The Argosy, August 1905 — page 70: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

: | 60 THE ARGOSY. cavalry; but it was not that which had brought the exclamation to the Texan’s lips and stricken Haddon dumb. : The face of the newcomer was turned toward the light, and that face was frightfully disfigured by lwo lid scars, beginning al a point near the center of the chin and exlending wpward to the bottom of the ears. So intense a silence reigned in the room that the faint breathing of the dying man upon the floor could be dis- tinctly heard. Then, with an almost imperceptible gesture, the figure in the doorway advanced a few feet within the threshold. His gaze traveled from the face of the man upon the floor to that of Lieu- tenant Haddon. “Surely the sefor has not forgotten —I am Perote,” said he quietly. Haddon stared mutely at the speaker. A faint smile touched the disfigured lips of Senor Perote. “T see—I understand why the senor is amazed. Is it not so—the scars?” said he. Haddon recovered himself, but his face was wet with perspiration. “You are Perote,” said he, and there was a hollow ring im his voice. “ Who, then, is this man?” Perote looked down upon the figure on the floor. “You should know, senor, for you have been in Chalco. Who but Mazat- lan would Santa Anna send to ambush the Americans? Jt is Mazatlan, but before that happened he was Sefor Amador.” Suddenly something of the truth dawned upon the Virginian. He re- membered ihe face of ihe man whom he had seen that night lying dead on the hill behind the inn. He knew that more than one must have been con- eerned in the disfigurement of Sefior Perote, and the face of the man upon the hill gave him an inkling of the manner in which Perote had worked out his revenge. Now that the two faces, each with the livid double sear, were before his eyes, he noted that these scars were the result of different kinds of wounds. Those upon the face of the real Perote were broader, as though made by some dull instrument, but except for this slight difference each disfigr’ ement was strik- 1 similar, a how the guerrilla leader, Mazatlan, had come by the sears which made him a marked man, yet he put the question which hovered on his tongue. Senor Perote nodded grimly. ; ‘Tt is even so, senor, for 1t was in that manner I might make this aman share my suffering, and some suffering is worse than death.” He paused, then continued quietly: “here were two: this Amador, and the other—Valeno. It so happened that I permitted a certain paper to be taken from them. The robber fled and they accused me of being an enemy to Mexico. “Had they killed me, nothing more would have been heard about the mat- ter, for to kill a man in Mexico is no great thing. ‘They chose to torture me. Under my own roof they burned me with hot irons and laughed at my suffering. “From that hour a demon took pos- session of me. Sleeping or waking, I desired but one thing—to find these men and kill them. “Tt was one night that that one slept in an inn in Chalco; I watched his light go out and waited until the inn was quiet. I crept through the open window to the bed and looked down upon him. “Tt was in my mind to kill him as he lay, but the demon of revenge showed me a better way. It was done quickly; no lght was necessary. I eut deeply, even as he had burned me with the iron. “I knew that when the wounds healed there would be in Mexico two who would carry to their graves a livid cross, a disfigurement which could only be hidden in the tomb.” Ile paused and looked from one face to another, then continued with awful calmness: “ You know what occurred afterwar ‘The demon which possessed me entered Captain Amador. He became Mazat- lan, who slew mien for the love of kill- ing. I hated Mexico—because the of- ficers of Santa Anna had tortured me. I resolved to aid the invaders of Mexico, that Santa Anna might be humbled. liven to-night, sefiors, | have done some- .