Essential Novelists - Bret Harte. Bret Harte
pent-up feelings found vent in the characteristic "Carámba!" Mr. Jack Hamlin looked up. It was not the oath, it was not the expression of ill-humour, both of which were common enough in Mr. Hamlin's experience, but a certain distinguishing quality in the voice which awoke Jack's peculiarly retentive memory. He looked up, and, to borrow his own dialect, at once "spotted" the owner of the voice. He made no outward sign of his recognition, but quietly pursued the game. In the next deal Mr. Ramirez won! Mr. Hamlin quietly extended his croupe and raked down Mr. Ramirez's money with the losers'.
As Mr. Hamlin doubtless had fully expected, Mr. Ramirez rose with a passionate scream of rage. Whereat Mr. Hamlin coolly pushed back Mr. Ramirez's stake and winnings without looking up. Leaving it upon the table, Ramirez leaped to the gambler's side.
"You would insult me, so! You would ch—ee—at! eh? You would take my money, so!" he said, hoarsely, gesticulating passionately with one hand, while with the other he grasped as wildly in his breast.
Mr. Jack Hamlin turned a pair of dark eyes on the speaker, and said, quietly, "Sit down, Johnny!"
With the pent-up passion of the last few hours boiling in his blood, with the murderous intent of the morning still darkling in his mind, with the passionate sense of a new insult stinging him to madness, Mr. Ramirez should have struck the gambler to the earth. Possibly that was his intention as he crossed to his side; possibly that was his conviction as he heard himself—he—Victor Ramirez! whose presence in two days should strike terror to two hearts in One Horse Gulch!—addressed as Johnny! But he looked into the eyes of Mr. Hamlin and hesitated. What he saw there I cannot say. They were handsome eyes, clear and well opened, and had been considered by several members of a fond and confiding sex as peculiarly arch and tender. But, it must be confessed, Mr. Ramirez returned to his seat without doing anything.
"Ye don't know that man," said Mr. Hamlin to the two players nearest him, in a tone of the deepest confidence, which was, however, singularly enough, to be heard distinctly by every one at the table, including Ramirez. "You don't know him, but I do! He's a desprit character," continued Mr. Hamlin, glancing at him and quietly shuffling the cards, "a very desprit character! Make your game, gentlemen! Keeps a cattle ranch in Sonoma, and a private graveyard whar he buries his own dead. They call him the 'Yaller Hawk of Sonoma.' He's outer sorts jest now: probably jest killed some one up thar, and smells blood." Mr. Ramirez smiled a ghastly smile, and affected to examine the game minutely and critically as Mr. Hamlin paused to rake in the gold. "He's artful—is Johnny!" continued Mr. Hamlin, in the interval of shuffling, "artful and sly! Partikerly when he's after blood! See him sittin' thar and smilin'. He doesn't want to interrupt the game. He knows, gentlemen, thet in five minutes from now, Jim will be back here and I'll be free. Thet's what he's waitin' for! Thet's what's the matter with the 'Yaller Slaughterer of Sonoma!' Got his knife ready in his breast, too. Done up in brown paper to keep it clean. He's mighty pertikler 'bout his weppins is Johnny. Hez a knife for every new man." Ramirez rose with an attempt at jocularity, and pocketed his gains. Mr. Hamlin affected not to notice him until he was about to leave the table. "He's goin' to wait for me outside," he exclaimed. "In five minutes, Johnny," he called to Ramirez's retreating figure. "If you can't wait, I'll expect to see you at the Marysville Hotel next week, Room No. 95, the next room, Johnny, the next room!"
