“She will not come with you now, or ever,” I said, and my voice was very low—not above a whisper. “She is my woman—I have taken her!”
It was a lie—the last part; but what is a lie to a man who would commit murder in the same cause. He was among his men now—they were close around him and I suppose they gave him courage, for he addressed me threateningly.
“I do not care whose she is,” he cried, “I want her and I shall have her. I speak for her now, and I speak for her when she is a widow. After you are dead I have first choice of her and traitors do not live long.”
“I am not dead yet,” I reminded him. He turned to Juana.
“You shall have thirty days as the law requires; but you can save your friends trouble if you come now—they will not be molested then and I will see that their taxes are lowered.”
Juana gave a little gasp and looked around at us and then she straightened her shoulders and came close to me.
“No!” she said to Or-tis. “I will never go. This is my man—he has taken me. Ask him if he will give me up to you. You will never have me—alive.”
“Don’t be too sure of that,” he growled. “I believe that you are both lying to me, for I have had you watched and I know that you do not live under the same roof. And you!” he glared at me. “Tread carefully, for the eyes of the law find traitors where others do not see them.” Then he turned and strode from the yard. A minute later they were gone in a cloud of dust.
Now our happiness and peace had fled—it was always thus—and there was no hope. I dared not look at Juana after what I had said; but then, had she not said the same thing? We all talked lamely for a few minutes and then Father and Mother rose to go, and a moment later Jim and Mollie went indoors. I turned to Juana. She stood with her eyes upon the ground and a pretty flush upon her cheek. Something surged up in me—a mighty force, that I had never known, possessed me, and before I realized what it impelled me to do I had seized Juana in my arms and was covering her face and lips with kisses.
She fought to free herself; but I would not let her go.
“You are mine!” I cried. “You are my woman. I have said it—you have said. You are my woman. God, how I love you!”
She lay quiet then, and let me kiss her, and presently her arms stole about my neck and her lips sought mine in an interval that I had drawn them away, and they moved upon my lips in a gentle caress, that was yet palpitant with passion. This was a new Juana—a new and very wonderful Juana.
“You really love me?” she asked at last—“I heard you say it!”
“I have loved you from the moment I saw you looking up at me from beneath the hellhound,” I replied.
“You have kept it very much of a secret to yourself then,” she teased me. “If you loved me so, why did you not tell me? Were you going to keep it from me all my life, or—were you afraid? Brother Or-tis was not afraid to say that he wanted me—is my man, my Julian, less brave than he?”
I knew that she was only teasing me, and so I stopped her mouth with kisses and then: “Had you been a hellhound, or Soor, or even Or-tis,” I said, “I could have told you what I thought of you; but being Juana and a little girl the words would not come. I am a great coward.”
We talked until it was time to go home to supper and I took her hand to lead her to my house. “But first,” I said, “you must tell Mollie and Jim what has happened, and that you will not be back. For a while we can live under my father’s roof; but as soon as may be I will get permission from the teivos to take the adjoining land and work it and then I shall build a house.”
She drew back and flushed. “I cannot go with you yet,” she said.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “You are mine!”
“We have not been married,” she whispered.
“But no one is married,” I reminded her. “Marriage is against the law.”
“My mother was married,” she told me. “You and I can be married. We have a church and a preacher. Why cannot he marry us? He is not ordained because there is none to ordain him; but being the head of the only church that he knows of or that we know of, it is evident that he can be ordained only by God and who knows but that he already has been ordained!”
I tried to argue her out of it, as now that heaven was so near I had no mind to wait three weeks to attain it; but she would not argue—she just shook her head and at last I saw that she was right and gave in—as I would have had to do in any event.
I went to Pthav, who was one of our representatives in the teivos, and asked him to procure for me permission to work the vacant land adjoining my father’s. The land all belonged to the community; but each man was allowed what he could work as long as there was plenty, and there was more than plenty for us all.
Pthav was very ugly—he seemed to have forgotten that I had saved his child’s life—and said that he did not know what he could do for me—that I had acted very badly to General Or-tis and was in disfavor, beside being under suspicion
