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In the Palace of the King: A Love Story of Old Madrid

by F. Marion Crawford · English · Gutenberg #13243 · 542,040 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: In the Palace of the King: A Love Story of Old Madrid

Author: F. Marion Crawford


        
Release date: August 21, 2004 [eBook #13243]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE PALACE OF THE KING: A LOVE STORY OF OLD MADRID ***

IN THE PALACE OF THE KING

A LOVE STORY OF OLD MADRID

BY
F. MARION CRAWFORD



1900

    To my old friend
    GEORGE P. BRETT

        New York, October, 1906




CONTENTS

    CHAPTER I
    CHAPTER II
    CHAPTER III
    CHAPTER IV
    CHAPTER V
    CHAPTER VI
    CHAPTER VII
    CHAPTER VIII
    CHAPTER IX
    CHAPTER X
    CHAPTER XI
    CHAPTER XII
    CHAPTER XIII
    CHAPTER XIV
    CHAPTER XV
    CHAPTER XVI
    CHAPTER XVII
    CHAPTER XVIII
    CHAPTER XIX
    CHAPTER XX

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER I


Two young girls sat in a high though very narrow room of the old Moorish
palace to which King Philip the Second had brought his court when he
finally made Madrid his capital. It was in the month of November, in the
afternoon, and the light was cold and grey, for the two tall windows
looked due north, and a fine rain had been falling all the morning. The
stones in the court were drying now, in patches, but the sky was like a
smooth vault of cast lead, closing over the city that lay to the
northward, dark, wet and still, as if its life had shrunk down under
ground, away from the bitter air and the penetrating damp.

The room was scantily furnished, but the few objects it contained, the
carved table, the high-backed chairs and the chiselled bronze brazier,
bore the stamp of the time when art had not long been born again. On the
walls there were broad tapestries of bold design, showing green forests
populated by all sorts of animals in stiff attitudes, staring at one
another in perpetual surprise. Below the tapestry a carved walnut
wainscoting went round the room, and the door was panelled and flanked
by fluted doorposts of the same dark wood, on which rested corbels
fashioned into curling acanthus leaves, to hold up the cornice, which
itself made a high shelf over the door. Three painted Italian vases,
filled with last summer's rose leaves and carefully sealed lest the
faint perfume should be lost, stood symmetrically on this projection,
their contents slowly ripening for future use. The heap of white ashes,
under which the wood coals were still alive in the big brazier, diffused
a little warmth through the chilly room.

The two girls were sitting at opposite ends of the table. The one held a
long goose-quill pen, and before her lay several large sheets of paper
covered with fine writing. Her eyes followed the lines slowly, and from
time to time she made a correction in the manuscript. As she read, her
lips moved to form words, but she made no sound. Now and then a faint
smile lent singular beauty to her face, and there was more light in her
eyes, too; then it disappeared again, and she read on, carefully and
intently, as if her soul were in the work.

She was very fair, as Spaniards sometimes are still, and were more often
in those days, with golden hair and deep grey eyes; she had the high
features, the smooth white throat, and the finely modelled ears that
were the outward signs of the lordly Gothic race. When she was not
smiling, her face was sad, and sometimes the delicate colour left her
clear cheek and she grew softly pale, till she seemed almost delicate.
Then the sensitive nostrils quivered almost imperceptibly, and the
curving lips met closely as if to keep a secret; but that look came
seldom, and for the most part her eyes were quiet and her mouth was
kind. It was a face that expressed devotion, womanly courage, and
sensitiveness rather than an active and dominating energy. The girl was
indeed a full-grown woman, more than twenty years of age, but the early
bloom of girlhood was on her still, and if there was a little sadness in
the eyes, a man could guess well enough that it rose from the heart, and
had but one simple source, which was neither a sudden grief nor a
long-hidden sorrow, but only youth's one secret--love. Maria Dolores de
Mendoza knew all of fear for the man she loved, that any woman could
know, and much of the hope that is love's early life; but she knew
neither the grief, nor the disappointment, nor the shame for another,
nor for herself, nor any of the bitterness that love may bring. She did
not believe that such things could be wrung from hearts that were true
and faithful; and in that she was right. The man to whom she had given
her heart and soul and hope had given her his, and if she feared for
him, it was not lest he should forget her or his own honour. He was a
man among men, good and true; but he was a soldier, and a leader, who
daily threw his life to the battle, as Douglas threw the casket that
held the Bruce's heart into the thick of the fight, to win it back, or
die. The man she loved was Don John of Austria, the son of the great
dead Emperor Charles the Fifth, the uncle of dead Don Carlos and the
half brother of King Philip of Spain--the man who won glory by land and
sea, who won back Granada a second time from the Moors, as bravely as
his great grandfather Ferdinand had won it, but less cruelly, who won
Lepanto, his brother's hatred and a death by poison, the foulest stain
in Spanish history.

It was November now, and it had been June of the preceding year when he
had ridden away from Madrid to put down the Moriscoes, who had risen
savagely against the hard Spanish rule. He had left Dolores de Mendoza
an hour before he mounted, in the freshness of the early summer morning,
where they had met many a time, on a lonely terrace above the King's
apartments. There were roses there, growing almost wild in great earthen
jars, where some Moorish woman had planted them in older days, and
Dolores could go there unseen with her blind sister, who helped her
faithfully, on pretence of taking the poor girl thither to breathe the
sweet quiet air. For Inez was painfully sensitive of her affliction, and
suffered, besides blindness, all that an over-sensitive and imaginative
being can feel.

She was quite blind, with no memory of light, though she had been born
seeing, as other children. A scarlet fever had destroyed her sight.
Motherless from her birth, her father often absent in long campaigns,
she had been at the mercy of a heartless nurse, who had loved the fair
little Dolores and had secretly tormented the younger child, as soon as
she was able to understand, bringing her up to believe that she was so
repulsively ugly as to be almost a monster. Later, when the nurse was
gone, and Dolores was a little older, the latter had done all she could
to heal the cruel wound and to make her sister know that she had soft
dark hair, a sad and gentle face, with eyes that were quite closed, and
a delicate mouth that had a little half painful, half pathetic way of
twitching when anything hurt her,--for she was easily hurt. Very pale
always, she turned her face more upwards than do people who have sight,
and being of good average woman's height and very slender and finely
made, this gave her carriage an air of dignity that seemed almost pride
when she was offended or wounded. But the first hurt had been deep and
lasting, and she could never quite believe that she was not offensive to
the eyes of those who saw her, still less that she was sometimes almost
beautiful in a shadowy, spiritual way. The blind, of all their
sufferings, often feel most keenly the impossibility of knowing whether
the truth is told them about their own looks; and he who will try and
realize what it is to have been always sightless will understand that
this is not vanity, but rather a sort of diffidence towards which all
people should be very kind. Of all necessities of this world, of all
blessings, of all guides to truth, God made light first. There are many
sharp pains, many terrible sufferings and sorrows in life that come and
wrench body and soul, and pass at last either into alleviation or
recovery, or into the rest of death; but of those that abide a lifetime
and do not take life itself, the worst is hopeless darkness. We call
ignorance 'blindness,' and rage 'blindness,' and we say a man is 'blind'
with grief.

Inez sat opposite her sister, at the other end of the table, listening.
She knew what Dolores was doing, how during long months her sister had
written a letter, from time to time, in little fragments, to give to the
man she loved, to slip into his hand at the first brief meeting or to
drop at his feet in her glove, or even, perhaps, to pass to him by the
blind girl's quick fingers. For Inez helped the lovers always, and Don
John was very gentle with her, talking with her when he could, and even
leading her sometimes when she was in a room she did not know. Dolores
knew that she could only hope to exchange a word with him when he came
back, and that the terrace was bleak and wet now, and the roses
withered, and that her father feared for her, and might do some
desperate thing if he found her lover talking with her where no one
could see or hear. For old Mendoza knew the world and the court, and he
foresaw that sooner or later some royal marriage would be made for Don
John of Austria, and that even if Dolores were married to him, some
tortuous means would be found to annul her marriage, whereby a great
shame would darken his house. Moreover, he was the King's man, devoted
to Philip body and soul, as his sovereign, ready to give his life ten
times for his sovereign's word, and thinking it treason to doubt a royal
thought or motive. He was a rigid old man, a Spaniard of Spain's great
days, fearless, proud, intolerant, making Spain's honour his idol,
capable of gentleness only to his children, and loving them dearly, but
with that sort of severity and hardness in all questions where his
authority was concerned which can make a father's true affection the
most intolerable burden to a girl of heart, and which, where a son is
its object, leads sooner or later to fierce quarrels and lifelong
estrangement. And so it had happened now. For the two girls had a
brother much older than they, Rodrigo; and he had borne to be treated
like a boy until he could bear no more, and then he had left his
father's house in anger to find out his own fortune in the world, as
many did in his day,--a poor gentleman seeking distinction in an army of
men as brave as himself, and as keen to win honour on every field. Then,
as if to oppose his father in everything, he had attached himself to Don
John, and was spoken of as the latter's friend, and Mendoza feared lest
his son should help Don John to a marriage with Dolores. But in this he
was mistaken, for Rodrigo was as keen, as much a Spaniard, and as much
devoted to the honour of his name as his father could be; and though he
looked upon Don John as the very ideal of what a soldier and a prince
should be, he would have cut off his own right hand rather than let it
give his leader the letter Dolores had been writing so long; and she
knew this and feared her brother, and tried to keep her secret from him.

Inez knew all, and she also was afraid of Rodrigo and of her father,
both for her sister's sake and her own. So, in that divided house, the
father was against the son, and the daughters were allied against them
both, not in hatred, but in terror and because of Dolores' great love
for Don John of Austria.

As they sat at the table it began to rain again, and the big drops beat
against the windows furiously for a few minutes. The panes were round
and heavy, and of a greenish yellow colour, made of blown glass, each
with a sort of knob in the middle, where the iron blowpipe had been
separated from the hot mass. It was impossible to see through them at
all distinctly, and when the sky was dark with rain they admitted only a
lurid glare into the room, which grew cold and colourless again when the
rain ceased. Inez had been sitting motionless a long time, her elbow on
the table, her chin resting upon her loosely clasped white hands, her
blind face turned upward, listening to the turning of the pages and to
the occasional scratching of her sister's pen. She sighed, moved, and
let her hands fall upon the table before her in a helpless, half
despairing way, as she leaned back in the big carved chair. Dolores
looked up at once, for she was used to helping her sister in her
slightest needs and to giving her a ready sympathy in every mood.

"What is it?" she asked quickly. "Do you want anything, dear?"

"Have you almost finished?"

The girl's voice would almost have told that she was blind. It was sweet
and low, but it lacked life; though not weak, it was uncertain in
strength and full of a longing that could never be satisfied, but that
often seemed to come within possible reach of satisfaction. There was in
the tones, too, the perpetual doubt of one from whom anything might be
hidden by silence, or by the least tarn of words. Every passing hope and
fear, and every pleasure and pain, were translated into sound by its
quick changes. It trusted but could not always quite promise to believe;
it swelled and sank as the sensitive heart beat faster or slower. It
came from a world without light, in which only sound had meaning, and
only touch was certainty.

"Yes," answered Dolores. "I have almost finished--there is only half a
page more to read over."

"And why do you read it over?" asked Inez. "Do you change what you have
written? Do you not think now exactly as you did when you wrote?"

"No; I feel a great deal more--I want better words! And then it all
seems so little, and so badly written, and I want to say things that no
one ever said before, many, many things. He will laugh--no, not that!
How could he? But my letter will seem childish to him. I know it will. I
wish I had never written it I Do you think I had better give it to him,
after all?"

"How can I tell?" asked Inez hopelessly. "You have never read it to me.
I do not know what you have said to him."

"I have said that I love him as no man was ever loved before," answered
Dolores, and the true words seemed to thrill with a life of their own as
she spoke them.

Then she was silent for a moment, and looked down at the written pages
without seeing them. Inez did not move, and seemed hardly to breathe.
Then Dolores spoke again, pressing both her hands upon the paper before
her unconsciously.

"I have told him that I love him, and shall love him for ever and ever,"
she said; "that I will live for him, die for him, suffer for him, serve
him! I have told him all that and much more."

"More? That is much already. But he loves you, too. There is nothing you
can promise which he will not promise, and keep, too, I think. But more!
What more can you have said than that?"

"There is nothing I would not say if I could find words!"

There was a fullness of life in her voice which, to the other's
uncertain tones, was as sunshine to moonlight.

"You will find words when you see him this evening," said Inez slowly.
"And they will be better than anything you can write. Am I to give him
your letter?"

Dolores looked at her sister quickly, for there was a little constraint
in the accent of the last phrase.

"I do not know," she answered. "How can I tell what may happen, or how I
shall see him first?"

"You will see him from the window presently. I can hear the guards
forming already to meet him--and you--you will be able to see him from
the window."

Inez had stopped and had finished her speech, as if something had choked
her. She turned sideways in her chair when she had spoken, as if to
listen better, for she was seated with her back to the light.

"I will tell you everything," said Maria Dolores softly. "It will be
almost as if you could see him, too."

"Almost--"

Inez spoke the one word and broke off abruptly, and rose from her chair.
In the familiar room she moved almost as securely as if she could see.
She went to the window and listened. Dolores came and stood beside her.

"What is it, dear?" she asked. "What is the matter? What has hurt you?
Tell me!"

"Nothing," answered the blind girl, "nothing, dear. I was thinking--how
lonely I shall be when you and he are married, and they send me to a
convent, or to our dismal old house in Valladolid."

A faint colour came into her pale face, and feeling it she turned away
from Dolores; for she was not speaking the truth, or at least not half
of it all.

"I will not let you go!" answered Dolores, putting one arm round her
sister's waist. "They shall never take you from me. And if in many years
from now we are married, you shall always be with us, and I will always
take care of you as I do now."

Inez sighed and pressed her forehead and blind eyes to the cold window,
almost withdrawing herself from the pressure of Dolores' arm. Down below
there was tramping of heavy feet, as the companies of foot guards took
their places, marching across the broad space, in their wrought steel
caps and breastplates, carrying their tasselled halberds on their
shoulders. An officer's voice gave sharp commands. The gust that had
brought the rain had passed by, and a drizzling mist, caused by a sudden
chill, now completely obscured the window.

"Can you see anything?" asked Inez suddenly, in a low voice. "I think I
hear trumpets far away."

"I cannot see--there is mist on the glass, too. Do you hear the trumpets
clearly?"

"I think I do. Yes--I hear them clearly now." She stopped. "He is
coming," she added under her breath.

Dolores listened, but she had not the almost supernatural hearing of the
blind, and could distinguish nothing but the tramping of the soldiers
below, and her sister's irregular breathing beside her, as Inez held her
breath again and again in order to catch the very faint and distant
sound.

"Open the window," she said almost sharply, "I know I hear the
trumpets."