The Mr. Ramirez who reached the busy thoroughfare again was so different from the Mr. Ramirez who twenty minutes before had entered the Arcade that his identity might have easily been doubted. He did not even breathe in the same way; his cheek, although haggard, had resumed its colour; his eyes, which hitherto had been fixed and contemplative, had returned to their usual restless vivacity. With the exception that at first he walked quickly on leaving the saloon, and once or twice hurriedly turned to see if anybody were following him, his manner was totally changed. And this without effusion of blood, or the indulgence of an insatiable desire for revenge! As I prefer to deal with Mr. Ramirez without affecting to know any more of that gentleman than he did himself, I am unable to explain any more clearly than he did to himself the reason for this change in his manner, or the utter subjection of his murderous passion. When it is remembered that for several hours he had had unlimited indulgence, without opposition, in his own instincts, but that for the last twenty minutes he had some reason to doubt their omnipotence, perhaps some explanation may be adduced. I only know that by half-past six Mr. Ramirez had settled in his mind that physical punishment of his enemies was not the most efficacious means of revenge, and that at half-past seven he had concluded not to take the Sacramento boat. And yet for the previous six hours I have reason to believe that Mr. Ramirez was as sincere a murderer as ever suffered the penalty of his act, or to whom circumstances had not offered a Mr. Hamlin to at upon a constitutional cowardice.
Mr. Ramirez proceeded leisurely down Montgomery Street until he came to Pacific Street. At the corner of the street his way was for a moment stopped by a rattling team and waggon that dashed off through the fog in the direction of the wharf. Mr. Ramirez recognised the express and mail for the Sacramento boat. But Mr. Ramirez did not know that the express contained a letter which ran as follows—
"Dear Madam,—Yours of the 10th received, and contents noted. Am willing to make our services contingent upon your success. We believe your present course will be quite as satisfactory as the plan you first proposed. Would advise you not to give a personal interview to Mr. Ramirez, but refer him to Mr. Gabriel Conroy. Mr. Ramirez's manner is such as to lead us to suppose that he might offer violence, unless withheld by the presence of a third party.—Yours respectfully,
"Peter Dumphy."
CHAPTER II. A CLOUD OF WITNESSES.
The street into which Ramirez plunged at first sight appeared almost impassable, and but for a certain regularity in the parallels of irregular, oddly-built houses, its original intention as a thoroughfare might have been open to grave doubt. It was dirty, it was muddy, it was ill-lighted; it was rocky and precipitous in some places, and sandy and monotonous in others. The grade had been changed two or three times, and each time apparently for the worse, but always with a noble disregard for the dwellings, which were invariably treated as an accident in the original design, or as obstacles to be overcome at any hazard. The near result of this large intent was to isolate some houses completely, to render others utterly inaccessible except by scaling ladders, and to produce the general impression that they were begun at the top and built down. The remoter effect was to place the locality under a social ban, and work a kind of outlawry among the inhabitants. Several of the houses were originally occupied by the Spanish native Californians, who, with the conservative instincts of their race, still clung to their casas after the Americans had flown to pastures new and less rocky and inaccessible beyond. Their vacant places were again filled by other native Californians, through that social law which draws the members of an inferior and politically degraded race into gregarious solitude and isolation, and the locality became known as the Spanish Quarter. That they lived in houses utterly inconsistent with their habits and tastes, that they affected a locality utterly foreign to their inclinations or customs, was not the least pathetic and grotesque element to a contemplative observer.
Before, or rather beneath one of these structures, Mr. Ramirez stopped, and began the ascent of a long flight of wooden steps, that at last brought him to the foundations of the dwelling. Another equally long exterior staircase brought him at last to the verandah or gallery of the second story, the first being partly hidden by an embankment. Here Mr. Ramirez discovered another flight of narrower steps leading down to a platform before the front door. It was open. In the hall-way two or three dark-faced men were lounging, smoking cigaritos, and enjoying, in spite of the fog, the apparently unsociable négligé of shirt sleeves and no collars. At the open front windows of the parlour two or three women were sitting, clad in the lightest and whitest of flounced muslin skirts, with heavy shawls over their heads and shoulders, as if summer had stopped at their waists, like an equator.
The house was feebly lighted, or rather the gloom of yellowish-browned walls and dark furniture, from which all lustre and polish had been smoked, made it seem darker. Nearly every room and all the piazzas were dim with the yellow haze of burning cigaritos. There were light brown stains on the shirt sleeves of the men, there were yellowish streaks on the otherwise spotless skirts of the women; every masculine and feminine forefinger and