CHAPTER XXXV.

As the bullet crashed through the lamp, and it fell to the ground, the whole scene was plunged in darkness. Varley reached up for Esmeralda, calling for her, but before he could reach her, his horse fell under him, and he heard through the din her voice crying with a sharp sound of alarm. He struggled to his feet and shouted for a light; Taffy answered the shout with a yell, and suddenly the scene was illumined by a fierce glare. Taffy had torn off his coat and set fire to it.

As Taffy waved the burning coat above his head, Varley saw Simon riding across the plain. There was something lying across the saddle in front of him, and Varley saw that it was Esmeralda. He snatched up a rifle lying beside him, and kneeling, took careful aim at Simon’s horse. The bullet whizzed past its neck, and Simon, with a yell of derision, dug his spurs into the animal’s side and tore on. Varley set his teeth hard and fired again; the bullet struck the stirrup and Simon pulled up for an instant, hesitated, then dropped Esmeralda to the ground. Varley went across the plain like a greyhound, but before he had reached her she was standing upright, and the next instant she was on his breast, sobbing and laughing hysterically.

“It is you—it is you, Esmeralda!” was all he could say for a moment or two. “I can scarcely believe my eyes. How did you come here? But there is no time for questions; I must go back!”

“Yes—yes. Go back, Varley, dear,” she panted, “I will come with you.”

“No—no,” he said, hurriedly. “Stay here; you are safe here.”

He patted her on the back encouragingly and ran back to the coach, and, of course, she followed him, although at a little distance.

The fight was nearly over when Varley reached the coach, and his reappearance put the finishing touch to it. Two of[279] the Dog’s Ear men lay stretched upon the ground; the Three Star men, breathless and perspiring, were gathered round them; the passengers were huddled together in a heap and trying to realize that this was the end of the nineteenth century; Johnson and the guard were coolly soothing and rubbing down the horses as if this little affair were quite in the ordinary way of business.

Varley ordered the two Dog’s Ear men to be taken and put inside the coach, made a roll-call of his own men, found that two were wounded, and ordered them also into the coach, then he turned to examine the passengers, to discover which was Esmeralda’s husband. As he did so he found Esmeralda at his side.

“Which is your husband?” he asked in an undertone.

She laid her hand upon his arm and turned her head aside.

“He is not here, Varley,” she said in a low voice.

He looked at her with momentary surprise; but even yet there was no time to ask questions.

“Get up into your seats, gentlemen,” he said. “The little play is over.”

One of them came forward with his hat in his hand and mopping his forehead.

“This is an outrageous business; and but for you, sir, it would have been a very serious one. But for you and your brave companions we should have been robbed and probably murdered. We desire to express our gratitude, and we should like to know the name of the gentleman to whom we are so deeply indebted.”

Johnson, the driver, lurched forward.

“You’re right, sir, every word,” he said, slowly. “If it hadn’t been for these boys, we should have been skinned of everything, and filled up with lead into the bargain. If you want to know the name of the gentleman who saved our bacon, it is Varley Howard. There ain’t many in these parts as don’t know him, and I reckon you won’t forget him in a hurry.”

The passenger held out his hand to Varley.

“Permit me to thank you, Mr. Howard,” he said, “for the great service you have rendered us. I am one of her majesty’s commissioners, and it will be my pleasant duty to bring your gallant conduct, and that of your brave followers, under the notice of the authorities.”

Varley shook the proffered hand.

“Thanks,” he said in his languid way. “We’ve enjoyed the fun. You’d better start the coach, Johnson, or you’ll[280] beat the record for unpunctuality. Get up, dear,” he said to Esmeralda in a whisper.

But she shook her head.

“Let me go with you, Varley,” she said. “I can ride behind, as I’ve often done. I’m not a bit heavier—see!”

He hesitated a moment, remembering that riding double was scarcely a proper mode of progress for a great lady; then he took her in his arms and swung her behind him.

But by this time the boys had realized the fact of her presence, and were crowding round in clamorous amazement.

“It’s Esmeralda!” shouted Taffy, as if he could not believe his eyes.

“Yes, it’s Esmeralda,” said Varley; “but don’t bother now, boys. I’ll bring her down to the Eldorado presently—”

“Yes, yes!” cried Esmeralda, stretching out her hand to them, half laughing, half crying.

