The Enchanted Kiss
But a clerk in the Cut-rate Drug Store was Samuel Tansey, yet hisslender frame was a pad that enfolded the passion of Romeo, the gloomof Laura, the romance of D'Artagnan, and the desperate inspiration ofMelnotte. Pity, then, that he had been denied expression, that he wasdoomed to the burden of utter timidity and diffidence, that Fate hadset him tongue-tied and scarlet before the muslin-clad angels whom headored and vainly longed to rescue, clasp, comfort, and subdue.
The clock's hands were pointing close upon the hour of ten whileTansey was playing billiards with a number of his friends. Onalternate evenings he was released from duty at the store after seveno'clock. Even among his fellow-men Tansey was timorous andconstrained. In his imagination he had done valiant deeds andperformed acts of distinguished gallantry; but in fact he was a sallowyouth of twenty-three, with an over-modest demeanour and scantvocabulary.
When the clock struck ten, Tansey hastily laid down his cue and strucksharply upon the show-case with a coin for the attendant to come andreceive the pay for his score.
"What's your hurry, Tansey?" called one. "Got another engagement?"
"Tansey got an engagement!" echoed another. "Not on your life.Tansey's got to get home at Motten by her Peek's orders."
"It's no such thing," chimed in a pale youth, taking a large cigarfrom his mouth; "Tansey's afraid to be late because Miss Katie mightcome down stairs to unlock the door, and kiss him in the hall."
This last delicate piece of raillery sent a fiery tingle into Tansey'sblood, for the indictment was true--barring the kiss. That was a thingto dream of; to wildly hope for; but too remote and sacred a thing tothink of lightly.
Casting a cold and contemptuous look at the speaker--a punishmentcommensurate with his own diffident spirit--Tansey left the room,descending the stairs into the street.
For two years he had silently adored Miss Peek, worshipping her from aspiritual distance through which her attractions took on stellarbrightness and mystery. Mrs. Peek kept a few choice boarders, amongwhom was Tansey. The other young men romped with Katie, chased herwith crickets in their fingers, and "jollied" her with an irreverentfreedom that turned Tansey's heart into cold lead in his bosom. Thesigns of his adoration were few--a tremulous "Good morning," stealthyglances at her during meals, and occasionally (Oh, rapture!) ablushing, delirious game of cribbage with her in the parlour on somerare evening when a miraculous lack of engagement kept her at home.Kiss him in the hall! Aye, he feared it, but it was an ecstatic fearsuch as Elijah must have felt when the chariot lifted him into theunknown.
But to-night the gibes of his associates had stung him to a feeling offorward, lawless mutiny; a defiant, challenging, atavisticrecklessness. Spirit of corsair, adventurer, lover, poet, bohemian,possessed him. The stars he saw above him seemed no more unattainable,no less high, than the favour of Miss Peek or the fearsome sweetnessof her delectable lips. His fate seemed to him strangely dramatic andpathetic, and to call for a solace consonant with its extremity. Asaloon was near by, and to this he flitted, calling for absinthe--beyond doubt the drink most adequate to his mood--the tipple of theroue, the abandoned, the vainly sighing lover.
Once he drank of it, and again, and then again until he felt astrange, exalted sense of non-participation in worldly affairs pervadehim. Tansey was no drinker; his consumption of three absintheanisettes within almost as few minutes proclaimed his unproficiency inthe art; Tansey was merely flooding with unproven liquor his sorrows;which record and tradition alleged to be drownable.
Coming out upon the sidewalk, he snapped his fingers defiantly in thedirection of the Peek homestead, turned the other way, and voyaged,Columbus-like into the wilds of an enchanted street. Nor is the figureexorbitant, for, beyond his store the foot of Tansey had scarcely beenset for years--store and boarding-house; between these ports he wascharted to run, and contrary currents had rarely deflected his prow.
Tansey aimlessly protracted his walk, and, whether it was hisunfamiliarity with the district, his recent accession of audaciouserrantry, or the sophistical whisper of a certain green-eyed fairy, hecame at last to tread a shuttered, blank, and echoing thoroughfare,dark and unpeopled. And, suddenly, this way came to an end (as manystreets do in the Spanish-built, archaic town of San Antone), buttingits head against an imminent, high, brick wall. No--the street stilllived! To the right and to the left it breathed through slender tubesof exit--narrow, somnolent ravines, cobble paved and unlighted.Accommodating a rise in the street to the right was reared a phantomflight of five luminous steps of limestone, flanked by a wall of thesame height and of the same material.