Her delicate fingers felt for the bolts with almost feverish anxiety.
Dolores helped her and opened the window wide. A strain of distant
clarions sounding a triumphant march came floating across the wet city.
Dolores started, and her face grew radiant, while her fresh lips opened
a little as if to drink in the sound with the wintry air. Beside her,
Inez grew slowly pale and held herself by the edge of the window frame,
gripping it hard, and neither of the two girls felt any sensation of
cold. Dolores' grey eyes grew wide and bright as she gazed fixedly
towards the city where the avenue that led to the palace began, but
Inez, bending a little, turned her ear in the same direction, as if she
could not bear to lose a single note of the music that told her how Don
John of Austria had come home in triumph, safe and whole, from his long
campaign in the south.

Slowly it came nearer, strain upon strain, each more clear and loud and
full of rejoicing. At first only the high-pitched clarions had sent
their call to the window, but now the less shrill trumpets made rich
harmonies to the melody, and the deep bass horns gave the marching time
to the rest, in short full blasts that set the whole air shaking as with
little peak of thunder. Below, the mounted officers gave orders,
exchanged short phrases, cantered to their places, and came back again a
moment later to make some final arrangement--their splendid gold-inlaid
corslets and the rich caparisons of their horses looking like great
pieces of jewelry that moved hither and thither in the thin grey mist,
while the dark red and yellow uniforms of the household guards
surrounded the square on three sides with broad bands of colour. Dolores
could see her father, who commanded them and to whom the officers came
for orders, sitting motionless and erect on his big black horse--a stern
figure, with close-cut grey beard, clad all in black saving his heavily
gilded breastplate and the silk sash he wore across it from shoulder to
sword knot. She shrank back a little, for she would not have let him see
her looking down from an upper window to welcome the returning visitor.

"What is it? Do you see him? Is he there?" Inez asked the questions in a
breath, as she heard her sister move.

"No--our father is below on his horse. He must not see us." And she
moved further into the embrasure.

"You will not be able to see," said Inez anxiously. "How can you tell
me--I mean, how can you see, where you are?"

Dolores laughed softly, but her laugh trembled with the happiness that
was coming so soon.

"Oh, I see very well," she answered. "The window is wide open, you
know."

"Yes--I know."

Inez leaned back against the wall beside the window, letting her hand
drop in a hopeless gesture. The sample answer had hurt her, who could
never see, by its mere thoughtlessness and by the joy that made her
sister's voice quaver. The music grew louder and louder, and now there
came with it the sound of a great multitude, cheering, singing the march
with the trumpets, shouting for Don John; and all at once as the throng
burst from the street to the open avenue the voices drowned the clarions
for a moment, and a vast cry of triumph filled the whole air.

"He is there! He is there!" repeated Inez, leaning towards the window
and feeling for the stone sill.

But Dolores could not hear for the shouting. The clouds had lifted to
the westward and northward; and as the afternoon sun sank lower they
broke away, and the level rays drank up the gloom of the wintry day in
an instant. Dolores stood motionless before the window, undazzled, like
a statue of ivory and gold in a stone niche. With the light, as the
advancing procession sent the people before it, the trumpets rang high
and clear again, and the bright breastplates of the trumpeters gleamed
like dancing fire before the lofty standard that swayed with the slow
pace of its bearer's horse. Brighter and nearer came the colours, the
blazing armour, the standard, the gorgeous procession of victorious
men-at-arms; louder and louder blew the trumpets, higher and higher the
clouds were lifted from the lowering sun. Half the people of Madrid went
before, the rest flocked behind, all cheering or singing or shouting.
The stream of colour and light became a river, the river a flood, and in
the high tide of a young victor's glory Don John of Austria rode onward
to the palace gate. The mounted trumpeters parted to each side before
him, and the standard-bearer ranged his horse to the left, opposite the
banner of the King, which held the right, and Don John, on a grey Arab
mare, stood out alone at the head of his men, saluting his royal brother
with lowered sword and bent head. A final blast from the trumpets
sounded full and high, and again and again the shout of the great throng
went up like thunder and echoed from the palace walls, as King Philip,
in his balcony above the gate, returned the salute with his hand, and
bent a little forward over the stone railing.

Dolores de Mendoza forgot her father and all that he might say, and
stood at the open window, looking down. She had dreamed of this moment;
she had seen visions of it in the daytime; she had told herself again
and again what it would be, how it must be; but the reality was beyond
her dreams and her visions and her imaginings, for she had to the full
what few women have in any century, and what few have ever had in the
blush of maidenhood,--the sight of the man she loved, and who loved her
with all his heart, coming home in triumph from a hard-fought war,
himself the leader and the victor, himself in youth's first spring, the
young idol of a warlike nation, and the centre of military glory.

When he had saluted the King he sat still a moment on his horse and
looked upward, as if unconsciously drawn by the eyes that, of all
others, welcomed him at that moment; and his own met them instantly and
smiled, though his face betrayed nothing. But old Mendoza, motionless in
his saddle, followed the look, and saw; and although he would have
praised the young leader with the best of his friends, and would have
fought under him and for him as well as the bravest, yet at that moment
he would gladly have seen Don John of Austria fall dead from his horse
before his eyes.

Don John dismounted without haste, and advanced to the gate as the King
disappeared from the balcony above. He was of very graceful figure and
bearing, not short, but looking taller than he really was by the
perfection of his proportions. The short reddish brown hair grew close
and curling on his small head, but left the forehead high, while it set
off the clear skin and the mobile features. A very small moustache
shaded his lip without hiding the boyish mouth, and at that time he wore
no beard. The lips, indeed, smiled often, and the expression of the
mouth was rather careless and good-humoured than strong. The strength of
the face was in the clean-cut jaw, while its real expression was in the
deep-set, fiery blue eyes, that could turn angry and fierce at one
moment, and tender as a woman's the next.

He wore without exaggeration the military dress of his time,--a
beautifully chiselled corslet inlaid with gold, black velvet sleeves,
loose breeches of velvet and silk, so short that they did not descend
half way to the knees, while his legs were covered by tight hose and
leather boots, made like gaiters to clasp from the knee to the ankle and
heel. Over his shoulder hung a short embroidered cloak, and his head
covering was a broad velvet cap, in which were fastened the black and
yellow plumes of the House of Austria.

As he came near to the gate, many friends moved forward to greet him,
and he gave his hand to all, with a frank smile and words of greeting.
But old Mendoza did not dismount nor move his horse a step nearer. Don
John, looking round before he went in, saw the grim face, and waved his
hand to Dolores' father; but the old man pretended that he saw nothing,
and made no answering gesture. Some one in the crowd of courtiers
laughed lightly. Old Mendoza's face never changed; but his knees must
have pressed the saddle suddenly, for his black horse stirred uneasily,
and tried to rear a little. Don John stopped short, and his eyes
hardened and grew very light before the smile could fade from his lips,
while he tried to find the face of the man whose laugh he had heard. But
that was impossible, and his look was grave and stern as he went in
under the great gate, the multitude cheering after him.

From her high window Dolores had seen and heard also, for she had
followed every movement he made and every change of his expression, and
had faithfully told her sister what she saw, until the laugh came, short
and light, but cutting. And Inez heard that, too, for she was leaning
far forward upon the broad stone sill to listen for the sound of Don
John's voice. She drew back with a springing movement, and a sort of cry
of pain.

"Some one is laughing at me!" she cried. "Some one is laughing because I
am trying to see!"

Instantly Dolores drew her sister to her, kissing her tenderly, and
soothing her as one does a frightened child.

"No, dear, no! It was not that--I saw what it was. Nobody was looking at
you, my darling. Do you know why some one laughed? It hurt me, too. He
smiled and waved his hand to our father, who took no notice of him. The
laugh was for that--and for me, because the man knew well enough that
our father does not mean that we shall ever marry. Do you see, dear? It
was not meant for you."

"Did he really look up at us when you said so?" asked Inez, in a
smothered voice.

"Who? The man who laughed?"

"No. I mean--"

"Don John? Yes. He looked up to us and smiled--as he often does at
me--with his eyes only, while his face was quite grave. He is not
changed at all, except that he looks more determined, and handsomer, and
braver, and stronger than ever! He does each time I see him!"

But Inez was not listening.

"That was worth living for--worth being blind for," she said suddenly,
"to hear the people shout and cheer for him as he came along. You who
can see it all do not understand what the sound means to me. For a
moment--only for a moment--I saw light--I know I saw a bright light
before my eyes. I am not dreaming. It made my heart beat, and it made my
head dizzy. It must have been light. Do you think it could be, Dolores?"

"I do not know, dear," answered the other gently.

But as the day faded and they sat together in the early dusk, Dolores
looked long and thoughtfully at the blind face. Inez loved Don John,
though she did not know it, and without knowing it she had told her
sister.

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER II


When Don John had disappeared within the palace the people lingered a
little while, hoping that something might happen which would be worth
seeing, and then, murmuring a little in perfectly unreasonable
disappointment, they slowly dispersed. After that old Mendoza gave his
orders to the officers of the guards, the men tramped away, one
detachment after another, in a regular order; the cavalry that had
ridden up with Don John wheeled at a signal from the trumpets, and began
to ride slowly back to the city, pressing hard upon the multitude, and
before it was quite dark the square before the palace was deserted
again. The sky had cleared, the pavement was dry again, and the full
moon was rising. Two tall sentinels with halberds paced silently up and
down in the shadow.

Dolores and her sister were still sitting in the dark when the door
opened, and a grey-haired servant in red and yellow entered the room,
bearing two lighted wax candles in heavy bronze candlesticks, which he
set upon the table. A moment later he was followed by old Mendoza, still
in his breastplate, as he had dismounted, his great spurs jingling on
his heavy boots, and his long basket-hilted sword trailing on the marble
pavement. He was bareheaded now, and his short hair, smooth and
grizzled, covered his energetic head like a close-fitting skull cap of
iron-grey velvet. He stood still before the table, his bony right hand
resting upon it and holding both his long gloves. The candlelight shone
upward into his dark face, and gleamed yellow in his angry eyes.

Both the girls rose instinctively as their father entered; but they
stood close together, their hands still linked as if to defend each
other from a common enemy, though the hard man would have given his life
for either of them at any moment since they had come into the world.
They knew it, and trembled.

"You have made me the laughing-stock of the court," he began slowly, and
his voice shook with anger. "What have you to say in your defence?"

He was speaking to Dolores, and she turned a little pale. There was
something so cruelly hard in his tone and bearing that she drew back a
little, not exactly in bodily fear, but as a brave man may draw back a
step when another suddenly draws a weapon upon him. Instantly Inez moved
forward, raising one white hand in protest, and turning her blind face
to her father's gleaming eyes.

"I am not speaking to you," he said roughly, "but you," he went on,
addressing Dolores, and the heavy table shook under his hand. "What
devil possessed you that you should shame me and yourself, standing at
your window to smile at Don John, as if he were the Espadero at a bull
fight and you the beauty of the ring--with all Madrid there to look on,
from his Majesty the King to the beggar in the road? Have you no
modesty, no shame, no blood that can blush? And if not, have you not
even so much woman's sense as should tell you that you are ruining your
name and mine before the whole world?"

"Father! For the sake of heaven do not say such words--you must not! You
shall not!"

Dolores' face was quite white now, as she gently pushed Inez aside and
faced the angry man. The table was between them.

"Have I said one word more than the very truth?" asked Mendoza. "Does
not the whole court know that you love Don John of Austria--"

"Let the whole world know it!" cried the girl bravely. "Am I ashamed to
love the best and bravest man that breathes?"

"Let the whole world know that you are willing to be his toy, his
plaything--"

"His wife, sir!" Dolores' voice was steady and clear as she interrupted
her father. "His wife," she repeated proudly; "And to-morrow, if you and
the King will not hinder us. God made you my father, but neither God nor
man has given you the right to insult me, and you shall not be
unanswered, so long as I have strength and breath to speak. But for you,
I should be Don John of Austria's wife to-day--and then, then his 'toy,'
his 'plaything'--yes, and his slave and his servant--what you will! I
love him, and I would work for him with my hands, as I would give my
blood and my life for his, if God would grant me that happiness and
grace, since you will not let me be his wife!"

"His wife!" exclaimed Mendoza, with a savage sneer. "His wife--to be
married to-day and cast off to-morrow by a turn of the pen and the
twisting of a word that would prove your marriage void, in order that
Don John may be made the husband of some royal widowed lady, like Queen
Mary of the Scots! His wife!" He laughed bitterly.

"You have an exalted opinion of your King, my father, since you suppose
that he would permit such deeds in Spain!"

Dolores had drawn herself up to her full height as she spoke, and she
remained motionless as she awaited the answer to what she had said. It
was long in coming, though Mendoza's dark eyes met hers unflinchingly,
and his lips moved more than once as if he were about to speak. She had
struck a blow that was hard to parry, and she knew it. Inez stood beside
her, silent and breathing hard as she listened.

"You think that I have nothing to say," he began at last, and his tone
had changed and was more calm. "You are right, perhaps. What should I
say to you, since you have lost all sense of shame and all thought of
respect or obedience? Do you expect that I shall argue with you, and try
to convince you that I am right, instead of forcing you to respect me
and yourself? Thank Heaven, I have never yet questioned my King's
thoughts, nor his motives, nor his supreme right to do whatsoever may be
for the honour and glory of Spain. My life is his, and all I have is
his, to do with it all as he pleases, by grace of his divine right. That
is my creed and my law--and if I have failed to bring you up in the same
belief, I have committed a great sin, and it will be counted against me
hereafter, though I have done what I could, to the best of my
knowledge."

Mendoza lifted his sheathed sword and laid his right hand upon the
cross-bar of the basket hilt.

"God--the King--Spain!" he said solemnly, as he pressed his lips to it
once for each article of his faith.

"I do not wish to shake your belief," said Dolores coldly. "I daresay
that is impossible!"

"As impossible as it is to make me change my determination," answered
Mendoza, letting his long sword rest on the pavement again.

"And what may your determination be?" asked the girl, still facing him.

Something in his face forewarned her of near evil and danger, as he
looked at her long without answering. She moved a little, so as to stand
directly in front of Inez. Taking an attitude that was almost defiant,
she began to speak rapidly, holding her hands behind her and pressing
herself back against her sister to attract the latter's attention; and
in her hand she held the letter she had written to Don John, folded into
the smallest possible space, for she had kept it ready in the wrist of
her tight sleeve, not knowing what might happen any moment to give her
an opportunity of sending it.

"What have you determined?" she asked again, and then went on without
waiting for a reply. "In what way are you going to exhibit your power
over me? Do you mean to take me away from the court to live in
Valladolid again? Are you going to put me in the charge of some sour old
woman who will never let me out of her sight from morning till morning?"
She had found her sister's hand behind hers and had thrust the letter
into the fingers that closed quickly upon it. Then she laughed a little,
almost gaily. "Do you think that a score of sour old duennas could teach
me to forget the man I love, or could prevent me from sending him a
message every day if I chose? Do you think you could hinder Don John of
Austria, who came back an hour ago from his victory the idol of all
Spain, the favourite of the people--brave, young, powerful, rich,
popular, beloved far more than the King himself, from seeing me every
day if he chose, so long as he were not away in war? And then--I will
ask you something more--do you think that father, or mother, or king, or
law, or country has power to will away the love of a woman who loves
with all her heart and soul and strength? Then answer me and tell me
what you have determined to do with me, and I will tell you my
determination, too, for I have one of my own, and shall abide by it,
come what may, and whatsoever you may do!"

