Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843

"Presently, however, he came sneakin' up to me, and winkin' and whisperin'; and, 'Bob!' says he, 'is it come to that with you? are you grown so chicken-hearted that you don't see the beltful of money round his body?' said he, lookin' at it. 'No end of hard coin, I guess; and all to be had for little more than half an ounce of lead.'"

"Did he say that?" asked the judge.

"Ay, that did he, but I wouldn't listen to him. I was mad with him for winning my twenty dollars; and I told him that, if he wanted the stranger's purse, he might take it himself, and be d——d; that I wasn't goin' to pull the hot chestnuts out of the fire for him. And I got on my horse, and rode away like mad.

"My head spun round like a mill. I couldn't get over my loss. I took the twenty dollars fifty more to heart than any money I had ever gambled. I didn't know where to go. I didn't dare go back to you, for I knew you'd scold me."

"I shouldn't have scolded you, Bob; or, if I had, it would only have been for your good. I should have summoned Johnny before me, called together a jury of twelve of the neighbours, got you back your twenty dollars fifty, and sent Johnny out of the country; or, better still, out of the world."

These words were spoken with much phlegm, but yet with a degree of feeling and sympathy, which greatly improved my opinion of the worthy judge. Bob also seemed touched. He drew a deep sigh, and gazed at the Alcalde with a melancholy look.

"It's too late," muttered he; "too late, squire."

"Perhaps not," replied the judge, "but let's hear the rest."

"Well," continued Bob, "I kept riding on at random, and when evenin' came I found myself near the palmetta field on the bank of the Jacinto. As I was ridin' past it, I heard all at once the tramp of a horse. At that moment the queerest feelin' I ever had came over me; a sort of cold shiverin' feel. I forgot where I was; sight and hearin' left me; I could only see two things, my twenty dollars fifty, and the well-filled belt of the stranger I had left at Johnny's. Just then a voice called to me.

"'Whence come, countryman, and whither going?' it said.

"'Whence and whether,' answered I, as surly as could be; 'to the devil at a gallop, and you'd better ride on and tell him I'm comin'.'

"'You can do the errand yourself,' answered the stranger larfin'; 'my road don't lie that way.'

"As he spoke, I looked round, and saw, what I was pretty sure of before, that it was the man with the belt full of money.

"'Ain't you the stranger I see'd in the inn yonder?' asked he.

"'And if I am,' says I; 'what's that to you?'

"'Nothin',' said he; 'nothin', certainly.'

"'Better ride on,' says I; 'and leave me quiet.'

"'Will so, stranger; but you needn't take it so mighty onkind. A word ain't a tomahawk, I reckon,' said he. 'But I rayther expect your losin's at play ain't put you in a very church-goin' humour; and, if I was you, I'd keep my dollars in my pocket, and not set them on cards and dice.'

"This put me in a rile to hear him cast my losin's in my teeth that way.

"'You're a nice feller,' said I, 'to throw a man's losses in his face. A pitiful chap you are,' says I.

"I thought to provoke him, and that he'd tackle me. But he seemed to have no fancy for a fight, for he said quite humble like—

"'I throw nothin' in your face; God forbid that I should reproach you with your losses! I'm sorry for you, on the contrary. Don't look like a man who can afford to lose his dollars. Seem to me one who airns his money by hard work.'

"We were just then halted at the further end of the cane brake, close to the trees that border the Jacinto. I had turned my horse, and was frontin' the stranger. And all the time the devil was busy whisperin' to me, and pointin' to the belt round the man's waist. I could see where it was, plain enough, though he had buttoned his coat over it.

"'Hard work, indeed,' says I; 'and now I've lost every thing; not a cent left for a quid of baccy.'

"'If that's all,' says he; 'there's help for that. I don't chew myself, and I ain't a rich man; I've wife and children, and want every cent I've got, but it's one's duty to help a countryman. You shall have money for tobacco and a dram.'

"And so sayin', he took a purse out of his pocket, in which he carried his change. It was plenty full; there may have been some twenty dollars in it; and as he drew the string, it was as if the devil laughed and nodded to me out of the openin' of the purse.

"'Halves!' cried I.

"'No, not that,' says he; 'I've wife and child, and what I have belongs to them; but half a dollar'——

"'Halves!' cried I again; 'or else'——

"'Or else?' repeated he: and, as he spoke, he put the purse back into his pocket, and laid hold of the rifle which was slung on his shoulder.

"'Don't force one to do you a mischief,' said he. 'Don't' says he; 'we might both be sorry for it. What you're thinkin' of brings no blessin'.'

"I was past seein' or hearin'. A thousand devils from hell were possessin' me.

"'Halves!' I yelled out; and, as I said the word, he sprang out of the saddle, and fell back over his horse's crupper to the ground.

"'I'm a dead man!' cried he; as well as the rattle in his throat would let him. 'God be merciful to me! My poor wife, my poor children!'"

Bob paused; he gasped for breath, and the sweat stood in large drops upon his forehead. He gazed wildly round the room. The judge himself looked very pale. I tried to rise, but sank back in my chair. Without the table I believe I should have fallen to the ground.

There was a gloomy pause of some moments' duration. At last the judge broke silence.

"A hard, hard case!" said he. "Father, mother, children, all at one blow. Bob, you are a bad fellow; a very bad fellow; a great villain!"

"A great villain," groaned Bob. "The ball was gone right through his breast."

"Perhaps your gun went off by accident," said the judge anxiously. "Perhaps it was his own ball."

Bob shook his head.

"I see him now, judge, as plain as can be, when he said, 'Don't force me to do you a mischief. We might both be sorry for it.' But I pulled the trigger. His bullet is still in his rifle.

"When I saw him lie dead before me, I can't tell you what I felt. It warn't the first I had sent to his account; but yet I would have given all the purses and money in the world to have had him alive agin. I must have dragged him under the Patriarch, and dug a grave with my huntin' knife; for I found him there afterwards."

"You found him there?" repeated the judge.

"Yes. I don't know how he came there. I must have brought him, but I recollect nothin' about it."

The judge had risen from his chair, and was walking up and down the room, apparently in deep thought. Suddenly he stopped short.

"What have you done with his money?"

"I took his purse, but buried his belt with him, as well as a flask of rum, and some bread and beef he had brought away from Johnny's. I set out for San Felipe, and rode the whole day. In the evenin', when I looked about me, expectin' to see the town, where do you think I was?"

The judge and I stared at him.

"Under the Patriarch. The ghost of the murdered man had driven me there. I had no peace till I'd dug him up and buried him again. Next day I set off in another direction. I was out of tobacco, and I started across the prairie to Anahuac. Lord, what a day I passed! Wherever I went, he stood before me. If I turned, he turned too. Sometimes he came behind me, and looked over my shoulder. I spurred my mustang till the blood came, hopin' to get away from him, but it was all no use. I thought when I got to Anahuac I should be quit of him, and I galloped on as if for life or death. But in the evenin', instead of bein' close to the salt-works as I expected, there I was agin, under the Patriarch. I dug him up a second time, and sat and stared at him, and then buried him agin."

"Queer that," observed the judge.