Upon one of these steps Tansey seated himself and bethought him of hislove, and how she might never know she was his love. And of MotherPeek, fat, vigilant and kind; not unpleased, Tansey thought, that heand Katie should play cribbage in the parlour together. For the Cut-rate had not cut his salary, which, sordidly speaking, ranked him starboarder at the Peek's. And he thought of Captain Peek, Katie's father,a man he dreaded and abhorred; a genteel loafer and spendthrift,battening upon the labour of his women-folk; a very queer fish, and,according to repute, not of the freshest.
The night had turned chill and foggy. The heart of the town, with itsnoises, was left behind. Reflected from the high vapours, its distantlights were manifest in quivering, cone-shaped streamers, inquestionable blushes of unnamed colours, in unstable, ghostly waves offar, electric flashes. Now that the darkness was become more friendly,the wall against which the street splintered developed a stone copingtopped with an armature of spikes. Beyond it loomed what appeared tobe the acute angles of mountain peaks, pierced here and there bylittle lambent parallelograms. Considering this vista, Tansey atlength persuaded himself that the seeming mountains were, in fact, theconvent of Santa Mercedes, with which ancient and bulky pile he wasbetter familiar from different coigns of view. A pleasant note ofsinging in his ears reinforced his opinion. High, sweet, holycarolling, far and harmonious and uprising, as of sanctified nuns attheir responses. At what hour did the Sisters sing? He tried to think--was it six, eight, twelve? Tansey leaned his back against thelimestone wall and wondered. Strange things followed. The air was fullof white, fluttering pigeons that circled about, and settled upon theconvent wall. The wall blossomed with a quantity of shining green eyesthat blinked and peered at him from the solid masonry. A pink, classicnymph came from an excavation in the cavernous road and danced,barefoot and airy, upon the ragged flints. The sky was traversed by acompany of beribboned cats, marching in stupendous, aerial procession.The noise of singing grew louder; an illumination of unseasonablefireflies danced past, and strange whispers came out of the darkwithout meaning or excuse.
Without amazement Tansey took note of these phenomena. He was on somenew plane of understanding, though his mind seemed to him clear and,indeed, happily tranquil.
A desire for movement and exploration seized him: he rose and turnedinto the black gash of street to his right. For a time the high wallformed one of its boundaries; but further on, two rows of black-windowed houses closed it in.
Here was the city's quarter once given over to the Spaniard. Here werestill his forbidding abodes of concrete and adobe, standing cold andindomitable against the century. From the murky fissure, the eye saw,flung against the sky, the tangled filigree of his Moorish balconies.Through stone archways breaths of dead, vault-chilled air coughed uponhim; his feet struck jingling iron rings in staples stone-buried forhalf a cycle. Along these paltry avenues had swaggered the arrogantDon, had caracoled and serenaded and blustered while the tomahawk andthe pioneer's rifle were already uplifted to expel him from acontinent. And Tansey, stumbling through this old-world dust, lookedup, dark as it was, and saw Andalusian beauties glimmering on thebalconies. Some of them were laughing and listening to the goblinmusic that still followed; others harked fearfully through the night,trying to catch the hoof beats of caballeros whose last echoes fromthose stones had died away a century ago. Those women were silent, butTansey heard the jangle of horseless bridle-bits, the whirr ofriderless rowels, and, now and then, a muttered malediction in aforeign tongue. But he was not frightened. Shadows, nor shadows ofsounds could daunt him. Afraid? No. Afraid of Mother Peek? Afraid toface the girl of his heart? Afraid of tipsy Captain Peek? Nay! nor ofthese apparitions, nor of that spectral singing that always pursuedhim. Singing! He would show them! He lifted up a strong and untunefulvoice:
"When you hear them bells go tingalingling,"
serving notice upon those mysterious agencies that if it should cometo a face-to-face encounter
"There'll be a hot timeIn the old townTo-night!"