She paused, for she had heard Inez softly close the door as she went
out. The letter at least was safe, and if it were humanly possible, Inez
would find a means of delivering it; for she had all that strange
ingenuity of the blind in escaping observation which it seems impossible
that they should possess, but of which every one who has been much with
them is fully aware. Mendoza had seen Inez go out, and was glad that she
was gone, for her blind face sometimes disturbed him when he wished to
assert his authority.

"Yes," he said, "I will tell you what I mean to do, and it is the only
thing left to me, for you have given me no choice. You are disobedient
and unruly, you have lost what little respect you ever had--or
showed--for me. But that is not all. Men have had unruly daughters
before, and yet have married them well, and to men who in the end have
ruled them. I do not speak of my affection for you both, since you have
none for me. But now, you are going beyond disobedience and lawlessness,
for you are ruining yourself and disgracing me, and I will neither
permit the one nor suffer the other." His voice rose harshly. "Do you
understand me? I intend to protect my name from you, and yours from the
world, in the only way possible. I intend to send you to Las Huelgas
to-morrow morning. I am in earnest, and unless you consent to give up
this folly and to marry as I wish, you shall stay there for the rest of
your natural life. Do you understand? And until to-morrow morning you
shall stay within these doors. We shall see whether Don John of Austria
will try to force my dwelling first and a convent of holy nuns
afterwards. You will be safe from him, I give you my word of
honour,--the word of a Spanish gentleman and of your father. You shall
be safe forever. And if Don John tries to enter here to-night, I will
kill him on the threshold. I swear that I will."

He ceased speaking, turned, and began to walk up and down the small
room, his spurs and sword clanking heavily at every step. He had folded
his arms, and his head was bent low.

A look of horror and fear had slowly risen in Dolores' face, for she
knew her father, and that he kept his word at every risk. She knew also
that the King held him in very high esteem, and was as firmly opposed to
her marriage as Mendoza himself, and therefore ready to help him to do
what he wished. It had never occurred to her that she could be suddenly
thrust out of sight in a religious institution, to be kept there at her
father's pleasure, even for her whole life. She was too young and too
full of life to have thought of such a possibility. She had indeed heard
that such things could be done, and had been done, but she had never
known such a case, and had never realized that she was so completely at
her father's mercy. For the first time in her life she felt real fear,
and as it fell upon her there came the sickening conviction that she
could not resist it, that her spirit was broken all at once, that in a
moment more she would throw herself at her father's feet and implore
mercy, making whatever promise he exacted, yet making it falsely, out of
sheer terror, in an utter degradation and abasement of all moral
strength, of which she had never even dreamed. She grew giddy as she
felt it coming upon her, and the lights of the two candles moved
strangely. Already she saw herself on her knees, sobbing with fear,
trying to take her father's hand, begging forgiveness, denying her love,
vowing submission and dutiful obedience in an agony of terror. For on
the other side she saw the dark corridors and gloomy cells of Las
Huelgas, the veiled and silent nuns, the abomination of despair that was
before her till she should die and escape at last,--the faint hope which
would always prevent her from taking the veil herself, yet a hope
fainter and fainter, crossed by the frightful uncertainty in which she
should be kept by those who guarded her. They would not even tell her
whether the man she loved were alive or dead, she could never know
whether he had given up her love, himself in despair, or whether, then,
as years went by, he would not lose the thread that took him back to the
memory of her, and forget--and love again.

But then her strong nature rose again, and the vision of fear began to
fade as her faith in his love denied the last thought with scorn. Many a
time, when words could tell no more, and seemed exhausted just when
trust was strongest, he had simply said, "I love you, as you love me,"
and somehow the little phrase meant all, and far more than the tender
speeches that sometimes formed themselves so gracefully, and yet
naturally and simply, because they, too, came straight from the heart.
So now, in her extreme need, the plain words came back to her in his
voice, "I love you, as you love me," with a sudden strength of faith in
him that made her live again, and made fear seem impossible. While her
father slowly paced the floor in silence, she thought what she should
do, and whether there could be anything which she would not do, if Don
John of Austria were kept a prisoner from her; and she felt sure that
she could overcome every obstacle and laugh at every danger, for the
hope of getting to him. If she would, so would he, since he loved her as
she loved him. But for all the world, he would not have her throw
herself upon her father's mercy and make false promises and sob out
denials of her love, out of fear. Death would be better than that.

"Do as you will with me, since you have the power," she said at last,
quite calmly and steadily.

Instantly the old man stopped in his walk, and turned towards her,
almost as if he himself were afraid now. To her amazement she saw that
his dark eyes were moist with tears that clung but half shed to the
rugged lids and rough lashes. He did not speak for some moments, while
she gazed at him in wonder, for she could not understand. Then all at
once he lifted his brown hands and covered his face with a gesture of
utter despair.

"Dolores! My child, my little girl!" he cried, in a broken voice.

Then he sat down, as it overcome, clasped his hands on the hilt of his
sword, and rested his forehead against them, rocking himself with a
barely perceptible motion. In twenty years, Dolores had never
understood, not even guessed, that the hard man, ever preaching of
wholesome duty and strict obedience, always rebuking, never satisfied,
ill pleased almost always, loved her with all his heart, and looked upon
her as the very jewel of his soul. She guessed it now, in a sudden burst
of understanding; but it was so new, so strange, that she could not have
told what she felt. There was at best no triumph at the thought that, of
the two, he had broken down first in the contest. Pity came first,
womanly, simple and kind, for the harsh nature that was so wounded at
last. She came to his side, and laid one hand upon his shoulder,
speaking softly.

"I am very, very sorry that I have hurt you," she said, and waited for
him to speak, pressing his shoulder with a gentle touch.

He did not look up, and still he rocked himself gently, leaning on his
sword. The girl suffered, too, to see him suffering so. A little while
ago he had been hard, fierce, angry, cruel, threatening her with a
living death that had filled her with horror. It had seemed quite
impossible that there could be the least tenderness in him for any
one--least of all for her.

"God be merciful to me," he said at length in very low tones. "God
forgive me if it is my fault--you do not love me--I am nothing to you
but an unkind old man, and you are all the world to me, child!"

He raised his head slowly and looked into her face. She was startled at
the change in his own, as well as deeply touched by what he said. His
dark cheeks had grown grey, and the tears that would not quite fall were
like a glistening mist under the lids, and almost made him look
sightless. Indeed, he scarcely saw her distinctly. His clasped hands
trembled a little on the hilt of the sword he still held.

"How could I know?" cried Dolores, suddenly kneeling down beside him.
"How could I guess? You never let me see that you were fond of me--or I
have been blind all these years--"

"Hush, child!" he said. "Do not hurt me any more--it must have been my
fault."

He grew more calm, and though his face was very grave and sad, the
natural dark colour was slowly coming back to it now, and his hands were
steady again. The girl was too young, and far too different from him, to
understand his nature, but she was fast realizing that he was not the
man he had always seemed to her.

"Oh, if I had only known!" she cried, in deep distress. "If I had only
guessed, I would have been so different! I was always frightened, always
afraid of you, since I can remember--I thought you did not care for us
and that we always displeased you--how could we know?"

Mendoza lifted one of his hands from the sword hilt, and took hers, with
as much gentleness as was possible to him. His eyes became clear again,
and the profound emotion he had shown subsided to the depths whence it
had risen.

"We shall never quite understand each other," he said quietly. "You
cannot see that it is a man's duty to do what is right for his children,
rather than to sacrifice that in order to make them love him."

It seemed to Dolores that there might be a way open between the two, but
she said nothing, and left her hand in his, glad that he was kind, but
feeling, as he felt, that there could never be any real understanding
between them. The breach had existed too long, and it was far too wide.

"You are headstrong, my dear," he said, nodding at each word. "You are
very headstrong, if you will only reflect."

"It is not my head, it is my heart," answered Dolores. "And besides,"
she added with a smile, "I am your daughter, and you are not of a very
gentle and yielding disposition, are you?"

"No," he answered with hesitation, "perhaps not." Then his face relaxed
a little, and he almost smiled too.

It seemed as if the peace were made and as if thereafter there need not
be trouble again. But it was even then not far off, for it was as
impossible for Mendoza to yield as it would have been for Dolores to
give up her love for Don John. She did not see this, and she fancied
that a real change had taken place in his disposition, so that he would
forget that he had threatened to send her to Las Huelgas, and not think
of it again.

"What is done cannot be undone," he said, with renewed sadness. "You
will never quite believe that you have been everything to me during your
life. How could you not be, my child? I am very lonely. Your mother has
been dead nearly eighteen years, and Rodrigo--"

He stopped short suddenly, for he had never spoken his son's name in the
girl's hearing since Rodrigo had left him to follow his own fortunes.

"I think Rodrigo broke my heart," said the old man, after a short pause,
controlling his voice so that it sounded dry and indifferent. "And if
there is anything left of it, you will break the rest."

He rose, taking his hand from hers, and turning away, with the roughness
of a strong, hard man, who has broken down once under great emotion and
is capable of any harshness in his fear of yielding to it again. Dolores
started slightly and drew back. In her the kindly impression was still
strong, but his tone and manner wounded her.

"You are wrong," she said earnestly. "Since you have shown me that you
love me, I will indeed do my best not to hurt you or displease you. I
will do what I can--what I can."

She repeated the last words slowly and with unconscious emphasis. He
turned his face to her again instantly.

"Then promise me that you will never see Don John of Austria again, that
you will forget that you ever loved him, that you will put him
altogether out of your thoughts, and that you will obediently accept the
marriage I shall make for you."

The words of refusal to any such obedience as that rose to the girl's
lips, ready and sharp. But she would not speak them this time, lest more
angry words should answer hers. She looked straight at her father's
eyes, holding her head proudly high for a moment. Then, smiling at the
impossibility of what he asked, she turned from him and went to the
window in silence. She opened it wide, leaned upon the stone sill and
looked out. The moon had risen much higher now, and the court was white.

She had meant to cut short the discussion without rousing anger again,
but she could have taken no worse way to destroy whatever was left of
her father's kindlier mood. He did not raise his voice now, as he
followed her and spoke.

"You refuse to do that?" he said, with an already ominous interrogation
in his tone.

"You ask the impossible," she answered, without looking round. "I have
not refused, for I have no will in this, no choice. You can do what you
please with me, for you have power over my outward life--and if you
lacked it, the King would help you. But you have no power beyond that,
neither over my heart nor over my soul. I love him--I have loved him
long, and I shall love him till I die, and beyond that, forever and
ever, beyond everything--beyond the great to-morrow of God's last
judgment! How can I put him out of my thoughts, then? It is madness to
ask it of me."

She paused a moment, while he stood behind her, getting his teeth and
slowly grinding the heel of one heavy boot on the pavement.

"And as for threatening me," she continued, "you will not kill Don John,
nor even try to kill him, for he is the King's brother. If I can see him
this evening, I will--and there will be no risk for him. You would not
murder him by stealth, I suppose? No! Then you will not attack him at
all, and if I can see him, I will--I tell you so, frankly. To-morrow or
the next day, when the festivities they have for him are over, and you
yourself are at liberty, take me to Las Huelgas, if you will, and with
as little scandal as possible. But when I am there, set a strong guard
of armed men to keep me, for I shall escape unless you do. And I shall
go to Don John. That is all I have to say. That is my last word."

"I gave you mine, and it was my word of honour," said Mendoza. "If Don
John tries to enter here, to see you, I will kill him. To-morrow, you
shall go to Las Huelgas."

Dolores made no answer and did not even turn her head. He left her and
went out. She heard his heavy tread in the hall beyond, and she heard a
bolt slipped at the further door. She was imprisoned for the night, for
the entrance her father had fastened was the one which cut off the
portion of the apartment in which the sisters lived from the smaller
part which he had reserved for himself. These rooms, from which there
was no other exit, opened, like the sitting-room, upon the same hall.

When Dolores knew that she was alone, she drew back from the window and
shut it. It had served its purpose as a sort of refuge from her father,
and the night air was cold. She sat down to think, and being in a
somewhat desperate mood, she smiled at the idea of being locked into her
room, supperless, like a naughty child. But her face grew grave
instantly as she tried to discover some means of escape. Inez was
certainly not in the apartment--she must have gone to the other end of
the palace, on pretence of seeing one of the court ladies, but really in
the hope of giving Don John the letter. It was more than probable that
she would not be allowed to enter when she came back, for Mendoza would
distrust her. That meant that Dolores could have no communication with
any one outside her rooms during the evening and night, and she knew her
father too well to doubt that he would send her to Las Huelgas in the
morning, as he had sworn to do. Possibly he would let her serving-woman
come to her to prepare what she needed for the journey, but even that
was unlikely, for he would suspect everybody.

The situation looked hopeless, and the girl's face grew slowly pale as
she realized that after all she might not even exchange a word with Don
John before going to the convent--she might not even be able to tell him
whither they were sending her, and Mendoza might keep the secret for
years--and she would never be allowed to write, of course.

She heard the further door opened again, the bolt running back with a
sharp noise. Then she heard her father's footsteps and his voice calling
to Inez, as he went from room to room. But there was no answer, and
presently he went away, bolting the door a second time. There could be
no more doubt about it now. Dolores was quite alone. Her heart beat
heavily and slowly. But it was not over yet. Again the bolt slipped in
the outer hall, and again she heard the heavy steps. They came straight
towards the door. He had perhaps changed his mind, or he had something
more to say; she held her breath, but he did not come in. As if to make
doubly sure, he bolted her into the little room, crossed the hall a last
time, and bolted it for the night, perfectly certain that Dolores was
safely shut off from the outer world.

For some minutes she sat quite still, profoundly disturbed, and utterly
unable to find any way out of her difficulty, which was, indeed, that
she was in a very secure prison.

Then again there was a sound at the door, but very soft this time, not
half as loud in her ears as the beating of her own heart. There was
something ghostly in it, for she had heard no footsteps. The bolt moved
very slowly and gently--she had to strain her ears to hear it move. The
sound ceased, and another followed it--that of the door being cautiously
opened. A moment later Inez was in the room--turning her head anxiously
from side to side to hear Dolores' breathing, and so to find out where
she was. Then as Dolores rose, the blind girl put her finger to her
lips, and felt for her sister's hand.

"He has the letter," she whispered quickly. "I found him by accident,
very quickly. I am to say to you that after he has been some time in the
great hall, he will slip away and come here. You see our father will be
on duty and cannot come up."

Dolores' hand trembled violently.

"He swore to me that he would kill Don John if he came here," she
whispered. "He will do it, if it costs his own life! You must find him
again--go quickly, dear, for the love of Heaven!" Her anxiety increased.
"Go--go, darling--do not lose a moment--he may come sooner--save him,
save him!"

