainted the small thing, kneeling by her mother's side before the greatgold altar. Her starched skirt, with its band of red velours, stands ofitself leveling her head, so that she looks for all the world like aserious cherub peering out from a wonderfully embroidered bath-cabinet.But ah! the serious devotion of the faces! The muse Bachelder hadfollowed so faithfully was hovering closely when his soul flamed outupon that canvas. It ranks with his "Enganchada." Either would bring himfame, yet they rest, face to face, in a dusty locker, awaiting the daywhen time or death shall cure the ache that a glimpse of either bringshim.
Two months after that canvas was put away, eighteen counting from theday of his departure, Bachelder walked, one day, down to the primitivepost-office to see if the mail that was due from the little fishing portof Salina Cruz contained aught for him. _Waded_ would better describehis progress, for it was the middle of the rains; water filled the air,dropping in sheets from a livid sky; the streets were rivers runningfull over the cobble curbs. Such white planters as came in occasionallyfrom the jungle country had been housefast upon their plantations forthis month, and, having the town pretty much to himself, the artist'sthought turned naturally to Paul, who used to bring doubtful mitigationto his isolation.
He had written the artist twice, but now six months had elapsed sincethe last letter. "He'll never come back," the artist muttered. "PoorAndrea! But it is better--now."
Warm with the pity the thought inspired, he turned the corner into thestreet that led to the post-office, and was almost run down by the firstmule of a train that came driving through the rain.
"Bachelder!" the rider cried.
It was surely Paul. Pulling up his beast, he thrust a wet hand fromunder his rain poncha, then, turning in his saddle, he spoke to thewoman who rode behind him, "Ethel, this is Mr. Bachelder."
The alternative had happened! As a small hand thrust back the hood ofmackintosh, Bachelder found himself staring at a sweet face, while anequally sweet greeting was drowned by echoing questions in his mind."Good God!" he first thought. "Why did he bring her here?" And upon thatimmediately followed, "How ever did he get her?"
An evening spent with the pair at the small Mexican hotel increased hiswonder. Pleasant, pretty, of a fine sensibility and intellectual withoutloss of femininity, the girl would have been fitly mated with a man ofthe finest clay. How could she have married Paul? Bachelder thought, andcorrectly, that he discerned the reason in a certain warmth of romanticfeeling that tinged her speech and manner. Daughter of an Episcopalclergyman in Paul's native town, she had sighed for something differentfrom the humdrum of small teas, dinners, parochial calls, and when Paulcame to her with the glamour of tropical travel upon him, she married,mistaking the glamour for him.
"She loved me for the dangers I had passed!" the artist mused, quotingShakespeare, on his way home. "What a tragedy when she discovers him fora spur
ious Othello!"
Dropping into the studio next morning, Paul answered the other question."Why not?" he asked, with a touch of ancestral stolidity. "My work ishere. Andrea?" His next words plainly revealed that while his moralplating had cracked and peeled under tropical heat, the iron conventionbeneath had held without fracture. He began: "It was a beastliness thatwe committed----"
"That _you_ committed," Bachelder sharply corrected. "And what of thechild?"
Blinking in the old fashion, Paul went on, "I was coming to that. Shecannot be allowed to grow up a little Mexican. I shall adopt her andhave her properly educated." Here he looked at Bachelder as thoughexpecting commendation for his honorable intention, and, receiving none,went on, dilating on his plans for the child as if resolved to earn it.Yet, setting aside this patent motive, it was easy to see as he warmedto his subject that Andrea had not erred in counting on Lola to bringhim back. With her beauty she would do any man proud! The whole UnitedStates would not be able to produce her rival! She should have the bestthat money could give her!
Wondering at the curious mixture of class egotism, paternal tendernessand twisted morality, Bachelder listened to the end, then said, "Ofcourse, Mrs. Steiner approves of a ready-made family?"
Paul's proud feathers draggled a little, and he reddened. "Well--yousee--she thinks Lola is the daughter of a dead mining friend. Some day,of course, I'll tell her. In fact, the knowledge will grow on her. Butnot now. It wouldn't do. She couldn't understand."
"No?" But the quiet sarcasm was wasted on Paul, and the artistcontinued, "Aren't you leaving Andrea out of your calculations?"
Paul ruffled like an angry gobbler. His eyes took on an ugly gleam, hisjaw stuck out, his expression incarnated Teutonic obstinacy. "Oh, she'llhave to be fixed. Luckily it doesn't take much to buy these savagewomen; their feelings are all on the surface. I'll give her the house,furniture, and a hundred dollars cash. That should make up for the lossof----"
"----a husband?" Bachelder's face darkened. Throughout the conversationhe had worn an air of suppression, as though holding, by an effort,something back. Now he straightened with a movement that was analogousto the flexure of a coiled spring. His lips opened, closed again, and hewent on with his quiet questioning. "For a husband, yes. They are easystock to come by. But not for the child of her labor. Supposing sherefuses?"
