The Headless Horseman

Near its centre she has pulled up, patting her horse upon the neck to keep him quiet. It is not much needed. The scaling of the “cuesta” has done that for him. He has no inclination either to go on, or tramp impatiently in his place.
“I am before the hour of appointment,” mutters she, drawing a gold watch from under her serapé, “if, indeed, I should expect him at all. He may not come? God grant that he be able!
“I am trembling! Or is it the breathing of the horse? Valga me Dios, no! ’Tis my own poor nerves!
“I never felt so before! Is it fear? I suppose it is.
“’Tis strange though — to fear the man I love — the only one I over have loved: for it could not have been love I had for Don Miguel. A girl’s fancy. Fortunate for me to have got cured of it! Fortunate my discovering him to be a coward. That disenchanted me — quite dispelled the romantic dream in which he was the foremost figure. Thank my good stars, for the disenchantment; for now I hate him, now that I hear he has grown — Santissima! can it be true that he has become — a — a salteador?
“And yet I should have no fear of meeting him — not even in this lone spot!
“Ay de mi! Fearing the man I love, whom I believe to be of kind, noble nature — and having no dread of him I hate, and know to be cruel and remorseless! ’Tis strange — incomprehensible!
“No — there is nothing strange in it. I tremble not from any thought of danger — only the danger of not being beloved. That is why I now shiver in my saddle — why I have not had one night of tranquil sleep since my deliverance from those drunken savages.
“I have never told him of this; nor do I know how he may receive the confession. It must, and shall be made. I can endure the uncertainty no longer. In preference I choose despair — death, if my hopes deceive me!
“Ha! There is a hoof stroke! A horse comes down the road! It is his? Yes. I see glancing through the trees the bright hues of our national costume. He delights to wear it. No wonder; it so becomes him!
“Santa Virgin! I’m under a serapé, with a sombrero on my head. He’ll mistake me for a man! Off, ye ugly disguises, and let me seem what I am — a woman.”
Scarce quicker could be the transformation in a pantomime. The casting off the serapé reveals a form that Hebe might have envied; the removal of the hat, a head that would have inspired the chisel of Canova!
A splendid picture is exhibited in that solitary glade; worthy of being framed, by its bordering of spinous trees, whose hirsute arms seem stretched out to protect it.
A horse of symmetrical shape, half backed upon his haunches, with nostrils spread to the sky, and tail sweeping the ground; on his back one whose aspect and attitude suggest a commingling of grand, though somewhat incongruous ideas, uniting to form a picture, statuesque as beautiful.
The pose of the rider is perfect. Half sitting in the saddle, half standing upon the stirrup, every undulation of her form is displayed — the limbs just enough relaxed to show that she is a woman.
Notwithstanding what she has said, on her face there is no fear — at least no sign to betray it. There is no quivering lip — no blanching of the cheeks.
The expression is altogether different. It is a look of love — couched under a proud confidence, such as that with which the she-eagle awaits the wooing of her mate.
You may deem the picture overdrawn — perhaps pronounce it unfeminine.
And yet it is a copy from real life — true as I can remember it; and more than once had I the opportunity to fix it in my memory.
The attitude is altered, and with the suddenness of a coup d’éclair; the change being caused by recognition of the horseman who comes galloping into the glade. The shine of the gold-laced vestments had misled her. They are worn not by Maurice Gerald, but by Miguel Diaz!
Bright looks become black. From her firm seat in the saddle she subsides into an attitude of listlessness — despairing rather than indifferent; and the sound that escapes her lips, as for an instant they part over her pearl-like teeth, is less a sigh than an exclamation of chagrin.
 
There is no sign of fear in the altered attitude — only disappointment, dashed with defiance.
El Coyote speaks first.
“H’la! S’ñorita, who’d have expected to find your ladyship in this lonely place — wasting your sweetness on the thorny chapparal?”
“In what way can it concern you, Don Miguel Diaz?”
“Absurd question, S’ñorita! You know it can, and does; and the reason why. You well know how madly I love you. Fool was I to confess it, and acknowledge myself your slave. ’Twas that that cooled you so quickly.”
“You are mistaken, Señor. I never told you I loved you. If I did admire your feats of horsemanship, and said so, you had no right to construe it as you’ve done. I meant no more than that I admired them — not you. ’Tis three years ago. I was a girl then, of an age when such things have a fascination for our sex — when we are foolish enough to be caught by personal accomplishments rather than moral attributes. I am now a woman. All that is changed, as — it ought to be.”
“Carrai! Why did you fill me with false hopes? On the day of the herradero, when I conquered the fiercest bull and tamed the wildest horse in your father’s herds — a horse not one of his vaqueros dared so much as lay hands upon — on that day you smiled — ay, looked love upon me. You need not deny it, Doña Isidora! I had experience, and could read the expression — could tell your thoughts, as they were then. They are changed, and why? Because I was conquered by your charms, or rather because I was the silly fool to acknowledge it; and you, like all women, once you had won and knew it, no longer cared for your conquest. It is true, S’ñorita; it is true.”
“It is not, Don Miguel Diaz. I never gave you word or sign to say that I loved, or thought of you otherwise than as an accomplished cavalier. You appeared so then — perhaps were so. What are you now? You know what’s said of you, both here and on the Rio Grande!”
“I scorn to reply to calumny — whether it proceeds from false friends or lying enemies. I have come here to seek explanations, not to give them.”
“Prom whom?”
“Prom your sweet self, Doña Isidora.”
“You are presumptive, Don Miguel Diaz! Think, Señor, to whom you are addressing yourself. Remember, I am the daughter of — ”
“One of the proudest Haciendados in Tamaulipas, and niece to one of the proudest in Texas. I have thought of all that; and thought too that I was once a haciendado myself and am now only a hunter of horses. Carrambo! what of that? You’re not the woman to despise a man for the inferiority of his rank. A poor mustanger stands as good a chance in your eyes as the owner of a hundred herds. In that respect, I have proof of your generous spirit!”
“What proof?” asked she, in a quick, entreating tone, and for the first time showing signs of uneasiness. “What evidence of the generosity you are so good as to ascribe to me?”
“This pretty epistle I hold in my hand, indited by the Doña Isidora Covarubio de los Llanos, to one who, like myself, is but a dealer in horseflesh. I need not submit it to very close inspection. No doubt you can identify it at some distance?”
She could, and did; as was evinced by her starting in the saddle — by her look of angry surprise directed upon Diaz.
“Señor! how came you in possession of this?” she asked, without any attempt to disguise her indignation.
 
“It matters not. I am in possession of it, and of what for many a day I have been seeking; a proof, not that you had ceased to care for me — for this I had good reason to know — but that you had begun to care for him. This tells that you love him — words could not speak plainer. You long to look into his beautiful eyes. Mil demonios! you shall never see them again!”
“What means this, Don Miguel Diaz?”