"I cannot go," answered Inez, in terror, as she understood the
situation. "I had hidden myself, and I am locked in with you. He called
me, but I kept quiet, for I knew he would not let me stay." She buried
her face in her hands and sobbed aloud in an agony of fear.

Dolores' lips were white, and she steadied herself against a chair.

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER III


Dolores stood leaning against the back of the chair, neither hearing nor
seeing her sister, conscious only that Don John was in danger and that
she could not warn him to be on his guard. She had not believed herself
when she had told her father that he would not dare to lift his hand
against the King's half brother. She had said the words to give herself
courage, and perhaps in a rush of certainty that the man she loved was a
match for other men, hand to hand, and something more. It was different
now. Little as she yet knew of human nature, she guessed without
reasoning that a man who has been angry, who has wavered and given way
to what he believes to be weakness, and whose anger has then burst out
again, is much more dangerous than before, because his wrath is no
longer roused against another only, but also against himself. More
follies and crimes have been committed in that second tide of passion
than under a first impulse. Even if Mendoza had not fully meant what he
had said the first time, he had meant it all, and more, when he had last
spoken. Once more the vision of fear rose before Dolores' eyes, nobler
now; because it was fear for another and not for herself, but therefore
also harder to conquer.

Inez had ceased from sobbing now, and was sitting quietly in her
accustomed seat, in that attitude of concentrated expectancy of sounds
which is so natural to the blind, that one can almost recognize
blindness by the position of the head and body without seeing the face.
The blind rarely lean back in a chair; more often the body is quite
upright, or bent a little forward, the face is slightly turned up when
there is total silence, often turned down when a sound is already heard
distinctly; the knees are hardly ever crossed, the hands are seldom
folded together, but are generally spread out, as if ready to help the
hearing by the sense of touch--the lips are slightly parted, for the
blind know that they hear by the mouth as well as with their ears--the
expression of the face is one of expectation and extreme attention,
still, not placid, calm, but the very contrary of indifferent. It was
thus that Inez sat, as she often sat for hours, listening, always and
forever listening to the speech of things and of nature, as well as for
human words. And in listening, she thought and reasoned patiently and
continually, so that the slightest sounds had often long and accurate
meanings for her. The deaf reason little or ill, and are very
suspicious; the blind, on the contrary, are keen, thoughtful, and
ingenious, and are distrustful of themselves rather than of others. Inez
sat quite still, listening, thinking, and planning a means of helping
her sister.

But Dolores stood motionless as if she were paralyzed, watching the
picture that «he could not chase away. For she saw the familiar figure
of the man she loved coming down the gloomy corridor, alone and unarmed,
past the deep embrasures through which the moonlight streamed, straight
towards the oak door at the end; and then, from one of the windows
another figure stood out, sword in hand, a gaunt man with a grey beard,
and there were few words, and an uncertain quick confounding of shadows
with a ray of cold light darting hither and thither, then a fall, and
then stillness. As soon as it was over, it began again, with little
change, save that it grew more distinct, till she could see Don John's
white face in the moonlight as he lay dead on the pavement of the
corridor.

It became intolerable at last, and she slowly raised one hand and
covered her eyes to shut out the sight.

"Listen," said Inez, as Dolores stirred. "I have been thinking. You must
see him to-night, even if you are not alone with him. There is only one
way to do that; you must dress yourself for the court and go down to the
great hall with the others and speak to him--then you can decide how to
meet to-morrow."

"Inez--I have not told you the rest! To-morrow I am to be sent to Las
Huelgas, and kept there like a prisoner." Inez uttered a low cry of
pain.

"To a convent!" It seemed like death.

Dolores began to tell her all Mendoza had said, but Inez soon
interrupted her. There was a dark flush in the blind girl's face.

"And he would have you believe that he loves you?" she cried
indignantly. "He has always been hard, and cruel, and unkind, he has
never forgiven me for being blind---he will never forgive you for being
young! The King! The King before everything and every one--before
himself, yes, that is well, but before his children, his soul, his
heart--he has no heart! What am I saying--" She stopped short.

"And yet, in his strange way, he loves us both," said Dolores. "I cannot
understand it, but I saw his face when there were tears in his eyes, and
I heard his voice. He would give his life for us."

"And our lives, and hearts, and hopes to feed his conscience and to save
his own soul!"

Inez was trembling with anger, leaning far forward, her face flushed,
one slight hand clenched, the other clenching it hard. Dolores was
silent. It was not the first time that Inez had spoken in this way, for
the blind girl could be suddenly and violently angry for a good cause.
But now her tone changed.

"I will save you," she said suddenly, "but there is no time to be lost.
He will not come back to our rooms now, and he knows well enough that
Don John cannot come here at this hour, so that he is not waiting for
him. We have this part of the place to ourselves, and the outer door
only is bolted now. It will take you an hour to dress--say
three-quarters of an hour. As soon as you get out, you must go quickly
round the palace to the Duchess Alvarez. Our father will not go there,
and you can go down with her, as usual--but tell her nothing. Our father
will be there, and he will see you, but he will not care to make an open
scandal in the court. Don John will come and speak to you; you must stay
beside the Duchess of course--but you can manage to exchange a few
words."

Dolores listened intently, and her face brightened a little as Inez went
on, only to grow sad and hopeless again a moment later. It was all an
impossible dream.

"That would be possible if I could once get beyond the door of the
hall," she said despondently. "It is of no use, dear! The door is
bolted."

"They will open it for me. Old Eudaldo is always within hearing, and he
will do anything for me. Besides, I shall seem to have been shut in by
mistake, do you see? I shall say that I am hungry, thirsty, that I am
cold, that in locking you in our father locked me in, too, because I was
asleep. Then Eudaldo will open the door for me. I shall say that I am
going to the Duchess's."

"Yes--but then?"

"You will cover yourself entirely with my black cloak and draw it over
your head and face. We are of the same height--you only need to walk as
I do--as if you were blind--across the hall to the left. Eudaldo will
open the outer door for you. You will just nod to thank him, without
speaking, and when you are outside, touch the wall of the corridor with
your left hand, and keep close to it. I always do, for fear of running
against some one. If you meet any of the women, they will take you for
me. There is never much light in the corridor, is there? There is one
oil lamp half way down, I know, for I always smell it when I pass in the
evening."

"Yes, it is almost dark there--it is a little lamp. Do you really think
this is possible?"

"It is possible, not sure. If you hear footsteps in the corridor beyond
the corner, you will have time to slip into one of the embrasures. But
our father will not come now. He knows that Don John is in his own
apartments with many people. And besides, it is to be a great festival
to-night, and all the court people and officers, and the Archbishop, and
all the rest who do not live in the palace will come from the city, so
that our father will have to command the troops and give orders for the
guards to march out, and a thousand things will take his time. Don John
cannot possibly come here till after the royal supper, and if our father
can come away at all, it will be at the same time. That is the danger."

Dolores shivered and saw the vision in the corridor again.

"But if you are seen talking with Don John before supper, no one will
suppose that in order to meet him you would risk coming back here, where
you are sure to be caught and locked up again. Do you see?"

"It all depends upon whether I can get out," answered Dolores, but there
was more hope in her tone. "How am I to dress without a maid?" she asked
suddenly.

"Trust me," said Inez, with a laugh. "My hands are better than a
serving-woman's eyes. You shall look as you never looked before. I know
every lock of your hair, and just how it should be turned and curled and
fastened in place so that it cannot possibly get loose. Come, we are
wasting time. Take off your slippers as I have done, so that no one
shall hear us walking through the hall to your room, and bring the
candles with you if you choose--yes, you need them to pick out the
colours you like."

"If you think it will be safer in the dark, it does not matter," said
Dolores. "I know where everything is."

"It would be safer," answered Inez thoughtfully. "It is just possible
that he might be in the court and might see the light in your window,
whereas if it burns here steadily, he will suspect nothing. We will bolt
the door of this room, as I found it. If by any possibility he comes
back, he will think you are still here, and will probably not come in."

"Pray Heaven he may not!" exclaimed Dolores, and she began to go towards
the door.

Inez was there before her, opening it very cautiously.

"My hands are lighter than yours," she whispered.

They both passed out, and Inez slipped the bolt back into its place with
infinite precaution.

"Is there light here?" she asked under her breath.

"There is a very small lamp on the table. I can just see my door."

"Put it out as we pass," whispered Inez. "I will lead you if you cannot
find your way."

They moved cautiously forward, and when they reached the table, Dolores
bent down to the small wick and blew out the flame. Then she felt her
sister's hand taking hers and leading her quickly to the other door. The
blind girl was absolutely noiseless in her movements, and Dolores had
the strange impression that she was being led by a spirit through the
darkness. Inez stopped a moment, and then went slowly on; they had
entered the room though Dolores had not heard the door move, nor did she
hear it closed behind her again. Her own room was perfectly dark, for
the heavy curtain that covered the window was drawn; she made a step
alone, and cautiously, and struck her knee against a chair.

"Do not move," whispered Inez. "You will make a noise. I can dress you
where you stand, or if you want to find anything, I will lead you to the
place where it is. Remember that it is always day for me."

Dolores obeyed, and stood still, holding her breath a little in her
intense excitement. It seemed impossible that Inez could do all she
promised without making a mistake, and Dolores would not have been a
woman had she not been visited just then by visions of ridicule. Without
light she was utterly helpless to do anything for herself, and she had
never before then fully realized the enormous misfortune with which her
sister had to contend. She had not guessed, either, what energy and
quickness of thought Inez possessed, and the sensation of being advised,
guided, and helped by one she had always herself helped and protected
was new.

They spoke in quick whispers of what she was to wear and of how her hair
was to be dressed, and Inez found what was wanted without noise, and
almost as quickly as Dolores could have done in broad daylight, and
placed a chair for her, making her sit down in it, and began to arrange
her hair quickly and skilfully. Dolores felt the spiritlike hands
touching her lightly and deftly in the dark--they were very slight and
soft, and did not offend her with a rough movement or a wrong turn, as
her maid's sometimes did. She felt her golden hair undone, and swiftly
drawn out and smoothed without catching, or tangling, or hurting her at
all, in a way no woman had ever combed it, and the invisible hands
gently divided it, and turned it upon her head, slipping the hairpins
into the right places as if by magic, so that they were firm at the
first trial, and there was a faint sound of little pearls tapping each
other, and Dolores felt the small string laid upon her hair and fastened
in its place,--the only ornament a young girl could wear for a
headdress,--and presently it was finished, and Inez gave a sigh of
satisfaction at her work, and lightly felt her sister's head here and
there to be sure that all was right. It felt as if soft little birds
were just touching the hair with the tips of their wings as they
fluttered round it. Dolores had no longer any fear of looking ill
dressed in the blaze of light she was to face before long. The dressing
of her hair was the most troublesome part, she knew, and though she
could not have done it herself, she had felt that every touch and turn
had been perfectly skilful.

"What a wonderful creature you are!" she whispered, as Inez bade her
stand up.

"You have beautiful hair," answered the blind girl, "and you are
beautiful in other ways, but to-night you must be the most beautiful of
all the court, for his sake--so that every woman may envy you, and every
man envy him, when they see you talking together. And now we must be
quick, for it has taken a long time, and I hear the soldiers marching
out again to form in the square. That is always just an hour and a half
before the King goes into the hall. Here--this is the front of the
skirt."

"No--it is the back!"

Inez laughed softly, a whispering laugh that Dolores could scarcely
hear.

"It is the front," she said. "You can trust me in the dark. Put your
arms down, and let me slip it over your head so as not to touch your
hair. No---hold your arms down!"

Dolores had instinctively lifted her hands to protect her headdress.
Then all went quickly, the silence only broken by an occasional
whispered word and by the rustle of silk, the long soft sound of the
lacing as Inez drew it through the eyelets of the bodice, the light
tapping of her hands upon the folds and gatherings of the skirt and on
the puffed velvet on the shoulders and elbows.

"You must be beautiful, perfectly beautiful to-night," Inez repeated
more than once.

She herself did not understand why she said it, unless it were that
Dolores' beauty was for Don John of Austria, and that nothing in the
whole world could be too perfect for him, for the hero of her thoughts,
the sun of her blindness, the immeasurably far-removed deity of her
heart. She did not know that it was not for her sister's sake, but for
his, that she had planned the escape and was taking such infinite pains
that Dolores might look her best. Yet she felt a deep and delicious
delight in what she did, like nothing she had ever felt before, for it
was the first time in her life that she had been able to do something
that could give him pleasure; and, behind that, there was the belief
that he was in danger, that she could no longer go to him nor warn him
now, and that only Dolores herself could hinder him from coming
unexpectedly against old Mendoza, sword in hand, in the corridor.

"And now my cloak over everything," she said. "Wait here, for I must get
it, and do not move!"

Dolores hardly knew whether Inez left the room or not, so noiselessly
did the girl move. Then she felt the cloak laid upon her shoulders and
drawn close round her to hide her dress, for skirts were short in those
days and easily hidden. Inez laid a soft silk handkerchief upon her
sister's hair, lest it should be disarranged by the hood which she
lightly drew over all, assuring herself that it would sufficiently hide
the face.

"Now come with me," she whispered. I will lead you to the door that is
bolted and place you just where it will open. Then I will call Eudaldo
and speak to him, and beg him to let me out. If he does, bend your head
and try to walk as I do. I shall be on one side of the door, and, as the
room is dark, he cannot possibly see me. While he is opening the outer
door for you, I will slip back into my own room. Do you understand? And
remember to hide in an embrasure if you hear a man's footsteps. Are you
quite sure you understand?"

"Yes; it will be easy if Eudaldo opens. And I thank you, dear; I wish I
knew how to thank you as I ought! It may have saved his life--"

"And yours, too, perhaps," answered Inez, beginning to lead her away.
"You would die in the convent, and you must not come back--you must
never come back to us here--never till you are married. Good-by,
Dolores--dear sister. I have done nothing, and you have done everything
for me all your life. Good-by--one kiss--then we must go, for it is
late."

With her soft hands she drew Dolores' head towards her, lifted the hood
a little, and kissed her tenderly. All at once there were tears on both
their faces, and the arms of each clasped the other almost desperately.

"You must come to me, wherever I am," Dolores said.

"Yes, I will come, wherever you are. I promise it."

Then she disengaged herself quickly, and more than ever she seemed a
spirit as she went before, leading her sister by the hand. They reached
the door, and she made Dolores stand before the right hand panel, ready
to slip out, and once more she touched the hood to be sure it hid the
face. She listened a moment. A harsh and regular sound came from a
distance, resembling that made by a pit-saw steadily grinding its way
lengthwise through a log of soft pine wood.

"Eudaldo is asleep," said Inez, and even at this moment she could hardly
suppress a half-hysterical laugh. "I shall have to make a tremendous
noise to wake him. The danger is that it may bring some one else,---the
women, the rest of the servants."

"What shall we do?" asked Dolores, in a distressed whisper.

She had braced her nerves to act the part of her sister at the dangerous
moment, and her excitement made every instant of waiting seem ten times
its length. Inez did not answer the question at once. Dolores repeated
it still more anxiously.