How long Tansey consumed in treading this haunted byway was not clearto him, but in time he emerged into a more commodious avenue. Whenwithin a few yards of the corner he perceived, through a window, thata small confectionary of mean appearance was set in the angle. Hissame glance that estimated its meagre equipment, its cheap soda-waterfountain and stock of tobacco and sweets, took cognizance of CaptainPeek within lighting a cigar at a swinging gaslight.
As Tansey rounded the corner Captain Peek came out, and they met /vis-a-vis/. An exultant joy filled Tansey when he found himself sustainingthe encounter with implicit courage. Peek, indeed! He raised his hand,and snapped his fingers loudly.
It was Peek himself who quailed guiltily before the valiant mien ofthe drug clerk. Sharp surprise and a palpable fear bourgeoned upon theCaptain's face. And, verily, that face was one to rather call up suchexpressions on the faces of others. The face of a libidinous heathenidol, small eyed, with carven folds in the heavy jowls, and aconsuming, pagan license in its expression. In the gutter just beyondthe store Tansey saw a closed carriage standing with its back towardhim and a motionless driver perched in his place.
"Why, it's Tansey!" exclaimed Captain Peek. "How are you, Tansey? H-have a cigar, Tansey?"
"Why, it's Peek!" cried Tansey, jubilant at his own temerity. "Whatdeviltry are you up to now, Peek? Back streets and a closed carriage!Fie! Peek!"
"There's no one in the carriage," said the Captain, smoothly.
"Everybody out of it is in luck," continued Tansey, aggressively. "I'dlove for you to know, Peek, that I'm not stuck on you. You're abottle-nosed scoundrel."
"Why, the little rat's drunk!" cried the Captain, joyfully; "onlydrunk, and I thought he was on! Go home, Tansey, and quit botheringgrown persons on the street."
But just then a white-clad figure sprang out of the carriage, and ashrill voice--Katie's voice--sliced the air: "Sam! Sam!--help me,Sam!"
Tansey sprung toward her, but Captain Peek interposed his bulky form.Wonder of wonders! the whilom spiritless youth struck out with hisright, and the hulking Captain went over in a swearing heap. Tanseyflew to Katie, and took her in his arms like a conquering knight. Sheraised her face, and he kissed her--violets! electricity! caramels!champagne! Here was the attainment of a dream that brought nodisenchantment.
"Oh, Sam," cried Katie, when she could, "I knew you would come torescue me. What do you suppose the mean things were going to do withme?"
"Have your picture taken," said Tansey, wondering at the foolishnessof his remark.
"No, they were going to eat me. I heard them talking about it."
"Eat you!" said Tansey, after pondering a moment. "That can't be;there's no plates."
But a sudden noise warned him to turn. Down upon him were bearing theCaptain and a monstrous long-bearded dwarf in a spangled cloak and redtrunk-hose. The dwarf leaped twenty feet and clutched them. TheCaptain seized Katie and hurled her, shrieking, back into thecarriage, himself followed, and the vehicle dashed away. The dwarflifted Tansey high above his head and ran with him into the store.Holding him with one hand, he raised the lid of an enormous chest halffilled with cakes of ice, flung Tansey inside, and closed down thecover.
The force of the fall must have been great, for Tansey lostconsciousness. When his faculties revived his first sensation was oneof severe cold along his back and limbs. Opening his eyes, he foundhimself to be seated upon the limestone steps still facing the walland convent of Santa Mercedes. His first thought was of the ecstatickiss from Katie. The outrageous villainy of Captain Peek, theunnatural mystery of the situation, his preposterous conflict with theimprobable dwarf--these things roused and angered him, but left noimpression of the unreal.
"I'll go back there to-morrow," he grumbled aloud, "and knock the headoff that comic-opera squab. Running out and picking up perfectstrangers, and shoving them into cold storage!"
But the kiss remained uppermost in his mind. "I might have done thatlong ago," he mused. "She liked it, too. She called me 'Sam' fourtimes. I'll not go up that street again. Too much scrapping. GuessI'll move down the other way. Wonder what she meant by saying theywere going to eat her!"
Tansey began to feel sleepy, but after a while he decided to movealong again. This time he ventured into the street to his left. It ranlevel for a distance, and then dipped gently downward, opening into avast, dim, barren space--the old Military Plaza. To his left, somehundred yards distant, he saw a cluster of flickering lights along thePlaza's border. He knew the locality at once.
