RAMONA

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 459, 14 September 1928, Page 5

RAMONA

A GREAT LOVE STORY BY HELEN HUNT JACKSON *- (Serialised by FINIS FOX, author + + of the screen-plays “ RESTJR - T RECTION” and “RAMONA”)

That night the senora came to Ramona’s room. As she opened the door she was amazed to see Ramona, in her nightgown, kneeling at the candle-lighted statue of the Madonna. Impatiently she waited for Ramona to finish her prayers. “You will aiMse early,’* said the senora, with narrowed eyes, as Ra-

mona rose, and with an innocent, humble, beaten air faced her. “We will leave at sun-up for the convent at Santa Barbara. You shall never see this Indian Alessandro again.” Ramona weakly acquiesced, but her acquiescence was only to allay the suspicions of the senora. for the moment the senora left the room Ramona Quickly started to dress, and pack her things, running here and there and about the room in her joyous eagerness, all thrilled with the prospect of eloping with Alessandro. However, Ramona did not know that as the senora stepped outside her room she noiselessly locked the door, smiling grimly to herself. Felipe saw his mother lock the door, and, quickly thinking of a plan of strategy to enable Ramona tc f escape, gallantly escorted his mother into the patio and seated her on a rustic bench, telling her that he would return in a moment with his guitar and play for her.

Ramona, having finished packing her things, cautiously went to her door, was amazed to find it locked. She rushed to the barred window, and looked down below, fluttering like a wild bird in a cage. She knew that Alessandro was waiting for her at the willows. Now the senora had locked her in for the night, and to-morrow she would be taken to the convent at Santa Barbara. Panic-stricken, Ramona heard the key turn in the lock. Expecting the senora, she prepared for the worst. Her eyes dilated with fear. The door opened slowly, and in peeped the smiling face of Felipe. Dear, good Felipe! Ramona rushed over to him. He motioned her to be quiet, and then m whispers told her that he would Piny his guitar and sing to distract Hte senora while she escaped. Ramona, overjoyed, thanked Felipe, and kissed him with the tender affection of a sister. Felipe’s heart was breaking, but he smiled bravely under the tragic ordeal, never once

letting Ramona suspect his love tor her. “Good, dear Felipe,” Ramona breathed, "I shall love you—always.” A tense moment ensued. Then, in a burst of passion, Felipe clasped her in his arms, and kissed her. Ramona shrank from him. "Felipe! My—my brother. Felipe saw the startled, pained expression in her face. Then, realising what he was about to do, he tenderly kissed the tips of her fingers on first one hand and then the other, forcing himself to hide his feelings. “Good-bye, Ramona,” he said, all a-quiver with emotion. "May the saints bless you .... and Alessandro. The tears welled up in Felipe’s eyes, and afraid to trust himself further with Ramano, he went out the door and walked down the corridor, down the steps into the patio, blinded by the raging current of unsatisfied, stifled passion in his breast, blindly’ staggered until he caught sight of his mother waiting for him in the patio. A few moments later Ramona, breathlessly waiting at her window, caught the first strains of Felipe s SU “Dear Felipe!” murmured, “Dear, good Felipe!” Out of her room glided Ramona. Cautiously she crept down the stairs into the patio, casting long, tender lingering glances at the landmarks of her childhood and young womanhood, each bearing a tender memory. Felipe assumed an air of gaiety, played and sang a love song, played and sang to hide the pain in his heart, to keep back the tears in his eyes. Ramona was going away, to marry another, and he- must help her get away, he must sing and play to distract his mother though his heart is breaking.

At the patio gate Ramona looked back at Felipe, wafted a kiss to him, brushed a tear from her eye and then went out into the night, to meet Alessandro, to go away with him.

Captain, her favourite dog, rushed up to her, wagging his tail with delight. She stooped and patted him on the head.

“Will you come with me, Captain?” she asked. “You will always seem like something .... from home.” Alessandro saw Ramona’s figure dimly, drawing slowly nearer. He bounded forward and he kissed away her fears. Then he whistled and out from the bushes came his pinto pony and Baba, Ramona’s favourite horse, both saddled for the journey. “My wonderful Baba!” said Ramona as she caressed him, “Did the saints send him?” Alessandro smiled whimsically. “I think the saints sent me . . . . for him,” he said. Quickly they mounted their horses. Alessandro rode up close to Ramona. “We must make all the speed we can, dearest Senorita.” Ramona, capricious and flirtatious even in this hour of danger, of pursuit, saucily leaned over to Alessandro and looked up into his dark eyes. “Why have you never called me Ramona?” she asked with a little petulant wonder. “I never think of you as Ramona,” he replied, his eyes sparkling with love and admiration. “I always think of you as Majella .... the Indian name for the wood-dove.” Ramoana smilingly repeated the name to herself, pleased with the sound of it. Then She looked up at Alessandro and whispered: “To the world I am no longer Ramona .... I am Alessandro’s