"I was trying to make up my mind," said the other at last. "You could
pass Eudaldo well enough, I am sure, but it might be another matter if
the hall were full of servants, as it is certain that our father has
given a general order that you are not to be allowed to go out. We may
wait an hour for the man to wake."

Dolores instinctively tried the door, but it was solidly fastened from
the outside. She felt hot and cold by turns as her anxiety grew more
intolerable. Each minute made it more possible that she might meet her
father somewhere outside.

"We must decide something!" she whispered desperately. "We cannot wait
here."

"I do not know what to do," answered Inez. "I have done all I can; I
never dreamt that Eudaldo would be asleep. At least, it is a sure sign
that our father is not in the house."

"But he may come at any moment! We must, we must do something at once!"

"I will knock softly," said Inez. "Any one who hears it will suppose it
is a knock at the hall door. If he does not open, some one will go and
wake him up, and then go away again so as not to be seen."

She clenched her small hand, and knocked three times. Such a sound could
make not the slightest impression upon Eudaldo's sound sleep, but her
reasoning was good, as well as ingenious. After waiting a few moments,
she knocked again, more loudly. Dolores held her breath in the silence
that followed. Presently a door was opened, and a woman's voice was
heard, low but sharp.

"Eudaldo, Eudaldo! Some one is knocking at the front door!"

The woman probably shook the old man to rouse him, for his voice came
next, growling and angry.

"Witch! Hag! Mother of malefactors! Let me alone--I am asleep. Are you
trying to tear my sleeve off with your greasy claws? Nobody is knocking;
you probably hear the wine thumping in your ears!"

The woman, who was the drudge and had been cleaning the kitchen, was
probably used to Eudaldo's manner of expressing himself, for she only
laughed.

"Wine makes men sleep, but it does not knock at doors," she answered.
"Some one has knocked twice. You had better go and open the door."

A shuffling sound and a deep yawn announced that Eudaldo was getting out
of his chair. The two girls heard him moving towards the outer entrance.
Then they heard the woman go away, shutting the other door behind her,
as soon as she was sure that Eudaldo was really awake. Then Inez called
him softly.

"Eudaldo? Here--it was I that knocked--you must let me out, please--come
nearer."

"Doña Inez?" asked the old man, standing still.

"Hush!" answered the girl. "Come nearer." She waited, listening while he
approached. "Listen to me," she continued. "The General has locked me
in, by mistake. He did not know I was here when he bolted the door. And
I am hungry and thirsty and very cold, Eudaldo--and you must let me out,
and I will run to the Duchess Alvarez and stay with her little girl.
Indeed, Eudaldo, the General did not mean to lock me in, too."

"He said nothing about your ladyship to me," answered the servant
doubtfully. "But I do not know--" he hesitated.

"Please, please, Eudaldo," pleaded Inez, "I am so cold and lonely
here--"

"But Doña Dolores is there, too," observed Eudaldo.

Dolores held her breath and steadied herself against the panel.

"He shut her into the inner sitting-room. How could I dare to open the
door! You may go in and knock--she will not answer you."

"Is your ladyship sure that Doña Dolores is within?" asked Eudaldo, in a
more yielding tone.

"Absolutely, perfectly sure!" answered Inez, with perfect truth. "Oh, do
please let me out."

Slowly the old man drew the bolt, while Dolores' heart stood still, and
she prepared herself for the danger; for she knew well enough that the
faithful old servant feared his master much more than he feared the
devil and all evil spirits, and would prevent her from passing, even
with force, if he recognized her.

"Thank you, Eudaldo--thank you!" cried Inez, as the latch turned. "And
open the front door for me, please," she said, putting her lips just
where the panel was opening.

Then she drew back into the darkness. The door was wide open now, and
Eudaldo was already shuffling towards the entrance. Dolores went
forward, bending her head, and trying to affect her sister's step. No
distance had ever seemed so long to her as that which separated her from
the hall door which Eudaldo was already opening for her. But she dared
not hasten her step, for though Inez moved with perfect certainty in the
house, she always walked with a certain deliberate caution, and often
stopped to listen, while crossing a room. The blind girl was listening
now, with all her marvellous hearing, to be sure that all went well till
Dolores should be outside. She knew exactly how many steps there were
from where she stood to the entrance, for she had often counted them.

Dolores must have been not more than three yards from the door, when
Inez started involuntarily, for she heard a sound from without, far
off--so far that Dolores could not possibly have heard it yet, but
unmistakable to the blind girl's keener ear. She listened
intently--there were Dolores' last four steps to the open doorway, and
there were others from beyond, still very far away in the vaulted
corridors, but coming nearer. To call her sister back would have made
all further attempt at escape hopeless--to let her go on seemed almost
equally fatal--Inez could have shrieked aloud. But Dolores had already
gone out, and a moment later the heavy door swung back to its place, and
it was too late to call her. Like an immaterial spirit, Inez slipped
away from the place where she stood and went back to Dolores' room,
knowing that Eudaldo would very probably go and knock where he supposed
her sister to be a prisoner, before slipping the outer bolt again. And
so he did, muttering an imprecation upon the little lamp that had gone
out and left the small hall in darkness. Then he knocked, and spoke
through the door, offering to bring her food, or fire, and repeating his
words many times, in a supplicating tone, for he was devoted to both the
sisters, though terror of old Mendoza was the dominating element in his
existence.

At last he shook his head and turned despondently to light the little
lamp again; and when he had done that, he went away and bolted the door
after him, convinced that Inez had gone out and that Dolores had stayed
behind in the last room.

When she had heard him go away the last time, the blind girl threw
herself upon Dolores' bed, and buried her face in the down cushion,
sobbing bitterly in her utter loneliness; weeping, too, for something
she did not understand, but which she felt the more painfully because
she could not understand it, something that was at once like a burning
fire and an unspeakable emptiness craving to be filled, something that
longed and feared, and feared longing, something that was a strong
bodily pain but which she somehow knew might have been the source of all
earthly delight,--an element detached from thought and yet holding it,
above the body and yet binding it, touching the soul and growing upon
it, but filling the soul itself with fear and unquietness, and making
her heart cry out within her as if it were not hers and were pleading to
be free. So, as she could not understand that this was love, which, as
she had heard said, made women and men most happy, like gods and
goddesses, above their kind, she lay alone in the darkness that was
always as day to her, and wept her heart out in scalding tears.

In the corridor outside, Dolores made a few steps, remembering to put
out her left hand to touch the wall, as Inez had told her to do; and
then she heard what had reached her sister's ears much sooner. She stood
still an instant, strained her eyes to see in the dim light of the
single lamp, saw nothing, and heard the sound coming nearer. Then she
quickly crossed the corridor to the nearest embrasure to hide herself.
To her horror she realized that the light of the full moon was streaming
in as bright as day, and that she could not be hid. Inez knew nothing of
moonlight.

She pressed herself to the wall, on the side away from her own door,
making herself as small as she could, for it was possible that whoever
came by might pass without turning his head. Nervous and exhausted by
all she had felt and been made to feel since the afternoon, she held her
breath and waited.

The regular tread of a man booted and spurred came relentlessly towards
her, without haste and without pause. No one who wore spurs but her
father ever came that way. She listened breathlessly to the hollow
echoes, and turned her eyes along the wall of the embrasure. In a moment
she must see his gaunt figure, and the moonlight would be white on his
short grey beard.

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER IV


Dolores knew that there was no time to reflect as to what she should do,
if her father found her hiding in the embrasure, and yet in those short
seconds a hundred possibilities flashed through her disturbed thoughts.
She might slip past him and run for her life down the corridor, or she
might draw her hood over her face and try to pretend that she was some
one else,--but he would recognize the hood itself as belonging to
Inez,--or she might turn and lean upon the window-sill, indifferently,
as if she had a right to be there, and he might take her for some lady
of the court, and pass on. And yet she could not decide which to
attempt, and stood still, pressing herself against the wall of the
embrasure, and quite forgetful of the fact that the bright moonlight
fell unhindered through all the other windows upon the pavement, whereas
she cast a shadow from the one in which she was standing, and that any
one coming along the corridor would notice it and stop to see who was
there.

There was something fateful and paralyzing in the regular footfall that
was followed instantly by the short echo from the vault above. It was
close at hand now she was sure that at the very next instant she should
see her father's face, yet nothing came, except the sound, for that
deceived her in the silence and seemed far nearer than it was. She had
heard horrible ghost stories of the old Alcazar, and as a child she had
been frightened by tales of evil things that haunted the corridors at
night, of wraiths and goblins and Moorish wizards who dwelt in secret
vaults, where no one knew, and came out in the dark, when all was still,
to wander in the moonlight, a terror to the living. The girl felt the
thrill of unearthly fear at the roots of her hair, and trembled, and the
sound seemed to be magnified till it reëchoed like thunder, though it
was only the noise of an advancing footfall, with a little jingling of
spurs.

But at last there was no doubt. It was close to her, and she shut her
eyes involuntarily. She heard one step more on the stones, and then
there was silence. She knew that her father had seen her, had stopped
before her, and was looking at her. She knew how his rough brows were
knitting themselves together, and that even in the pale moonlight his
eyes were fierce and angry, and that his left hand was resting on the
hilt of his sword, the bony brown fingers tapping the basket nervously.
An hour earlier, or little more, she had faced him as bravely as any
man, but she could not face him now, and she dared not open her eyes.

"Madam, are you ill, or in trouble?" asked a young voice that was soft
and deep.

She opened her eyes with a sharp cry that was not of fear, and she threw
back her hood with one hand as the looked.

Don John of Austria was there, a step from her, the light full on his
face, bareheaded, his cap in his hand, bending a little towards her, as
one does towards a person one does not know, but who seems to be in
distress and to need help. Against the whiteness without he could not
see her face, nor could he recognize her muffled figure.

"Can I not help you, Madam?" asked the kind voice again, very gravely.

Then she put out her hands towards him and made a step, and as the hood
fell quite back with the silk kerchief, he saw her golden hair in the
silver light. Slowly and in wonder, and still not quite believing, he
moved to meet her movement, took her hands in his, drew her to him,
turned her face gently, till he saw it well. Then he, too, uttered a
little sound that was neither a word nor a syllable nor a cry--a sound
that was half fierce with strong delight as his lips met hers, and his
hands were suddenly at her waist lifting her slowly to his own height,
though he did not know it, pressing her closer and closer to him, as if
that one kiss were the first and last that ever man gave woman.

A minute passed, and yet neither he nor she could speak. She stood with
her hands clasped round his neck, and her head resting on his breast
just below the shoulder, as if she were saying tender words to the heart
she heard beating so loud through the soft black velvet. She knew that
it had never beaten in battle as it was beating now, and she loved it
because it knew her and welcomed her; but her own stood still, and now
and then it fluttered wildly, like a strong young bird in a barred cage,
and then was quite still again. Bending his face a little, he softly
kissed her hair again and again, till at last the kisses formed
themselves into syllables and words, which she felt rather than heard.

"God in heaven, how I love you--heart of my heart--life of my life--love
of my soul!"

And again he repeated the same words, and many more like them, with
little change, because at that moment he had neither thought nor care
for anything else in the world, not for life nor death nor kingdom nor
glory, in comparison with the woman he loved. He could not hear her
answers, for she spoke without words to his heart, hiding her face where
she heard it throbbing, while her lips pressed many kisses on the
velvet.

Then, as thought returned, and the first thought was for him, she drew
back a little with a quick movement, and looked up to him with
frightened and imploring eyes.

"We must go!" she cried anxiously, in a very low voice. "We cannot stay
here. My father is very angry--he swore on his word of honour that he
would kill you if you tried to see me to-night!"

Don John laughed gently, and his eyes brightened. Before she could speak
again, he held her close once more, and his kisses were on her cheeks
and her eyes, on her forehead and on her hair, and then again upon her
lips, till they would have hurt her if she had not loved them so, and
given back every one. Then she struggled again, and he loosed his hold.

"It is death to stay here," she said very earnestly.

"It is worse than death to leave you," he answered. "And I will not," he
added an instant later, "neither for the King, nor for your father, nor
for any royal marriage they may try to force upon me."

She looked into his eyes for a moment, before she spoke, and there was
deep and true trust in her own.

"Then you must save me," she said quietly. "He has vowed that I shall be
sent to the convent of Las Huelgas to-morrow morning. He locked me into
the inner room, but Inez helped me to dress, and I got out under her
cloak."

She told him in a few words what she had done and had meant to do, in
order to see him, and how she had taken his step for her father's. He
listened gravely, and she saw his face harden slowly in an expression
she had scarcely ever seen there. When she had finished her story he was
silent for a moment.

"We are quite safe here," he said at last, "safer than anywhere else, I
think, for your father cannot come back until the King goes to supper.
For myself, I have an hour, but I have been so surrounded and pestered
by visitors in my apartments that I have not found time to put on a
court dress--and without vanity, I presume that I am a necessary figure
at court this evening. Your father is with Perez, who seems to be acting
as master of ceremonies and of everything else, as well as the King's
secretary--they have business together, and the General will not have a
moment. I ascertained that, before coming here, or I should not have
come at this hour. We are safe from him here, I am sure."

"You know best," answered Dolores, who was greatly reassured by what he
said about Mendoza.

"Let us sit down, then. You must be tired after all you have done. And
we have much to say to each other."

"How could I be tired now?" she asked, with a loving smile; but she sat
down on the stone seat in the embrasure, close to the window.

It was just wide enough for two to sit there, and Don John took his
place beside her, and drew one of her hands silently to him between both
his own, and kissed the tips of her fingers a great many times. But he
felt that she was watching his face, and he looked up and saw her
eyes--and then, again, many seconds passed before either could speak.
They were but a boy and girl together, loving each other in the tender
first love of early youth, for the victor of the day, the subduer of the
Moors, the man who had won back Granada, who was already High Admiral of
Spain, and who in some ten months from that time was to win a decisive
battle of the world at Lepanto, was a stripling of twenty-three
summers--and he had first seen Dolores when he was twenty and she
seventeen, and now it was nearly two years since they had met.

He was the first to speak, for he was a man of quick and unerring
determinations that led to actions as sudden as they were bold and
brilliant, and what Dolores had told him of her quarrel with her father
was enough to rouse his whole energy at once. At all costs she must
never be allowed to pass the gates of Las Huelgas. Once within the
convent, by the King's orders, and a close prisoner, nothing short of a
sacrilegious assault and armed violence could ever bring her out into
the world again. He knew that, and that he must act instantly to prevent
it, for he knew Mendoza's character also, and had no doubt but that he
would do what he threatened. It was necessary to put Dolores beyond his
reach at once, and beyond the King's also, which was not an easy matter
within the walls of the King's own palace, and on such a night. Don John
had been but little at the court and knew next to nothing of its
intrigues, nor of the mutual relations of the ladies and high officers
who had apartments in the Alcazar. In his own train there were no women,
of course. Dolores' brother Rodrigo, who had fought by his side at
Granada, had begged to be left behind with the garrison, in order that
he might not be forced to meet his father. Doña Magdalena Quixada, Don
John's adoptive mother, was far away at Villagarcia. The Duchess
Alvarez, though fond of Dolores, was Mistress of the Robes to the young
Queen, and it was not to be hoped nor expected that she should risk the
danger of utter ruin and disgrace if it were discovered that she had
hidden the girl against the King's wishes. Yet it was absolutely
necessary that Dolores should be safely hidden within an hour, and that
she should be got out of the palace before morning, and if possible
conveyed to Villagarcia. Don John saw in a moment that there was no one
to whom he could turn.