Paul's eyes glinted under his frown. "Then the Jefe-Politico earns thehundred dollars and the law gives her to me."
The spring uncoiled. "Never! She died a month ago of yellow fever."
Under Teuton phlegm lies an hysteria that rivals that of the Latinraces. Paul's flame died to ashes and he burst out sobbing, throwing hishands up and out with ungainly gestures. Looking down upon his awkwardgrief, Bachelder half regretted the just anger that caused him to slipthe news like a lightning bolt; he would have felt sorrier but that heperceived Paul's sorrow rooted in the same colossal egotism that wouldhave sacrificed the mother on the altars of its vast conceit. He knewthat Paul was grieving for himself, for lost sensations of pride, loveand pleasure that he could never experience again. When the ludicroustravesty had partly spent itself, he stemmed the tide with a question.
"If you don't care to see Andrea, I can make the settlements you hintedat."
Paul glanced up, stupidly resentful, through his tears. "The child isdead. That is all off."
"You will do nothing for her?" As much to prop an opinion of humannature that was already too low for comfort as in Andrea's interest,Bachelder asked the question.
"She has the house furnishings," Paul sullenly answered. "That leavesher a sight better off than she was before she knew me."
Rising, the artist walked over to the window. "The river is rising," hesaid, when he could trust himself to speak. "Another foot, and away goesthe bridge. When do you go to the mine?"
"Tomorrow."
"Mrs. Steiner goes with you?"
"No, too wet."
Bachelder hesitated. "I'd offer you my quarters, but--you see I amneither married nor unmarried."
"No!" Paul agreed with ponderous respectability. "It would never do.Besides, I've hired a house of the Jefe-Politico; the one that crownsthe Promontory. When the rain slacks we'll move out to the mine."
"There is one thing I should like," he added as he rose to go. "If youwould have a stone put over the child's grave--something nice--you're abetter judge than me,--I'll----"
"Too late," the artist interrupted. "Andrea broke up her necklace; putsavings of eighteen generations into the finest tomb in the cemetery."He looked curiously at Paul, but his was that small order of mind whichpersistently fixes responsibility for the most inevitable calamity uponsome person. To the day of his death he would go on taxing the child'sdeath against Andrea; he did not even comment on this last proof of herdevoted love.
After he was gone, Bachelder returned to his window, just in time to seethe bridge go. A thin stream in summer, meandering aimlessly betweenwide banks, the river now ran a full half-mile wide, splitting the townwith its yeasty race. An annual occurrence, this was a matter of smallmoment to the severed halves. Each would pursue the even tenor of itsway till the slack of the rains permitted communication by canoe and therebuilding of the bridge. But it had special significance now in thatAndrea lived on the other bank.
He wondered if the news of Paul's return had crossed, muttering: "Poorgirl, poor girl!" Adding, a moment later: "But happier than the other.Poor little Desdemona!"
* * * * *
How melancholy is the voice of a flood! Its resurgent dirge will move anew-born babe to frightened wailing, and stirs in strong men a vagueuneasiness that roots in the vast and calamitous experience of the race.Call of hungry waters, patter of driving rain, sough of the weird wind,it requires good company and a red-coal fire to offset their moanings ofeternity. Yet though the fireless tropics could not supply one, and shelacked the other, the storm voices were hardly responsible for EthelSteiner's sadness the third morning after her arrival.
Neither was it due to the fact that Paul had failed to come in thepreceding night from the mine. Seeming relieved rather than distressed,she had gone quietly to bed. No, it was neither the storm, his absence,nor any of the small miseries that afflict young wives. Poor Desdemona!The curtain was rising early on the tragedy which Bachelder foresaw.Already the glamour was falling from Paul to the tropics, where itrightfully belonged; this morning she was living her bitter hour,fighting down the premonition of a fatal mistake.
What with her thoughtful pauses, she made but a slow toilet, and whenthe last rebellious curl had been coaxed to its place behind her smallear, she turned, sighing, to the window. One glance, and she startedback, pale, clutching her hands. A rocky snout, thrusting far out intothe belly of the river's great bow, the Promontory stood high above theordinary flood level. Once, in far-away Aztec times, a Tewana traditionhad it that a cloudburst in the rains had swept it clear of houses, andnow Time's slow cycle had brought the same deadly coincidence. Where,last night, a hundred lights had flickered below her windows, a boil ofyellow waters spread, cutting off her house, the last and highest, fromthe mainland. Black storm had drowned the cries of fleeing householders.The flood's mighty voice, bellowing angrily for more victims as itswallowed house after house, had projected but a faint echo into herdreams. Now, however, she remembered that Carmencita, her new maid, hadfailed to bring in the morning coffee.