Huddled within narrow confines were the remnants of the once-famouspurveyors of the celebrated Mexican national cookery. A few yearsbefore, their nightly encampments upon the historic Alamo Plaza, inthe heart of the city, had been a carnival, a saturnalia that wasrenowned throughout the land. Then the caterers numbered hundreds; thepatrons thousands. Drawn by the coquettish /senoritas/, the music ofthe weird Spanish minstrels, and the strange piquant Mexican dishesserved at a hundred competing tables, crowds thronged the Alamo Plazaall night. Travellers, rancheros, family parties, gay gasconadingrounders, sightseers and prowlers of polyglot, owlish San Antonemingled there at the centre of the city's fun and frolic. The poppingof corks, pistols, and questions; the glitter of eyes, jewels anddaggers; the ring of laughter and coin--these were the order of thenight.
But now no longer. To some half-dozen tents, fires, and tables haddwindled the picturesque festival, and these had been relegated to anancient disused plaza.
Often had Tansey strolled down to these stands at night to partake ofthe delectable /chili-con-carne/, a dish evolved by the genius ofMexico, composed of delicate meats minced with aromatic herbs and thepoignant /chili colorado/--a compound full of singular flavour and afiery zest delightful to the Southron's palate.
The titillating odour of this concoction came now, on the breeze, tothe nostrils of Tansey, awakening in him hunger for it. As he turnedin that direction he saw a carriage dash up to the Mexicans' tents outof the gloom of the Plaza. Some figures moved back and forward in theuncertain light of the lanterns, and then the carriage was drivenswiftly away.
Tansey approached, and sat at one of the tables covered with gaudyoil-cloth. Traffic was dull at the moment. A few half-grown boysnoisily fared at another table; the Mexicans hung listless andphlegmatic about their wares. And it was still. The night hum of thecity crowded to the wall of dark buildings surrounding the Plaza, andsubsided to an indefinite buzz through which sharply perforated thecrackle of the languid fires and the rattle of fork and spoon. Asedative wind blew from the southeast. The starless firmament presseddown upon the earth like a leaden cover.
In all that quiet Tansey turned his head suddenly, and saw, withoutdisquietude, a troop of spectral horsemen deploy into the Plaza andcharge a luminous line of infantry that advanced to sustain the shock.He saw the fierce flame of cannon and small arms, but heard no sound.The careless victuallers lounged vacantly, not deigning to view theconflict. Tansey mildly wondered to what nations these mute combatantsmight belong; turned his back to them and ordered his chili and coffeefrom the Mexican woman who advanced to serve him. This woman was oldand careworn; her face was lined like the rind of a cantaloupe. Shefetched the viands from a vessel set by the smouldering fire, and thenretired to a tent, dark within, that stood near by.
Presently Tansey heard a turmoil in the tent; a wailing, broken-hearted pleading in the harmonious Spanish tongue, and then twofigures tumbled out into the light of the lanterns. One was the oldwoman; the other was a man clothed with a sumptuous and flashingsplendour. The woman seemed to clutch and beseech from him somethingagainst his will. The man broke from her and struck her brutally backinto the tent, where she lay, whimpering and invisible. ObservingTansey, he walked rapidly to the table where he sat. Tansey recognizedhim to be Ramon Torres, a Mexican, the proprietor of the stand he waspatronizing.
Torres was a handsome, nearly full-blooded descendant of the Spanish,seemingly about thirty years of age, and of a haughty, but extremelycourteous demeanour. To-night he was dressed with signal magnificence.His costume was that of a triumphant /matador/, made of purple velvetalmost hidden by jeweled embroidery. Diamonds of enormous size flashedupon his garb and his hands. He reached for a chair, and, seatinghimself at the opposite side of the table, began to roll a finicalcigarette.
"Ah, Meester Tanse," he said, with a sultry fire in his silky, blackeyes, "I give myself pleasure to see you this evening. Meester Tansee,you have many times come to eat at my table. I theenk you a safe man--a verree good friend. How much would it please you to leeve forever?"
"Not come back any more?" inquired Tansey.
"No; not leave--/leeve/; the not-to-die."
"I would call that," said Tansey, "a snap."