Majella!” Alessandro beamed down upon her with glowing pride. He saw a sad, tender little smile come into her face. He did not know she was thinking of Felipe .... Felipe playing the guitar for the Senora while she escaped with him . . . and he did not hear her lips murmur: “But to Felipe I want always to be ... . Ramona.” Nor did Ramona realise that it was the Indian blood in her that made her Majella to Alessandro; and the white blood in her that made her Ramona to Felipe. Fearing pursuit, for three days Alessandro and Ramona found refuge in a dark, secluded canyon. The first night she reposed in his arms, looking up at the stars, their faces lighted by the fitful gleam of a camp fire. Back of them their horses, unsaddled but

hobbled, grazed on the succulent grass. Captain, on bis haunches near the fire, watched as a sentinel. All about them were ferns growing in tropical luxuriance; a little stream of water gurgled from a rift in the rocks. “This seems to me the first home I have ever had,” said Ramona. “Is it because I am Indian, Alessandro, that it gives me such joy?” Alessandro answered her with a look of devotional understanding and assent. “You speak as the trees speak and as the flowers,” exclaimed Ramona, “without saying anything.” “And you, Majella,” replied Alessandro, “speak in the language of our people . . . you are as we are.” They rose and Alessandro, led her over to a bed of finely-broken twigs over which he had spread layers of glossy ferns. “But where are you going to sleep, Alessandro?” solicitously asked Ramona as she delightedly surveyed her bed. “To-night I shall not sleep,” he replied. “I shall watch over you, my Majella. To-morrow I will sleep and you shall watch.” Ramona held out her arms to him. He crossed over to her and knelt af her bed of ferns. Her arms encircle.d his neck and he kissed her good-night very tenderly, almost solemnly. The first flaming tints of the dawn spread over the sky like a crimson fleece. Ramona awakened from her slumber and saw Alessandro placing some wood on the fire. She sat up bewildered, looking about, and started to sing the morning hymn. Alessandro’s voice rose in sweet cadence with hers. She made her way over to him. Captain came up to her and licked her hand. She caressed his head for a moment, then she joined hands with Alessandro; they both dropped on their knees and continued singing, a great joy and happiness in their hearts: “Sijigers at Dawn From the Heavens above People all regions: Gladly we too sing.” In the quaint old mission of San Diego, with its altar and gilded ikons, lighted by rays of light through stained glass windows, Ramona and Alessandro were united in marriage by the good Father Salvierderra. One evening three years later, under the lengthening shadows of the San

Jacinto mountains, Alessandro smoked his pipe and watched with an air of paternal pride his little Ramona, darkeyed and pretty, the living image of her mother, as she played in childish delight with a puppy. In the kitchen of their home, Ramona, dressed in colourful Indian clothes, placed a pan of tortillas in the oven, then wiping her hands on her apron, stepped out on to the verandah and looked down at her little daughter, her face smiling with mother love and happiness. “God has been good to us, Alessandro,” she said. “Yes, Ramona,” replied Alessandro, taking a puff from his pipe and blowing the smoke into the air. “He has been good to us . . . sheep on the hillsides . . . cattle in the meadow . . . grain in the fields.” Ramona laid an affectionate hand on Alessandro’s shoulder. “But greater than all,” she said softly, “God has given us . . . little Ramona!” * * * At the Moreno Rancho Felipe came out into the patio, his face sad and drawn, his heart heavy with a great tragedy. From San Diego to San Francisco, in the Indian villages, in the gold fields, in the missions, Felipe had searched in vain for Ramona and Alessandro, wanting to help them, to give them a home with him at the old hacienda.

Several little Mexican kiddies were laughing and playing. At sight of him their laughter died on their lips and they gazed at him with sympathy, knowing his sad story. In a doorway stood Marda and Juan Canito, their eyes moist with tears. “The young senor will never be the same,” said Marda, Juan Canito shook his head. “Nor will the old hacienda,” he replied, “with Ramona gone and the senora sleeping out yonder under the pepper trees.”

Felipe leaned over and placed his hand under his favourite rose, drew it up close, looked at it tenderly, dreamily. Then lie thought he saw Ramona’s face in its petals and hoped that his imaginative vision was a symbol that Ramona’s love would bloom for him again. Into the peaceful village of the Temeeulas where Ramona and Alessandro lived, came men of another race—outlawed men of brutal instincts, to rob and kill, to plunder and slaughter! As the leader of the outlaws led his gang of cut-throats, vicious types of Godless men, down a mojintain trail, he halted them to arouse their brutal passions of the outrage against civilisation, the crime against humanity, which they were about to commit. “Burn their shacks!” he shouted, his face brutal, his eyes keen and alert, his moustache black and flowing. “Drive ’em into the mountains! Kill the damned Redskins!” He paused with a satirical laugh. “But do not harm the cattle or the sheep!” The outlaws, mounted and armed, murder lurking in their soulless eyes, laughed, and their laughter was raucouse with evil portent.

“That is the home of Alessandro, the Indian with the purty squaw,” said the leader with a cruel leer, pointing down at an adobe house at the foot of the mountains. “Kill him but save the house and squaw for me!” Then giving rein and spur to their horses the outlaws dashed away. Down through the narrow streets of the Indian village they rode, cursing and shouting, firing their six-shooters on all sides —at fleeing, terror-stricken,

helpless Indians —shooting them down like dogs, giving them no chance to escape, in a saturnalia of slaughter, an inhuman massacre of a defenceless people. Amid the piteous cries of the wounded, the gasps of the dying, an old Indian chief, grey-haired, plead for mercy, for the lives of his people. With a bitter oath the leader leaned over the pommel of his saddle and fired his revolver, the crual bullet piercing the old chief’s breast. With

j a plea on his lips, he crumpled and j fell, his face in the dust. (To be Continued)