Wringing her hands and loudly lamenting the deadly fear that made herforget her mistress, Carmencita, poor girl, was in the crowd that washelping Paul and Bachelder to launch a freight canoe. When Paul--who hadridden in early from the little village, where he had beenstorm-stayed--had tried to impress a crew, the peon boatman had swornvolubly that no pole would touch bottom and that one might as well tryto paddle the town as a heavy canoe against such a flood. But whenBachelder stepped in and manned the big sweep, a half-dozen followed.Notwithstanding, their river wisdom proved. Paddling desperately, theygained no nearer than fifty
yards to the pale face at the window.
"Don't be afraid!" Bachelder shouted, as they swept by. "We'll get younext time!"
If the walls did not melt? Already the flood was licking with hungrytongues the adobe bricks where the plaster had bulged and fallen, and anhour would fly while they made a landing and dragged the canoe back foranother cast. The boatmen knew! Their faces expressed, anticipated thatwhich happened as they made the landing half a mile below. Paul saw itfirst. Through the swift passage he sat, facing astern, helplesslyclutching the gunwale, and his cry, raucous as that of a maimed animal,signaled the fall of the house. Sobbing, he collapsed on the bank.
Bachelder looked down upon him. Momentarily stunned, his thoughtreturned along with a feeling of relief that would have framed itselfthus in words: "Poor Desdemona! Now she will never know!"
"_Senor! Senor! Mira!_" A boatman touched his shoulder.
Two heads were swirling down the flood, a light and a dark. Bachelderinstantly knew Ethel, but, as yet, he could not make out the strongswimmer who was at such infinite pains to hold the fair head abovewater. Though, time and again, the dark head went under for smotheringlylong intervals, Ethel's never once dipped, and, up or down, the swimmerbattled fiercely, angling across the flood. She--for long hair stampedher a woman--gained seventy yards shoreward while floating down twohundred. Three hundred gave her another fifty. So, rising and sinking,she drifted with her burden down upon Paul and Bachelder. At fifty yardsthe artist caught a glimpse of her face, but not till she was almostunder their hands did Paul recognize the swimmer.
"Andrea!" he shouted.
* * * * *
Reassured by Bachelder's cheery shout, Ethel had busied herselfcollecting her watch and other trinkets from the bureau till a smackingof wet feet caused her to turn, startled. A woman stood in the door, awoman of matchless amplitudes, such as of old tempted the gods fromheaven. Stark naked, save for the black cloud that dripped below herwaist, her bronze beauty was framed by the ponderous arch.
"I don't know who you are," Ethel said, recovering, "but you are verybeautiful, and, under the circumstances, welcome. Under ordinaryconditions, your advent would have been a trifle embarrassing. I mustfind you a shawl before the canoes come. Here, take this blanket."
She little imagined how embarrassing the visitation might have provedunder very ordinary conditions. Though the news of Paul's return didcross before the bridge was carried away, Andrea did not hear it tillthat morning, and she would never have had it from a Tewana neighbor.They pitied the bereavement to which widowhood in the most cruel offorms was now added. But among them she unfortunately counted a peonwoman of the upper Mexican plateau, one of the class which took from theConquest only Spanish viciousness to add to Aztec cruelty. Jealous ofAndrea's luck--as they had deemed it--in marriage, Pancha had thirstedfor the opportunity which came as they drew water together that morningfrom the brink of the flood.
"'Tis the luck of us all!" she exclaimed, malevolently ornamenting herevil tidings. "They take their pleasure of us, these Gringos, then whenthe hide wrinkles, ho for a prettier! They say Tewana hath not suchanother as his new flame, and thy house is a hovel to that he fits upfor her on the Promontory."
Here the hag paused, for two good reasons. That the barbed shaft mightsink deep and rankle from Andrea's belief that her supplanter was a girlof her tribe, but principally because, just then, she went down underthe ruins of her own _olla_. A fighter, after her kind, with many acutting to her credit, she cowered like a snarling she-wolf among thesharp potsherds cowed by the enormous anger she had provoked; lay andwatched while the tall beauty ripped shawl, slip and skirt from hermagnificent limbs, then turned and plunged into the flood. Pancha roseand shook her black fist, hurling curses after.
"May the alligators caress thy limbs, the fishes pluck thine eyes, thewolves crack thy bleached bones on the strand."
