第55章 CHAPTER XII. DANGER AND HELP.(6)

"Senorita Antonia, it was, indeed. I saw him. He was in the last row. He had stood up when Saint Jago came in, and he was watching the man and the animal with his soul in his eyes. He had a face, fine and thin as a woman's--a very gentle face, also. But at one instant it became stern and fierce, the lips hard set, the eyes half shut, then the rifle at the shoulder like a flash of light, and the bull was dead between the beginning and the end of the leap! The sight was wonderful, and the ladies turned to him with smiles and cries of thankfulness, and the better part of the men bowed to him; for the Mexican gentleman is always just to a great deed. But he went away as if he had done something that displeased himself, and when I overtook him at the gates of the Alamo, he did not look as if he wished to talk about it.

"However, I could not refrain myself, and I said: "Permit me, Colonel Crockett, to honor you. The great feat of to-day's fight was yours. San Antonio owes you for her favorite Jarocho."

"`I saved a life, young man,' he answered and I took a life; and I'll be blamed if I know whether I did right or wrong.'

`Jarocho would have been killed but for your shot.' `That's so; and I killed the bull; but you can take my hat if I don't think I killed the tallest brute of the two. Adjourn the subject, sir'; and with that he walked off into the fort, and I did myself the pleasure of coming to see you, Senora."

He rose and bowed to the ladies, and, as the Senora was making some polite answer, the door of the room opened quickly, and a man entered and advanced towards her. Every eye was turned on him, but ere a word could be uttered he was kneeling at the Senora's side, and had taken her face in his hands, and was kissing it. In the dim light she knew him at once, and she cried out: "My Thomas! My Thomas! My dear son! For three years I have not seen you."

He brought into the room with him an atmosphere of comfort and strength. Suddenly all fear and anxiety was lifted, and in Antonia's heart the reaction was so great that she sank into a chair and began to cry like a child. Her brother held her in his arms and soothed her with the promise of his presence and help. Then he said, cheerfully:

"Let me have some supper, Antonia. I am as hungry as a lobos wolf; and run away, Isabel, and help your sister, for I declare to you girls I shall eat everything in the house."

The homely duty was precisely what was needed to bring every one's feelings to their normal condition; and Thomas Worth sat chatting with his mother and Lopez of his father, and Jack, and Dare, and Luis, and the superficial events of the time, with that pleasant, matter-of-course manner which is by far the most effectual soother of troubled and unusual conditions.

In less than half an hour Antonia called her brother, and he and Lopez entered the dining-room together. They came in as brothers might come, face answering face with sympathetic change and swiftness; but Antonia could not but notice the difference in the two men. Lopez was dressed in a suit of black velvet, trimmed with many small silver buttons. His sash was of crimson silk. His linen was richly embroidered; and his wide hat was almost covered with black velvet, and adorned with silver tags. It was a dress that set off admirably his dark intelligent face.

Thomas Worth wore the usual frontier costume; a dark flannel shirt, a wide leather belt, buck-skin breeches, and leather boots covering his knees. He was very like his father in figure and face--darker, perhaps, and less handsome. But the gentleness and strength of his personal appearance attracted every one first, and invested all traits with their own distinctive charm.

And, oh! What a change was there in the the{sic} Senora's room. The poor lady cried a little for joy, and then went to sleep like a wearied child. Isabel and Antonia were too happy to sleep. They sat half through the night, talking softly of the danger they had been in. Now that Thomas had come, they could say HAD. For he was a very Great-heart to them, and they could even contemplate the expected visit of Fray Ignatius without fear; yes, indeed, with something very like satisfaction.