Torres leaned his elbows upon the table, swallowed a mouthful ofsmoke, and spake--each word being projected in a little puff of gray.
"How old do you theenk I am, Meester Tansee?"
"Oh, twenty-eight or thirty."
"Thees day," said the Mexican, "ees my birthday. I am four hundred andthree years of old to-day."
"Another proof," said Tansey, airily, "of the healthfulness of ourclimate."
"Eet is not the air. I am to relate to you a secret of verree finevalue. Listen me, Meester Tansee. At the age of twenty-three I arrivein Mexico from Spain. When? In the year fifteen hundred nineteen, withthe /soldados/ of Hernando Cortez. I come to thees country seventeenfifteen. I saw your Alamo reduced. It was like yesterday to me. Threehundred ninety-six year ago I learn the secret always to leeve. Lookat these clothes I war--at these /diamantes/. Do you theenk I buy themwith the money I make with selling the /chili-con-carne/, MeesterTansee?"
"I should think not," said Tansey, promptly. Torres laughed loudly.
"/Valgame Dios/! but I do. But it not the kind you eating now. I makea deeferent kind, the eating of which makes men to always leeve. Whatdo you think! One thousand people I supply--/diez pesos/ each one paysme the month. You see! ten thousand /pesos/ everee month! /Quediable/! how not I wear the fine /ropa/! You see that old woman try tohold me back a little while ago? That ees my wife. When I marry hershe is young--seventeen year--/bonita/. Like the rest she ees becomeold and--what you sayyoung all the time.To-night I resolve to dress myself and find another wife befitting myage. This old woman try to scr-r-ratch my face. Ha! ha! Meester Tansee--same way they do /entre los Americanos/."
"And this health-food you spoke of?" said Tansey.
"Hear me," said Torres, leaning over the table until he lay flat uponit; "eet is the /chili-con-carne/ made not from the beef or thechicken, but from the flesh of the /senorita/--young and tender. Thatees the secret. Everee month you must eat of it, having care to do sobefore the moon is full, and you will not die any times. See how Itrust you, friend Tansee! To-night I have bought one young ladee--verree pretty--so /fina, gorda, blandita/! To-morrow the /chili/ willbe ready. /Ahora si/! One thousand dollars I pay for thees youngladee. From an /Americano/ I have bought--a verree tip-top man--/elCapitan Peek/--/que es, Senor/?"
For Tansey had sprung to his feet, upsetting the chair. The words ofKatie reverberated in his ears: "They're going to eat me, Sam." This,then, was the monstrous fate to which she had been delivered by herunnatural parent. The carriage he had seen drive up from the Plaza wasCaptain Peek's. Where was Katie? Perhaps already--
Before he could decide what to do a loud scream came from the tent.The old Mexican woman ran out, a flashing knife in her hand. "I havereleased her," she cried. "You shall kill no more. They will hang you--/ingrato/--/encatador/!"
Torres, with a hissing exclamation, sprang at her.
"Ramoncito!" she shrieked; "once you loved me."
The Mexican's arm raised and descended. "You are old," he cried; andshe fell and lay motionless.
Another scream; the flaps of the tent were flung aside, and therestood Katie, white with fear, her wrists still bound with a cruelcord.
"Sam!" she cried, "save me again!"
Tansey rounded the table, and flung himself, with superb nerve, uponthe Mexican. Just then a clangour began; the clocks of the city weretolling the midnight hour. Tansey clutched at Torres, and, for amoment, felt in his grasp the crunch of velvet and the cold facets ofthe glittering gems. The next instant, the bedecked caballero turnedin his hands to a shrunken, leather-visaged, white-bearded, old, old,screaming mummy, sandalled, ragged, and four hundred and three. TheMexican woman was crawling to her feet, and laughing. She shook herbrown hand in the face of the whining /viejo/.
"Go, now," she cried, "and seek your senorita. It was I, Ramoncito,who brought you to this. Within each moon you eat of the life-giving/chili/. It was I that kept the wrong time for you. You should haveeaten /yesterday/ instead of /to-morrow/. It is too late. Off withyou, /hombre/! You are too old for me!"
"This," decided Tansey, releasing his hold of the gray-beard, "is aprivate family matter concerning age, and no business of mine."