That was the lightest of them, but, unheeding Andrea swam on. As her ownhouse stood in the extreme skirt of the town, the Promontory lay morethan a mile below, but she could see neither it nor the night'sdevastation because of the river's bend. Because of the same bend, shehad the aid of the current, which set strongly over to the other shore,but apart from this the river was one great danger. Floating logs, hugetrees, acres of tangled greenery, the sweepings of a hundred miles ofjungle, covered its surface with other and ghastlier trove. Here thesaurians of Pancha's curse worried a drowned pig, there they fought overa cow's swollen carcass; yet because of carrion taste or food plethora,they let her by. There an enormous saber, long and thick as a church,turned and tumbled, threshing air and water with enormous spreadingbranches, creating dangerous swirls and eddies. These she avoided, and,having swum the river at ebb and flood every day of her life from achild, she now easily clove its roar and tumble; swam on, her heatunabated by the water's chill, till, sweeping around the bend, shesighted the lone house on the Promontory.
That gave her pause. Had death, then, robbed her anger? The thoughtbroke the spring of her magnificent energy. Feeling at last the touch offatigue, she steered straight for the building and climbed in, to rest,at a lower window, without a thought of its being occupied till Ethelmoved above.
Who shall divine her thoughts as, standing there in the door, she gazedupon her rival? Did she not recognize her as such, or was she moved bythe touch of sorrow, aftermath of the morning's bitterness, that stilllingered on the young wife's face? Events seemed to predicate theformer, but, be that as it may, the eyes which grief and despair hadheated till they flamed like small crucibles of molten gold, now cooledto their usual soft brown; smiling, she refused the proffered blanket.
"_Ven tu! Ven tu!_" she exclaimed, beckoning. Her urgent accent andgesture carried her meaning, and without question Ethel followed down toa lower window.
"But the canoe?" she objected, when Andrea motioned for her to disrobe."It will soon be here!"
"_Canoa_?" From the one word Andrea caught her meaning. "_No hay tiempo.Mira!_"
Leaning out, Ethel looked and shrank back, her inexperience convinced bya single glance at the wall. She assisted the strong hands to rip awayher encumbering skirts. It took only a short half-minute, and with thatafforded time for a small femininity to come into play. Placing her ownshapely arm against Ethel's, Andrea murmured soft admiration at theother's marvelous whiteness. But it was done in a breath. Slipping anarm about Ethel's waist, Andrea jumped with her from the window, oneminute before the soaked walls collapsed.
If Ethel's head had remained above, she might have retained her presenceof mind, and so have made things easier for her saviour, but, notsupposing that the whole world contained a mature woman who could notswim, Andrea loosed her as they took the water. A quick dive partiallyamended the error, retrieving Ethel, but not her composure. Coming up,half-choked, she grappled Andrea, and the two went down together. TheTewana could easily have broken the white girl's grip and--have losther. Instead, she held her breath and presently brought her senselessburden to the surface.
Of itself, the struggle was but a small thing to her strength, butcoming on top of the long swim under the shock and play of emotion, itleft her well nigh spent. Yet she struggled shoreward, battling, wagingthe war of the primal creature that yields not till Death himselfreenforces bitter odds.
To this exhaustion, the tales that float in Tehuantepec lay her end, andBachelder has never taken time to contradict them. But as she floatedalmost within reach of his hand, she steadied at Paul's shout as underan accession of sudden strength, and looked at her erstwhile husband.Then, if never before, she knew--him, as well as his works! From him herglance flashed to the fair face at her shoulder. What power ofdivination possessed her? Or was it Bachelder's fancy? He swears to thechosen few, the few who understand, that her face lit with the sameglory of tender pity that she held over her sick child. Then, beforethey could reach her, she shot suddenly up till her bust gleamed wet tothe waist, turned, and dived, carrying down the senseless bride.
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nbsp; Shouting, Bachelder also dived--in vain. In vain, the dives of his men.Death, that mighty potentate, loves sweetness full well as a shiningmark. Swiftly, silently, a deep current bore them far out on the floodedlands and there scoured a sepulcher safe from saurian teeth, beyond thescope Pancha's curse. Later, the jungle flowed in after the recedingwaters and wreathed over the twin grave morning-glories pure as thewhite wife, glorious orchids rich as Andrea's bronze.
HERE ENDS THE SPINNERS' BOOK OF FICTION BEING SHORT STORIES BYCALIFORNIA WRITERS COMPILED BY THE BOOK COMMITTEE OF THE SPINNERS' CLUBFOR THE SPINNERS' BENEFIT FUND INA D. COOLBRITH FIRST BENEFICIARYILLUSTRATED BY VARIOUS WESTERN ARTISTS THE DECORATIONS BY SPENCER WRIGHTTHE TYPOGRAPHY DESIGNED BY J. H. NASH PUBLISHED BY PAUL ELDER ANDCOMPANY AND PRINTED FOR THEM AT THE TOMOYE PRESS NEW YORK NINETEENHUNDRED AND SEVEN
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