Again he took Dolores' hand in his, but with a sort of gravity and
protecting authority that had not been in his touch the first time.
Moreover, he did not kiss her fingers now, and he resolutely looked at
the wall opposite him. Then, in a low and quiet voice, he laid the
situation before her, while she anxiously listened.

"You see," he said at last, "there is only one way left. Dolores, do you
altogether trust me?"

She started a little, and her fingers pressed his hand suddenly.

"Trust you? Ah, with all my soul!"

"Think well before you answer," he said. "You do not quite
understand--it is a little hard to put it clearly, but I must. I know
you trust me in many ways, to love you faithfully always, to speak truth
to you always, to defend you always, to help you with my life when you
shall be in need. You know that I love you so, as you love me. Have we
not often said it? You wrote it in your letter, too--ah, dear, I thank
you for that. Yes, I have read it--I have it here, near my heart, and I
shall read it again before I sleep--"

Without a word, and still listening, she bent down and pressed her lips
to the place where her letter lay. He touched her hair with his lips and
went on speaking, as she leaned back against the wall again.

"You must trust me even more than that, my beloved," he said. "To save
you, you must be hidden by some one whom I myself can trust--and for
such a matter there is no one in the palace nor in all Madrid--no one to
whom I can turn and know that you will be safe--not one human being,
except myself."

"Except yourself!" Dolores loved the words, and gently pressed his hand.

"I thank you, dearest heart--but do you know what that means? Do you
understand that I must hide you myself, in my own apartments, and keep
you there until I can take you out of the palace, before morning?"

She was silent for a few moments, turning her face away from him. His
heart sank.

"No, dear," he said sadly, "you do not trust me enough for that--I see
it--what woman could?"

Her hand trembled and started in his, then pressed it hard, and she
turned her face quite to him.

"You are wrong," she said, with a tremor in her voice. "I love you as no
man was ever loved by any woman, far beyond all that all words can say,
and I shall love you till I die, and after that, for ever--even if I can
never be your wife. I love you as no one loves in these days, and when I
say that it is as you love me, I mean a thousand fold for every word. I
am not the child you left nearly two years ago. I am a woman now, for I
have thought and seen much since then--and I love you better and more
than then. God knows, there is enough to see and to learn in this
court--that should be hidden deep from honest women's sight! You and I
shall have a heaven on this earth, if God grants that we may be joined
together--for I will live for you, and serve you, and smooth all trouble
out of your way--and ask nothing of you but your love. And if we cannot
marry, then I will live for you in my heart, and serve you with my soul,
and pray Heaven that harm may never touch you. I will pray so fervently
that God must hear me. And so will you pray for me, as you would fight
for me, if you could. Remember, if you will, that when you are in battle
for Spain, your sword is drawn for Spain's honour, and for the honour of
every Christian Spanish woman that lives--and for mine, too!"

The words pleased him, and his free hand was suddenly clenched.

"You would make cowards fight like wolves, if you could speak to them
like that!" he said.

"I am not speaking to cowards," she answered, with a loving smile. "I am
speaking to the man I love, to the best and bravest and truest man that
breathes--and not to Don John of Austria, the victorious leader, but to
you, my heart's love, my life, my all, to you who are good and brave and
true to me, as no man ever was to any woman. No--" she laughed happily,
and there were tears in her eyes--"no, there are no words for such love
as ours."

"May I be all you would have me, and much more," he said fervently, and
his voice shook in the short speech.

"I am giving you all I have, because it is not belief, it is certainty.
I know you are all that I say you are, and more too. And I trust you, as
you mean it, and as you need my trust to save me. Take me where you
will. Hide me in your own room if you must, and bolt and bar it if need
be. I shall be as safe with you as I should be with my mother in heaven.
I put my hands between yours."

Again he heard her sweet low laughter, full of joy and trust, and she
laid her hands together between his and looked into his eyes, straight
and clear. Then she spoke softly and solemnly.

"Into your hands I put my life, and my faith, and my maiden honour,
trusting them all to you alone in this world, as I trust them to God."

Don John held her hands tightly for a moment, still looking into her
eyes as if he could see her soul there, giving itself to his keeping.
But he swore no great oath, and made no long speech; for a man who has
led men to deeds of glory, and against whom no dishonourable thing was
ever breathed, knows that his word is good.

"You shall not regret that you trust me, and you will be quite safe," he
said.

She wanted no more. Loving as she did, she believed in him without
promises, yet she could not always believe that he quite knew how she
loved him.

"You are dearer to me than I knew," he said presently, breaking the
silence that followed. "I love you even more, and I thought it could
never be more, when I found you here a little while ago--because you do
really trust me."

"You knew it," the said, nestling to him. "But you wanted me to tell
you. Yes--we are nearer now."

"Far nearer--and a world more dear," he answered. "Do you know? In all
these months I have often and often again wondered how we should meet,
whether it would be before many people, or only with your sister Inez
there--or perhaps alone. But I did not dare hope for that."

"Nor I. I have dreamt of meeting you a hundred times--and more than
that! But there was always some one in the way. I suppose that if we had
found each other in the court and had only been able to say a few words,
it would have been a long time before we were quite ourselves
together--but now, it seems as if we had never been parted at all, does
it not?"

"As if we could never be parted again," he answered softly.

For a little while there was silence, and though there was to be a great
gathering of the court, that night, all was very still where the lovers
sat at the window, for the throne room and the great halls of state were
far away on the other side of the palace, and the corridor looked upon a
court through which few persons had to pass at night. Suddenly from a
distance there came the rhythmical beat of the Spanish drums, as some
detachment of troops marched by the outer gate. Don John listened.

"Those are my men," he said. "We must go, for now that they are below I
can send my people on errands with orders to them, until I am alone.
Then you must come in. At the end of my apartments there is a small
room, beyond my own. It is furnished to be my study, and no one will
expect to enter it at night. I must put you there, and lock the door and
take the key with me, so that no one can go in while I am at court--or
else you can lock it on the inside, yourself. That would be better,
perhaps," he added rather hurriedly.

"No," said the girl quietly. "I prefer that you should have the key. I
shall feel even safer. But how can I get there without being seen? We
cannot go so far together without meeting some one."

He rose, and she stood up beside him.

"My apartments open upon the broad terrace on the south side," he said.
"At this time there will be only two or three officers there, and my two
servants. Follow me at a little distance, with your hood over your face,
and when you reach the sentry-box at the corner where I turn off, go in.
There will be no sentinel there, and the door looks outward. I shall
send away every one, on different errands, in five minutes. When every
one is gone I will come for you. Is that clear?"

"Perfectly." She nodded, as if she had made quite sure of what he had
explained. Then she put up her hands, as if to say good-by. "Oh, if we
could only stay here in peace!" she cried.

He said nothing, for he knew that there was still much danger, and he
was anxious for her. He only pressed her hands and then led her away.
They followed the corridor together, side by side, to the turning. Then
he whispered to her to drop behind, and she let him go on a dozen paces
and followed him. The way was long, and ill lighted at intervals by oil
lamps hung from the vault by small chains; they cast a broad black
shadow beneath them, and shed a feeble light above. Several times
persons passed them, and Dolores' heart beat furiously. A court lady,
followed by a duenna and a serving-woman, stopped with a winning smile,
and dropped a low courtesy to Don John, who lifted his cap, bowed, and
went on. They did not look at Dolores. A man in a green cloth apron and
loose slippers, carrying five lighted lamps in a greasy iron tray,
passed with perfect indifference, and without paying the least attention
to the victor of Granada. It was his business to carry lamps in that
part of the palace--he was not a human being, but a lamplighter. They
went on, down a short flight of broad steps, and then through a wider
corridor where the lights were better, though the night breeze was
blowing in and made them flicker and flare.

A corporal's guard of the household halberdiers came swinging down at a
marching step, coming from the terrace beyond. The corporal crossed his
halberd in salute, but Don John stopped him, for he understood at once
that a sentry had been set at his door.

"I want no guard," he said. "Take the man away."

"The General ordered it, your Highness," answered the man, respectfully.

"Request your captain to report to the General that I particularly
desire no sentinel at my door. I have no possessions to guard except my
reputation, and I can take care of that myself." He laughed
good-naturedly.

The corporal grinned--he was a very dark, broad-faced man, with high
cheek bones, and ears that stuck out. He faced about with his three
soldiers, and followed Don John to the terrace--but in the distance he
had seen the hooded figure of a woman.

Not knowing what to do, for she had heard the colloquy, Dolores stood
still a moment, for she did not care to pass the soldiers as they came
back. Then she turned and walked a little way in the other direction, to
gain time, and kept on slowly. In less than a minute they returned,
bringing the sentinel with them. She walked slowly and counted them as
they went past her--and then she started as if she had been stung, and
blushed scarlet under her hood, for she distinctly heard the big
corporal laugh to himself when he had gone by. She knew, then, how she
trusted the man she loved.

When the soldiers had turned the corner and were out of sight, she ran
back to the terrace and hid herself in the stone sentry-box just
outside, still blushing and angry. On the side of the box towards Don
John's apartment there was a small square window just at the height of
her eyes, and she looked through it, sure that her face could not be
seen from without. She looked from mere curiosity, to see what sort of
men the officers were, and Don John's servants; for everything connected
with him or belonging to him in any way interested her most intensely.
Two tall captains came out first, magnificent in polished breastplates
with gold shoulder straps and sashes and gleaming basket-hilted swords,
that stuck up behind them as their owners pressed down the hilts and
strutted along, twisting their short black moustaches in the hope of
meeting some court lady on their way. Then another and older man passed,
also in a soldier's dress, but with bent head, apparently deep in
thought. After that no one came for some time--then a servant, who
pulled something out of his pocket and began to eat it, before he was in
the corridor.

Then a woman came past the little window. Dolores saw her as distinctly
as she had seen the four men. She came noiselessly and stealthily,
putting down her foot delicately, like a cat. She was a lady, and she
wore a loose cloak that covered all her gown, and on her head a thick
veil, drawn fourfold across her face. Her gait told the girl that she
was young and graceful--something in the turn of the head made her sure
that she was beautiful, too--something in the whole figure and bearing
was familiar. The blood sank from Dolores' cheeks, and she felt a chill
slowly rising to her heart. The lady entered the corridor and went on
quickly, turned, and was out of sight.

Then all at once, Dolores laughed to herself, noiselessly, and was happy
again, in spite of her danger. There was nothing to disturb her, she
reflected. The terrace was long, there were doubtless other apartments
beyond Don John's, though she had not known it. The lady had indeed
walked cautiously, but it might well be that she had reasons for not
being seen there, and that the further rooms were not hers. The Alcazar
was only an old Moorish castle, after all, restored and irregularly
enlarged, and altogether very awkwardly built, so that many of the
apartments could only be reached by crossing open terraces.

When Don John came to get her in the sentry-box, Dolores' momentary
doubt was gone, though not all her curiosity. She smiled as she came out
of her hiding-place and met his eyes--clear and true as her own. She
even hated herself for having thought that the lady could have come from
his apartment at all. The light was streaming from his open door as he
led her quickly towards it. There were three windows beyond it, and
there the terrace ended. She looked at the front as they were passing,
and counted again three windows between the open door and the corner
where the sentry-box stood.

"Who lives in the rooms beyond you?" she asked quickly.

"No one--the last is the one where you are to be." He seemed surprised.

They had reached the open door, and he stood aside to let her go in.

"And on this side?" she asked, speaking with a painful effort.

"My drawing-room and dining-room," he answered.

She paused and drew breath before she spoke again, and she pressed one
hand to her side under her cloak.

"Who was the lady who came from here when all the men were gone?" she
asked, very pale.

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER V


Don John was a man not easily taken off his guard, but he started
perceptibly at Dolores' question. He did not change colour, however, nor
did his eyes waver; he looked fixedly into her face.

"No lady has been here," he answered quietly.

Dolores doubted the evidence of her own senses. Her belief in the man
she loved was so great that his words seemed at first to have destroyed
and swept away what must have been a bad dream, or a horrible illusion,
and her face was quiet and happy again as she passed him and went in
through the open entrance. She found herself in a vestibule from which
doors opened to the right and left. He turned in the latter direction,
leading the way into the room.

It was his bedchamber. Built in the Moorish manner, the vaulting began
at the height of a man's head, springing upward in bold and graceful
curves to a great height. The room was square and very large, and the
wall below the vault was hung with very beautiful tapestries
representing the battle of Pavia, the surrender of Francis the First,
and a sort of apotheosis of the Emperor Charles, the father of Don John.
There were two tall windows, which were quite covered by curtains of a
dark brocade, in which the coats of Spain and the Empire were woven in
colours at regular intervals; and opposite them, with the head to the
wall, stood a vast curtained bedstead with carved posts twice a man's
height. The vaulting had been cut on that side, in order that the foot
of the bed might stand back against the wall. The canopy had coats of
arms at the four corners, and the curtains were of dark green corded
silk, heavily embroidered with gold thread in the beautiful scrolls and
arabesques of the period of the Renascence. A carved table, dark and
polished, stood half way between the foot of the bedstead and the space
between the windows, where a magnificent kneeling-stool with red velvet
cushions was placed under a large crucifix. Half a dozen big chairs were
ranged against the long walls on each side of the room, and two
commodious folding chairs with cushions of embossed leather were beside
the table. Opposite the door by which Dolores had entered, another
communicated with the room beyond. Both were carved and ornamented with
scroll work of gilt bronze, but were without curtains. Three or four
Eastern, rugs covered the greater part of the polished marble pavement,
which here and there reflected the light of the tall wax torches that
stood on the table in silver candlesticks, and on each side of the bed
upon low stands. The vault above the tapestried walls was very dark
blue, and decorated with gilded stars in relief. Dolores thought the
room gloomy, and almost funereal. The bed looked like a catafalque, the
candles like funeral torches, and the whole place breathed the
magnificent discomfort of royalty, and seemed hardly intended for a
human habitation.

Dolores barely glanced at it all, as her companion locked the first door
and led her on to the next room. He knew that he had not many minutes to
spare, and was anxious that she should be in her hiding-place before his
servants came back. She followed him and went in. Unlike the bedchamber,
the small study was scantily and severely furnished. It contained only a
writing-table, two simple chairs, a straight-backed divan covered with
leather, and a large chest of black oak bound with ornamented steel
work. The window was curtained with dark stuff, and two wax candles
burned steadily beside the writing-materials that were spread out ready
for use.

"This is the room," Don John said, speaking for the first time since
they had entered the apartments.