—“And you’d better keep your mouths shut about her till we turn up. Off you go, Johnson! Come down to the camp when you’ve put your horses up. The boys will want to see you.”

He spoke excitedly, for Esmeralda’s presence filled him with joy. He had no idea that anything was wrong.

Johnson started the coach, touching his hat gravely to Varley, as a soldier salutes a general; the boys sent up a ringing cheer, which was answered by the passengers; then Varley put spurs to his horse.

“Are you safe, comfortable?” he asked, patting the hands clasped round him.

“Yes, yes,” Esmeralda replied. “Do you think I have forgotten how to ride? Oh, Varley, to think of it’s being you who saved us!”

“‘The long arm of coincidence,’ as the novelists say,” he said. “And now, what brings you here, Esmeralda?”

He felt her sigh.

“Wait till we get home,” she whispered.

He said no more, and they rode on over the plain, through the valley, and up the hill to the old hut.

With what commingling of emotions Esmeralda looked upon it all! Though she could not see anything distinctly, she seemed to see; for she knew every inch of the road, every tree, every curve of the upstretching hills; and they all seemed to welcome her. She could almost fancy that she had never left the beloved spot, and that all that had happened since she bid good-bye to Varley, long months ago, was but a fantastic dream; as if Miss Chetwynde, the millionairess, the Marquis of[281] Trafford, Belfayre and all its ducal splendor, had never existed, save in her imagination.

She leaned her head against Varley’s shoulder and sighed.

There was a light in the hut, and at the sound of the approaching horse, Mother Melinda came to the door with her candle held above her head. As its rays fell upon Esmeralda she uttered a shriek and dropped the candle. The next instant Esmeralda was in her arms, and the two women were sobbing, laughing, and exclaiming as only women can.

Varley tied up his horse, got a light, and managed to tear the two women apart; then he put Esmeralda into a chair, hinted to Mother Melinda that Esmeralda might be hungry, and having got the old woman into the outer hut, sat on the edge of the table and gazed at his child with a smile that did not hide his tender joy at her presence.

But he asked no questions until Esmeralda had eaten and drunk, and was leaning back in the chair with her hands folded in her lap.

“And now, my child,” he said. “Why this thusness? Where is the noble marquis, your husband?”

“Are you very glad to see me, Varley?” she said, ignoring the question.

“Well, just a little,” he replied, with a smile. “But where—”

“Do you remember our bargain, Varley?” she said. “I promised that if ever I were in trouble that I would come back to you, and you promised to take me.”

“I remember,” he said, gravely. “And you are in trouble?”

“I have come back,” she said, significantly.

“What is the trouble?” he asked. “Where is your husband?”

The color mounted to her face.

“He is not here,” she said in a low voice.

“So I see,” he remarked, dryly. “Where is he?”

“He is in England,” she said, almost inaudibly.

“And he allowed you to make this journey alone?” he asked in those ultra-quiet tones which were always so ominous with him.

“He—he did not know. I—I had left him.”

He was silent a moment, then he looked at her hand.

“Where is your wedding-ring?” he asked, as quietly as before.

She looked at her hand.

[282]

“I have left it behind me,” she said. “I—I am not his wife any longer.”

“Divorced?”

She crimsoned to her neck.

“No. I—I have only left him.”

He looked at her steadily, and then, as if he had read the answer to his unspoken question in her pure eyes, he drew a long breath.

“It was his fault, then?”

“Yes,” she said in a whisper. “Don’t ask me to tell you all, Varley. I—I couldn’t. It would be like tearing open a wound; and it would do no good. We are separated forever!”

She turned her head away from him, and he saw her lips quiver.

“Do you mean that he has been bad to you?” he asked. “Remember that I am your guardian.”

She was silent a moment. Not even to Varley could she tell the whole sordid story of her misery and humiliation.

“He—he never loved me. It was my money he wanted, and not me. You know how rich I am? I did not know the truth—I was just an ignorant girl, strange to their ways and the way they think about such things—I didn’t discover it until after we were married.”

He bent forward a little and just touched the sleeve of her dress. The tender, pitying caress almost shattered her self-restraint.

“And that’s not all. He had married me for my money, but all the while there was some one else. Oh, Varley! Varley!” She hid her face in her hands and her slight figure shook.