With one of the table knives he hastened to saw asunder the fetters ofthe fair captive; and then, for the second time that night he kissedKatie Peek--tasted again the sweetness, the wonder, the thrill of it,attained once more the maximum of his incessant dreams.
The next instant an icy blade was driven deep between his shoulders;he felt his blood slowly congeal; heard the senile cackle of theperennial Spaniard; saw the Plaza rise and reel till the zenithcrashed into the horizon--and knew no more.
When Tansey opened his eyes again he was sitting upon those self-samesteps gazing upon the dark bulk of the sleeping convent. In the middleof his back was still the acute, chilling pain. How had he beenconveyed back there again? He got stiffly to his feet and stretchedhis cramped limbs. Supporting himself against the stonework herevolved in his mind the extravagant adventures that had befallen himeach time he had strayed from the steps that night. In reviewing themcertain features strained his credulity. Had he really met CaptainPeek or Katie or the unparalleled Mexican in his wanders--had hereally encountered them under commonplace conditions and his over-stimulated brain had supplied the incongruities? However that mightbe, a sudden, elating thought caused him an intense joy. Nearly all ofus have, at some point in our lives--either to excuse our ownstupidity or to placate our consciences--promulgated some theory offatalism. We have set up an intelligent Fate that works by codes andsignals. Tansey had done likewise; and now he read, through thenight's incidents, the finger-prints of destiny. Each excursion thathe had made had led to the one paramount finale--to Katie and thatkiss, which survived and grew strong and intoxicating in his memory.Clearly, Fate was holding up to him the mirror that night, calling himto observe what awaited him at the end of whichever road he mighttake. He immediately turned, and hurried homeward.
* * * * *
Clothed in an elaborate, pale blue wrapper, cut to fit, Miss KatiePeek reclined in an armchair before a waning fire in her room. Herlittle, bare feet were thrust into house-shoes rimmed with swan'sdown. By the light of a small lamp she was attacking the society newsof the latest Sunday paper. Some happy substance, seeminglyindestructible, was being rhythmically crushed between her small whiteteeth. Miss Katie read of functions and furbelows, but she kept avigilant ear for outside sounds and a frequent eye upon the clock overthe mantel. At every footstep upon the asphalt sidewalk her smooth,round chin would cease for a moment its regular rise and fall, and afrown of listening would pucker her pretty brows.
At last she heard the latch of the iron gate click. She sprang up,tripped softly to the mirror, where she made a few of those feminine,flickering passes at her front hair and throat which are warranted tohypnotize the approaching guest.
The door-bell rang. Miss Katie, in her haste, turned the blaze of thelamp lower instead of higher, and hastened noiselessly down stairsinto the hall. She turned the key, the door opened, and Mr. Tanseyside-stepped in.
"Why, the i-de-a!" exclaimed Miss Katie, "is this you, Mr. Tansey?It's after midnight. Aren't you ashamed to wake me up at such an hourto let you in? You're just /awful/!"
"I was late," said Tansey, brilliantly.
"I should think you were! Ma was awfully worried about you. When youweren't in by ten, that hateful Tom McGill said you were out callingon another--said you were out calling on some young lady. I justdespise Mr. McGill. Well, I'm not going to scold you any more, Mr.Tansey, if it /is/ a little late--Oh! I turned it the wrong way!"
Miss Katie gave a little scream. Absent-mindedly she had turned theblaze of the lamp entirely out instead of higher. It was very dark.
Tansey heard a musical, soft giggle, and breathed an entrancing odourof heliotrope. A groping light hand touched his arm."
"How awkward I was! Can you find your way--Sam?"
"I--I think I have a match, Miss K-Katie."
A scratching sound; a flame; a glow of light held at arm's length bythe recreant follower of Destiny illuminating a tableau which shallend the ignominious chronicle--a maid with unkissed, curling,contemptuous lips slowly lifting the lamp chimney and allowing thewick to ignite; then waving a scornful and abjuring hand toward thestaircase--the unhappy Tansey, erstwhile champion in the propheticlists of fortune, ingloriously ascending to his just and certain doom,while (let us imagine) half within the wings stands the imminentfigure of Fate jerking wildly at the wrong strings, and mixing thingsup in her usual able manner.
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