Dolores let her head fall back, and began to loosen her cloak at her
throat without answering him. He helped her, and laid the long garment
upon the divan. Then he turned and saw her in the full light of the
candles, looking at him, and he uttered an exclamation.

"What is it?" she asked almost dreamily.

"You are very beautiful," he answered in a low voice. "You are the most
beautiful woman I ever saw."

The merest girl knows the tone of a man whose genuine admiration breaks
out unconsciously in plain words, and Dolores was a grown woman. A faint
colour rose in her cheek, and her lips parted to smile, but her eyes
were grave and anxious, for the doubt had returned, and would not be
thrust away. She had seen the lady in the cloak and veil during several
seconds, and though Dolores, who had been watching the men who passed,
had not actually seen her come out of Don John's apartments, but had
been suddenly aware of her as she glided by, it seemed out of the
question that she should have come from any other place. There was
neither niche nor embrasure between the door and the corridor, in which
the lady could have been hidden, and it was hardly conceivable that she
should have been waiting outside for some mysterious purpose, and should
not have fled as soon as she heard the two officers coming out, since
she evidently wished to escape observation. On the other hand, Don John
had quietly denied that any woman had been there, which meant at all
events that he had not seen any one. It could mean nothing else.

Dolores was neither foolishly jealous nor at all suspicious by nature,
and the man was her ideal of truthfulness and honour. She stood looking
at him, resting one hand on the table, while he came slowly towards her,
moving almost unconsciously in the direction of her exquisite beauty, as
a plant lifts itself to the sun at morning. He was near to her, and he
stretched out his arms as if to draw her to him. She smiled then, for in
his eyes she forgot her trouble for a moment, and she would have kissed
him. But suddenly his face grew grave, and he set his teeth, and instead
of taking her into his arms, he took one of her hands and raised it to
his lips, as if it had been the hand of his brother's wife, the young
Queen.

"Why?" she asked in surprise, and with a little start.

"You are here under my protection," he answered. "Let me have my own
way."

"Yes, I understand. How good you are to me!" She paused, and then went
on, seating herself upon one of the chairs by the table as she spoke.
"You must leave me now," she said. "You must lock me in and keep the
key. Then I shall know that I am safe; and in the meantime you must
decide how I am to escape--it will not be easy." She stopped again. "I
wonder who that woman was!" she exclaimed at last.

"There was no woman here," replied Don John, as quietly and assuredly as
before.

He was leaning upon the table at the other side, with both hands resting
upon it, looking at her beautiful hair as she bent her head.

"Say that you did not see her," she said, "not that she was not here,
for she passed me after all the men, walking very cautiously to make no
noise; and when she was in the corridor she ran--she was young and
light-footed. I could not see her face."

"You believe me, do you not?" asked Don John, bending over the table a
little, and speaking very anxiously.

She turned her face up instantly, her eyes wide and bright.

"Should I be here if I did not trust you and believe you?" she asked
almost fiercely. "Do you think--do you dare to think--that I would have
passed your door if I had supposed that another woman had been here
before me, and had been turned out to make room for me, and would have
stayed here--here in your room--if you had not sent her away? If I had
thought that, I would have left you at your door forever. I would have
gone back to my father. I would have gone to Las Huelgas to-morrow, and
not to be a prisoner, but to live and die there in the only life fit for
a broken-hearted woman. Oh, no! You dare not think that,--you who would
dare anything! If you thought that, you could not love me as I love
you,--believing, trusting, staking life and soul on your truth and
faith!"

The generous spirit had risen in her eyes, roused not against him, but
by all his question might be made to mean; and as she met his look of
grateful gladness her anger broke away, and left only perfect love and
trust behind it.

"A man would die for you, and wish he might die twice," he answered,
standing upright, as if a weight had been taken from him and he were
free to breathe.

She looked up at the pale, strong features of the young fighter, who was
so great and glorious almost before the down had thickened on his lip;
and she saw something almost above nature in his face,--something high
and angelic, yet manly and well fitted to face earthly battles. He was
her sun, her young god, her perfect image of perfection, the very source
of her trust. It would have killed her to doubt him. Her whole soul went
up to him in her eyes; and as he was ready to die for her, she knew that
for him she would suffer every anguish death could hold, and not flinch.

Then she looked down, and suddenly laughed a little oddly, and her
finger pointed towards the pens and paper.

"She has left something behind," she said. "She was clever to get in
here and slip out again without being seen."

Don John looked where she pointed, and saw a small letter folded round
the stems of two white carnations, and neatly tied with a bit of twisted
silk. It was laid between the paper and the bronze inkstand, and half
hidden by the broad white feather of a goose-quill pen, that seemed to
have been thrown carelessly across the flowers. It lay there as if meant
to be found, only by one who wrote, and not to attract too much
attention.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, in a rather singular tone, as he saw it, and a
boyish blush reddened his face.

Then he took the letter and drew out the two flowers by the blossoms
very carefully. Dolores watched him. He seemed in doubt as to what he
should do; and the blush subsided quickly, and gave way to a look of
settled annoyance. The carnations were quite fresh, and had evidently
not been plucked more than an hour. He held them up a moment and looked
at them, then laid them down again and took the note. There was no
writing on the outside. Without opening it he held it to the flame of
the candle, but Dolores caught his wrist.

"Why do you not read it?" she asked quickly.

"Dear, I do not know who wrote it, and I do not wish to know anything
you do not know also."

"You have no idea who the woman is?" Dolores looked at him wonderingly.

"Not the very least," he answered with a smile.

"But I should like to know so much!" she cried. "Do read it and tell me.
I do not understand the thing at all."

"I cannot do that." He shook his head. "That would be betraying a
woman's secret. I do not know who it is, and I must not let you know,
for that would not be honourable."

"You are right," she said, after a pause. "You always are. Burn it."

He pushed the point of a steel erasing-knife through the piece of folded
paper and held it over the flame. It turned brown, crackled and burst
into a little blaze, and in a moment the black ashes fell fluttering to
the table.

"What do you suppose it was?" asked Dolores innocently, as Don John
brushed the ashes away.

"Dear--it is very ridiculous--I am ashamed of it, and I do not quite
know how to explain it to you." Again he blushed a little. "It seems
strange to speak of it--I never even told my mother. At first I used to
open them, but now I generally burn them like this one."

"Generally! Do you mean to say that you often find women's letters with
flowers in them on your table?"

"I find them everywhere," answered Don John, with perfect simplicity. "I
have found them in my gloves, tied into the basket hilt of my
sword--often they are brought to me like ordinary letters by a messenger
who waits for an answer. Once I found one on my pillow!"

"But"--Dolores hesitated--"but are they--are they all from the same
person?" she asked timidly. Don John laughed, and shook his head.

"She would need to be a very persistent and industrious person," he
answered. "Do you not understand?"

"No. Who are these women who persecute you with their writing? And why
do they write to you? Do they want you to help them?"

"Not exactly that;" he was still smiling. "I ought not to laugh, I
suppose. They are ladies of the court sometimes, and sometimes others,
and I--I fancy that they want me to--how shall I say?--to begin by
writing them letters of the same sort."

"What sort of letters?"

"Why--love letters," answered Don John, driven to extremity in spite of
his resistance.

"Love letters!" cried Dolores, understanding at last. "Do you mean to
say that there are women whom you do not know, who tell you that they
love you before you have ever spoken to them? Do you mean that a lady of
the court, whom you have probably never even seen, wrote that note and
tied it up with flowers and risked everything to bring it here, just in
the hope that you might notice her? It is horrible! It is vile! It is
shameless! It is beneath anything!"

"You say she was a lady--you saw her. I did not. But that is what she
did, whoever she may be."

"And there are women like that--here, in the palace! How little I know!"

"And the less you learn about the world, the better," answered the young
soldier shortly.

"But you have never answered one, have you?" asked Dolores, with a scorn
that showed how sure she was of his reply.

"No." He spoke thoughtfully. "I once thought of answering one. I meant
to tell her that she was out of her senses, but I changed my mind. That
was long ago, before I knew you--when I was eighteen."

"Ever since you were a boy!"

The look of wonder was not quite gone from her face yet, but she was
beginning to understand more clearly, though still very far from
distinctly. It did not occur to her once that such things could be
temptations to the brilliant young leader whom every woman admired and
every man flattered, and that only his devoted love for her had kept him
out of ignoble adventures since he had grown to be a man. Had she seen
that, she would have loved him even better, if it were possible. It was
all, as she had said, shameless and abominable. She had thought that she
knew much of evil, and she had even told him so that evening, but this
was far beyond anything she had dreamt of in her innocent thoughts, and
she instinctively felt that there were lower depths of degradation to
which a woman could fall, and of which she would not try to guess the
vileness and horror.

"Shall I burn the flowers, too?" asked Don John, taking them in his
hand.

"The flowers? No. They are innocent and fresh. What have they to do with
her? Give them to me."

He raised them to his lips, looking at her, and then held them out. She
took them, and kissed them, as he had done, and they both smiled
happily. Then she fastened them in her hair.

"No one will see me to-night but you," she said. "I may wear flowers in
my hair like a peasant woman!"

"How they make the gold gleam!" he exclaimed, as he looked. "It is
almost time that my men came back," he said sadly. "When I go down to
the court, I shall dismiss them. After the royal supper I shall try and
come here again and see you. By that time everything will be arranged. I
have thought of almost everything already. My mother will provide you
with everything you need. To-morrow evening I can leave this place
myself to go and see her, as I always do."

He always spoke of Doña Magdalena Quixada as his mother--he had never
known his own.

Dolores rose from her seat, for he was ready to go.

"I trust you in everything," she said simply. "I do not need to know how
you will accomplish it all--it is enough to know that you will. Tell
Inez, if you can--protect her if my father is angry with her."

He held out his hand to take hers, and she was going to give it, as she
had done before. But it was too little. Before he knew it she had thrown
her arms round his neck, and was kissing him, with little cries and
broken words of love. Then she drew back suddenly.

"I could not help it," she said. "Now lock me in. No--do not say
good-by--even for two hours!"

"I will come back as soon as I can," he answered, and with a long look
he left her, closed the door and locked it after him, leaving her alone.

She stood a few moments looking at the panels as if her sight could
pierce them and reach him on the other side, and she tried to hold the
last look she had seen in his eyes. Hardly two minutes had elapsed
before she heard voices and footsteps in the bedchamber. Don John spoke
in short sentences now and then to his servants, and his voice was
commanding though it was kindly. It seemed strange to be so near him in
his life; she wondered whether she should some day always be near him,
as she was now, and nearer; she blushed, all alone. So many things had
happened, and he and she had found so much to say that nothing had been
said at all of what was to follow her flight to Villagarcia. She was to
leave for the Quixadas' house before morning, but Quixada and his wife
could not protect her against her father, if he found out where she was,
unless she were married. After that, neither Mendoza nor any one else,
save the King himself, would presume to interfere with the liberty of
Don John of Austria's wife. All Spain would rise to protect her--she was
sure of that. But they had said nothing about a marriage and had wasted
time over that unknown woman's abominable letter. Since she reasoned it
out to herself, she saw that in all probability the ceremony would take
place as soon as Don John reached Villagarcia. He was powerful enough to
demand the necessary permission of the Archbishop, and he would bring it
with him; but no priest, even in the absence of a written order, would
refuse to marry him if he desired it. Between the real power he
possessed and the vast popularity he enjoyed, he could command almost
anything.

She heard his voice distinctly just then, though she was not listening
for it. He was telling a servant to bring white shoes. The fact struck
her because she had never seen him wear any that were not black or
yellow. She smiled and wished that she might bring him his white shoes
and hang his order of the Golden Fleece round his neck, and breathe on
the polished hilt of his sword and rub it with soft leather. She had
seen Eudaldo furbish her father's weapons in that way since she had been
a child.

It had all come so suddenly in the end. Shading her eyes from the
candles with her hand, she rested one elbow on the table, and tried to
think of what should naturally have happened, of what must have happened
if the unknown voice among the courtiers had not laughed and roused her
father's anger and brought all the rest. Don John would have come to the
door, and Eudaldo would have let him in--because no one could refuse him
anything and he was the King's brother. He would have spent half an hour
with her in the little drawing-room, and it would have been a
constrained meeting, with Inez near, though she would presently have
left them alone. Then, by this time, she would have gone down with the
Duchess Alvarez and the other maids of honour, and by and by she would
have followed the Queen when she entered the throne room with the King
and Don John; and she might not have exchanged another word with the
latter for a whole day, or two days. But now it seemed almost certain
that she was to be his wife within the coming week. He was in the next
room.

"Do not put the sword away," she heard him say. "Leave it here on the
table."

Of course; what should he do with a sword in his court dress? But if he
had met her father in the corridor, coming to her after the supper, he
would have been unarmed. Her father, on the contrary, being on actual
duty, wore the sword of his rank, like any other officer of the guards,
and the King wore a rapier as a part of his state dress.

She was astonished at the distinctness with which she heard what was
said in the next room. That was doubtless due to the construction of the
vault, as she vaguely guessed. It was true that Don John spoke very
clearly, but she could hear the servants' subdued answers almost as
well, when she listened. It seemed to her that he took but a very short
time to dress.

"I have the key of that room," he said presently. "I have my papers
there. You are at liberty till midnight. My hat, my gloves. Call my
gentlemen, one of you, and tell them to meet me in the corridor."

She could almost hear him drawing on his gloves. One of the servants
went out.

"Fadrique," said Don John, "leave out my riding-cloak. I may like to
walk on the terrace in the moonlight, and it is cold. Have my drink
ready at midnight and wait for me. Send Gil to sleep, for he was up last
night."

There was a strange pleasure in hearing his familiar orders and small
directions and in seeing how thoughtful he was for his servants. She
knew that he had always refused to be surrounded by valets and
gentlemen-in-waiting, and lived very simply when he could, but it was
different to be brought into such close contact with his life. There was
a wonderful gentleness in his ways that contrasted widely with her
father's despotic manner and harsh tone when he gave orders. Mendoza
believed himself the type and model of a soldier and a gentleman, and he
maintained that without rigid discipline there could be no order and no
safety at home or in the army. But between him and Don John there was
all the difference that separates the born leader of men from the mere
martinet.

Dolores listened. It was clear that Don John was not going to send
Fadrique away in order to see her again before he went down to the
throne room, though she had almost hoped he might.

On the contrary, some one else came. She heard Fadrique announce him.

"The Captain Don Juan de Escobedo is in waiting, your Highness," said
the servant. "There is also Adonis."

"Adonis!" Don John laughed, not at the name, for it was familiar to him,
but at the mere mention of the person who bore it and who was the King's
dwarf jester, Miguel de Antona, commonly known by his classic nickname.
"Bring Adonis here--he is an old friend."

The door opened again, and Dolores heard the well-known voice of the
hunchback, clear as a woman's, scornful and full of evil laughter,--the
sort of voice that is heard instantly in a crowd, though it is not
always recognizable. The fellow came in, talking loud.

"Ave Cæsar!" he cried from the door. "Hail, conqueror! All hail, thou
favoured of heaven, of man,--and of the ladies!"