Varley rose from the table and went outside the hut. His face was deathly white, and his dark eyes were alight with a terrible fire. He shook from head to foot like a man torn by an internal devil, and his hands, thrust in his pockets, were clinched so tightly that the nails were driven into the soft palms. But he said not a word, though every vein in his body throbbed with a curse.

He was still very white, but to all appearance calm and self-possessed, when he re-entered the house and resumed his seat on the table. He had given Esmeralda time to master her emotion, and she looked up at him now with a smile more pitiful than tears.

“I’ve really told you all now, Varley,” she said in a whisper. “I’ve left him; I’m no longer the Marchioness of Trafford. Why, I am a duchess! The old duke—he was[283] very good to me, Varley, and I loved him!”—her eyes filled with tears, and she sighed—“he died the night I ran away, and never knew, thank God!”

“A duchess!” said Varley, grimly.

“Yes. A strange duchess, Varley!” She laughed sadly. “But all that’s done with now. I have left it all behind, never to go back to it. I want to be plain Esmeralda of Three Star once more—Esmeralda Howard, Varley, if you will have me. I’m going to be just as I was before—before I went away. Ah, how I wish I had never gone! Everybody—you and Mother Melinda, and all the boys—loved me and were good to me, though I was only a poor girl without even a name.”

His face twitched.

“That’s so,” he said, hoarsely.

“In England, London, they only care for your money. No, let me be just; that’s not true. There were one or two—the duke, a young girl, Lady Wyndover—who were fond of me. But the rest—” She shuddered. “Ah! it’s better to be here, Varley, with only a couple of dresses, and short of boots and shoes, with just a hut to live in, but warm, loving hearts around you, than to reign over there a great lady, a duchess, with more dresses than you know what to do with, with diamonds that only make people envy and hate you because they’re better than theirs. There’s bad luck here sometimes, and it’s rough and ready, but”—she stretched out her arms with a gesture almost fierce—“but it’s heaven here compared with the false hell over there.”

He was terribly moved, and the thin hand with which he rolled up a cigarette shook so that the tobacco fell upon the table.

“So I have come back, Varley,” she said, “and I want you to help me to forget all—all that has happened; to take me as your little girl again, to be Esmeralda of Three Star once more. I think the boys will be glad to have me back, won’t they?”

“We’ll see presently,” he said, laconically.

“You can tell them,” she went on with a sad little laugh, “that it was all a mistake—my going, my being Miss Chetwynde.”

“Kind of changed your birth?” he said.

She laughed with her eyes closed.

“Yes; and that I find I’m only their Esmeralda, after all. Tell them to ask no questions, but to go on as if I had never been away.”

[284]

“You shall go down to the saloon to-morrow,” he said, quietly.

“No, to-night!” she exclaimed, rising with a sudden light in her eyes. “I want it all over at once. I want to go back to the old life this minute. I’m longing to see them all, to look upon the faces that don’t smile and smile at you while they stab you in the back, to see, once more, honest men, with too much grit in them to buy and sell women, to deceive a girl because she is a girl and is ignorant of the ways of the world! Take me to them now, at once, Varley!”

“You shall go,” he said, very quietly.

She caught up her hat and put it on with trembling fingers and in eager haste.

He placed her on the horse, and they rode down to the camp as they had ridden to the hut; and once again, as they rode through the cool air and amidst the familiar surroundings, the past life in England seemed but a dream. Only, in the innermost recesses of her heart there lay, like a tiny snake, a stinging pain of wistful longing for the man she had cast off forever. She tried to ignore it, to think only of her joy in getting back to Varley and Three Star; but the love which is at once woman’s greatest blessing and greatest curse, was there still, and would not be crushed out. Trafford’s face rose before her in the close darkness, his voice—ay, every tone of it—mingled with the rhythmical beat of the horses’ hoofs.

As they approached the camp, the lights from the Eldorado flashed out through the darkness. There was a stir of excitement, and the buzz of shouting and singing.

Though the fact of Esmeralda’s presence was not generally known, the affair of the coach had become common property, and Three Star was up in arms. Every soul in the camp was collected in or about the saloon. Bill, Taffy, and the other men engaged in the business were surrounded by an excited crowd, eager for every detail, and vowing vengeance on Dog’s Ear. Varley’s name was on every lip, and shouts of, “Where is he?” “Where’s Varley?” rose above the din.

Esmeralda’s arm tightened round Varley’s waist.

“It’s the old noise, the old sound!” she whispered, tremulously.

“Yes; keep your hair on, little one,” he responded; for he could feel her trembling.

As they rode down to the door and came into the light that streamed from it, the crowd outside sent up a shout and pressed round him; but as they saw and recognized Esmeralda,[285] the shout died away for an instant, then rose with redoubled force, and her name was cried aloud. Those inside the saloon rushed to the door, Taffy and Bill giving vent to their pent-up feelings by loud yells.

Varley dropped to the ground, and lifting Esmeralda in his arms, as he had so often done when she was a child, forced his way through the crowd to the end of the saloon, and then, with his arm around her, stood and faced them.

The din was indescribable. Everybody seemed to be speaking at once and trying to drown his neighbor’s voice.

Varley stood erect, a faint smile upon his clean-cut lips, his white hand, stained with blood, stroking his mustache and smoothing the closely cut gray hair at his temple—the, apparently, one calm man in the raging sea of human beings.

“Varley! Varley! Esmeralda! Esmeralda!” they shouted.

Esmeralda stood very pale, her lips apart, her breath coming quickly, but with a tender smile in her eyes which would have told them, even if they had doubted, that she was indeed Esmeralda.

Varley held up his hand, and almost instantly the din subsided.

“Boys,” he said, and his voice, musical and low, rang out so that every one could hear it and note the thrill of emotion which vibrated in its even tones, “Esmeralda’s come back! Quiet! Yes, she’s come back as she promised. England’s all very well; but when you’ve once lived in the free air of Three Star you kind of pine after it. And Esmeralda was almost born here. She’s come back, and she’s come to stay!”

The excitement and enthusiasm broke through all restraint at this announcement, and a roar of delight interrupted the speaker.

“Esmeralda!” went up from the hot throats.

Varley held up his hand again.

“Why she’s come back is no business of ours. We’re too glad to get her back—eh, boys?—to ask questions. If she’d been happy where she was, she’d have stayed there. But she wasn’t; and so she’s come back, and there’s an end of it, now and for the future.”

He took a glass of whisky from MacGrath’s hand and raised it aloft.

“Here’s health, long life, and happiness to Esmeralda of Three Star!”

Every man seized a glass, full or empty, and up they went as high as arm could extend them. A mighty roar rose from the packed crowd, while shouts of “Esmeralda—our Esmeralda!”[286] rent the air. The mob seemed mad with pride and delight. Esmeralda had come back. It seemed too good to be true. Men laughed hysterically; Taffy and Bill danced with ecstasy. Men who had been mortal enemies a few minutes ago shook hands and laughed in each other’s faces. There were some whose eyes were wet. And through all the phases of expression there ran the current of an emotion which shook Three Star to its foundations.

Then they saw that Esmeralda’s lips were moving, and with exhortations, and even friendly blows, they commanded each other to keep silence.

Esmeralda’s lips moved for a moment or two wordlessly, then they heard the voice which they all loved say, in soft and tremulous tones:

“Yes, I have come back—and to stay!”

A cheer, such as had never been heard even in Three Star, threatened to lift the roof off the Eldorado, and Varley, drawing Esmeralda’s arm within his, succeeded, after many herculean efforts, in getting her through the throng and into the open air.

She was sobbing as if her heart would break as they rode back to the hut, for the mighty torrent of love which had been poured out upon her had swept away her power of self-restraint. But not even Varley guessed that her tears were caused not only by the reception which had been accorded her, but by that aching love for Trafford which still throbbed through her whole heart.

Concerning the proceedings of the boys at the Eldorado which immediately followed her exit, and were kept up until the dawn rose above the hills, the kindly historian will be silent. Suffice it that MacGrath’s whisky was completely sold out, and that Taffy was conducted to his virtuous couch by a devious course of something like a mile in length by several fellow-convivialists who, having deposited that hero in bed, deemed it wise and expedient to coil themselves up on the floor beside him.

There had been several “warm nights” at Three Star; but this, the night of Esmeralda’s return, was the very, very warmest that had ever been recorded.