"The ladies too?" laughed Don John, probably amused by the dwarfs
antics. "Who told you that?"

"The cook, sir. For as you rode up to the gate this afternoon a scullery
maid saw you from the cellar grating and has been raving mad ever since,
singing of the sun, moon, and undying love, until the kitchen is more
like a mad-house than this house would be if the Day of Judgment came
before or after Lent."

"Do you fast in Lent, Adonis?"

"I fast rigidly three times a day, my lord conqueror,--no, six, for I
eat nothing either just before or just after my breakfast, my dinner,
and my supper. No monk can do better than that, for at those times I eat
nothing at all."

"If you said your prayers as often as you fast, you would be in a good
way," observed Don John.

"I do, sir. I say a short grace before and after eating. Why have you
come to Madrid, my lord? Do you not know that Madrid is the worst, the
wickedest, the dirtiest, vilest, and most damnable habitation devised by
man for the corruption of humanity? Especially in the month of November?
Has your lordship any reasonable reason for this unreason of coming
here, when the streets are full of mud, and men's hearts are packed like
saddle-bags with all the sins they have accumulated since Easter and
mean to unload at Christmas? Even your old friends are shocked to see so
young and honest a prince in such a place!"

"My old friends? Who?"

"I saw Saint John the Conqueror graciously wave his hand to a most
highly respectable old nobleman this afternoon, and the nobleman was so
much shocked that he could not stir an arm to return the salutation! His
legs must have done something, though, for he seemed to kick his own
horse up from the ground under him. The shock must have been terrible.
As for me, I laughed aloud, which made both the old nobleman and Don
Julius Caesar of Austria exceedingly angry. Get before me, Don Fadrique!
I am afraid of the terror of the Moors,--and no shame to me either! A
poor dwarf, against a man who tears armies to shreds,--and sends
scullery maids into hysterics! What is a poor crippled jester compared
with a powerful scullery maid or an army of heathen Moriscoes? Give me
that sword, Fadrique, or I am a dead man!"

But Don John was laughing good-naturedly.

"So it was you, Adonis? I might have-known your voice, I should think."

"No one ever knows my voice, sir. It is not a voice, it is a freak of
grammar. It is masculine, feminine, and neuter in gender, singular by
nature, and generally accusative, and it is optative in mood and full of
acute accents. If you can find such another voice in creation, sir, I
will forfeit mine in the King's councils."

Adonis laughed now, and Dolores remembered the laughter she had heard
from the window.

"Does his Majesty consult you on matters of state?" inquired Don John.
"Answer quickly, for I must be going."

"It takes twice as long to tell a story to two men, as to tell it to
one,--when you have to tell them different stories,"

"Go, Fadrique," said Don John, "and shut the door."

The dwarf, seeing the servant gone, beckoned Don John to the other side
of the room.

"It is no great secret, being only the King's," he said. "His Majesty
bids me tell your Serene Highness that he wishes to speak with you
privately about some matters, and that he will come here soon after
supper, and begs you to be alone."

"I will be here--alone."

"Excellent, sir. Now there is another matter of secrecy which is just
the contrary of what I have told you, for it is a secret from the King.
A lady laid a letter and two white carnations on your writing-table. If
there is any answer to be taken, I will take it."

"There is none," answered Don John sternly, "Tell the lady that I burned
the letter without reading it. Go, Adonis, and the next time you come
here, do not bring messages from women. Fadrique!"

"Your Highness burned the letter without reading it?"

"Yes. Fadrique!"

"I am sorry," said the dwarf, in a low voice.

No more words were spoken, and in a few moments there was deep silence,
for they were all gone, and Dolores was alone, locked into the little
room.

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER VI


The great throne room of the palace was crowded with courtiers long
before the time when the King and Queen and Don John of Austria were to
appear, and the entries and halls by which it was approached were almost
as full. Though the late November air was keen, the state apartments
were at summer heat, warmed by thousands of great wax candles that
burned in chandeliers, and in huge sconces and on high candelabra that
stood in every corner. The light was everywhere, and was very soft and
yellow, while the odour of the wax itself was perceptible in the air,
and helped the impression that the great concourse was gathered in a
wide cathedral for some solemn function rather than in a throne room to
welcome a victorious soldier. Vast tapestries, dim and rich in the thick
air, covered the walls between the tall Moorish windows, and above them
the great pointed vaulting, ornamented with the fantastically modelled
stucco of the Moors, was like the creamy crests of waves lashed into
foam by the wind, thrown upright here, and there blown forward in swift
spray, and then again breaking in the fall to thousands of light and
exquisite shapes; and the whole vault thus gathered up the light of the
candles into itself and shed it downward, distributing it into every
corner and lighting every face in a soft and golden glow.

At the upper end, between two great doors that were like the gateways of
an eastern city, stood the vacant throne, on a platform approached by
three broad steps and covered with deep red cloth; and there stood
magnificent officers of the guard in gilded corslets and plumed steel
caps, and other garments of scarlet and gold, with their drawn swords
out. But Mendoza was not there yet, for it was his duty to enter with
the King's own guard, preceding the Majorduomo. Above the throne, a huge
canopy of velvet, red and yellow, was reared up around the royal coat of
arms.

To the right and left, on the steps, stood carved stools with silken
cushions--those on the right for the chief ministers and nobles of the
kingdom, those on the left for the great ladies of the court. These
would all enter in the King's train and take their places. For the
throng of courtiers who filled the floor and the entries there were no
seats, for only a score of the highest and greatest personages were
suffered to sit in the royal presence. A few, who were near the windows,
rested themselves surreptitiously on the high mouldings of the
pilasters, pushing aside the curtains cautiously, and seeming from a
distance to be standing while they were in reality comfortably seated,
an object of laughing envy and of many witticisms to their less
fortunate fellow-courtiers. The throng was not so close but that it was
possible to move in the middle of the hall, and almost all the persons
there were slowly changing place, some going forward to be nearer the
throne, others searching for their friends among their many
acquaintances, that they might help the tedious hour to pass more
quickly.

Seen from the high gallery above the arch of the great entrance the hall
was a golden cauldron full of rich hues that intermingled in streams,
and made slow eddies with deep shadows, and then little waves of light
that turned upon themselves, as the colours thrown into the dyeing vat
slowly seethe and mix together in rivulets of dark blue and crimson, and
of splendid purple that seems to turn black in places and then is
suddenly shot through with flashes of golden and opalescent light. Here
and there also a silvery gleam flashed in the darker surface, like a
pearl in wine, for a few of the court ladies were dressed all in white,
with silver and many pearls, and diamonds that shed little rays of their
own.

The dwarf Adonis had been there for a few moments behind the lattice
which the Moors had left, and as he stood there alone, where no one ever
thought of going, he listened to the even and not unmusical sound that
came up from the great assembly--the full chorus of speaking voices
trained never to be harsh or high, and to use chosen words, with no loud
exclamations, laughing only to please and little enough out of
merriment; and they would not laugh at all after the King and Queen came
in, but would only murmur low and pleasant flatteries, the change as
sudden as when the musician at the keys closes the full organ all at
once and draws gentle harmonies from softer stops.

The jester had stood there, and looked down with deep-set, eager eyes,
his crooked face pathetically sad and drawn, but alive with a swift and
meaning intelligence, while the thin and mobile lips expressed a sort of
ready malice which could break out in bitterness or turn to a kindly
irony according as the touch that moved the man's sensitive nature was
cruel or friendly. He was scarcely taller than a boy of ten years old,
but his full-grown arms hung down below his knees, and his man's head,
with the long, keen face, was set far forward on his shapeless body, so
that in speaking with persons of ordinary stature he looked up under his
brows, a little sideways, to see better. Smooth red hair covered his
bony head, and grew in a carefully trimmed and pointed beard on his
pointed chin. A loose doublet of crimson velvet hid the outlines of his
crooked back and projecting breastbone, and the rest of his dress was of
materials as rich, and all red. He was, moreover, extraordinarily
careful of his appearance, and no courtier had whiter or more delicately
tended hands or spent more time before the mirror in tying a shoulder
knot, and in fastening the stiffened collar of white embroidered linen
at the fashionable angle behind his neck.

He had entered the latticed gallery on his way to Don John's apartments
with the King's message. A small and half-concealed door, known to few
except the servants of the palace, opened upon it suddenly from a niche
in one of the upper corridors. In Moorish days the ladies of the harem
had been wont to go there unseen to see the reception of ambassadors of
state, and such ceremonies, at which, even veiled, they could never be
present.

He only stayed a few moments, and though his eyes were eager, it was by
habit rather than because they were searching for any one in the crowd.
It pleased him now and then to see the court world as a spectacle, as it
delights the hard-worked actor to be for once a spectator at another's
play. He was an integral part of the court himself, a man of whom most
was often expected when he had the least to give, to whom it was
scarcely permitted to say anything in ordinary language, but to whom
almost any license of familiar speech was freely allowed. He was not a
man, he was a tradition, a thing that had to be where it was from
generation to generation; wherever the court had lived a jester lay
buried, and often two and three, for they rarely lived an ordinary
lifetime. Adonis thought of that sometimes, when he was alone, or when
he looked down at the crowd of delicately scented and richly dressed men
and women, every one called by some noble name, who would doubtless
laugh at some jest of his before the night was over. To their eyes the
fool was a necessary servant, because there had always been a fool at
court; he was as indispensable as a chief butler, a chief cook, or a
state coachman, and much more amusing. But he was not a man, he had no
name, he had no place among men, he was not supposed to have a mother, a
wife, a home, anything that belonged to humanity. He was well lodged,
indeed, where the last fool had died, and richly clothed as the other
had been, and he fed delicately, and was given the fine wines of France
to drink, lest his brain should be clouded by stronger liquor and he
should fail to make the court laugh. But he knew well enough that
somewhere in Toledo or Valladolid the next court jester was being
trained to good manners and instructed in the art of wit, to take the
vacant place when he should die. It pleased him therefore sometimes to
look down at the great assemblies from the gallery and to reflect that
all those magnificent fine gentlemen and tenderly nurtured beauties of
Spain were to die also, and that there was scarcely one of them, man or
woman, for whose death some one was not waiting, and waiting perhaps
with evil anxiety and longing. They were splendid to see, those fair
women in their brocades and diamonds, those dark young princesses and
duchesses in velvet and in pearls. He dreamed of them sometimes,
fancying himself one of those Djin of the southern mountains of whom the
Moors told blood-curdling tales, and in the dream he flew down from the
gallery on broad, black wings and carried off the youngest and most
beautiful, straight to his magic fortress above the sea.

They never knew that he was sometimes up there, and on this evening he
did not wait long, for he had his message to deliver and must be in
waiting on the King before the royal train entered the throne room.
After he was gone, the courtiers waited long, and more and more came in
from without. Now and then the crowd parted as best it might, to allow
some grandee who wore the order of the Golden Fleece or of some other
exalted order, to lead his lady nearer to the throne, as was his right,
advancing with measured steps, and bowing gravely to the right and left
as he passed up to the front among his peers. And just behind them, on
one aide, the young girls, of whom many were to be presented to the King
and Queen that night, drew together and talked in laughing whispers,
gathering in groups and knots of three and four, in a sort of irregular
rank behind their mothers or the elder ladies who were to lead them to
the royal presence and pronounce their names. There was more light where
they were gathered, the shadows were few and soft, the colours tender as
the tints of roses in a garden at sunset, and from the place where they
stood the sound of young voices came silvery and clear. That should have
been Inez de Mendoza's place if she had not been blind. But Inez had
never been willing to be there, though she had more than once found her
way to the gallery where the dwarf had stood, and had listened, and
smelled the odour of the wax candles and the perfumes that rose with the
heated air.

It was long before the great doors on the right hand of the canopy were
thrown open, but courtiers are accustomed from their childhood to long
waiting, and the greater part of their occupation at court is to see and
to be seen, and those who can do both and can take pleasure in either
are rarely impatient. Moreover, many found an opportunity of exchanging
quick words and of making sudden plans for meeting, who would have found
it hard to exchange a written message, and who had few chances of seeing
each other in the ordinary course of their lives; and others had waited
long to deliver a cutting speech, well studied and tempered to hurt, and
sought their enemies in the crowd with the winning smile a woman wears
to deal her keenest thrust. There were men, too, who had great interests
at stake and sought the influence of such as lived near the King,
flattering every one who could possibly be of use, and coolly
overlooking any who had a matter of their own to press, though they were
of their own kin. Many officers of Don John's army were there, too,
bright-eyed and bronzed from their campaigning, and ready to give their
laurels for roses, leaf by leaf, with any lady of the court who would
make a fair exchange--and of these there were not a few, and the time
seemed short to them. There were also ecclesiastics, but not many, in
sober black and violet garments, and they kept together in one corner
and spoke a jargon of Latin and Spanish which the courtiers could not
understand; and all who were there, the great courtiers and the small,
the bishops and the canons, the stout princesses laced to suffocation
and to the verge of apoplexy, and fanning themselves desperately in the
heat, and their slim, dark-eyed daughters, cool and laughing--they were
all gathered together to greet Spain's youngest and greatest hero, Don
John of Austria, who had won back Granada from the Moors.

As the doors opened at last, a distant blast of silver trumpets rang in
from without, and the full chorus of speaking voices was hushed to a
mere breathing that died away to breathless silence during a few moments
as the greatest sovereign of the age, and one of the strangest figures
of all time, appeared before his court. The Grand Master of Ceremonies
entered first, in his robe of office, bearing a long white staff. In the
stillness his voice rang out to the ends of the hall:

"His Majesty the King! Her Majesty the Queen!"

Then came a score of halberdiers of the guard, picked men of great
stature, marching in even steps, led by old Mendoza himself, in his
breastplate and helmet, sword in hand; and he drew up the guard at one
side in a rank, making them pass him so that he stood next to the door.

After the guards came Philip the Second, a tall and melancholy figure;
and with him, on his left side, walked the young Queen, a small, thin
figure in white, with sad eyes and a pathetic face--wondering, perhaps,
whether she was to follow soon those other queens who had walked by the
same King to the same court, and had all died before their time--Mary of
Portugal, Mary of England, Isabel of Valois.

The King was one of those men who seem marked by destiny rather than by
nature, fateful, sombre, almost repellent in manner, born to inspire a
vague fear at first sight, and foreordained to strange misfortune or to
extraordinary success, one of those human beings from whom all men
shrink instinctively, and before whom they easily lose their fluency of
speech and confidence of thought. Unnaturally still eyes, of an
uncertain colour, gazed with a terrifying fixedness upon a human world,
and were oddly set in the large and perfectly colourless face that was
like an exaggerated waxen mask. The pale lips did not meet evenly, the
lower one protruding, forced, outward by the phenomenal jaw that has
descended to this day in the House of Austria. A meagre beard, so fair
that it looked faded, accentuated the chin rather than concealed it, and
the hair on the head was of the same undecided tone, neither thin nor
thick, neither long nor short, but parted, and combed with the utmost
precision about the large but very finely moulded ears. The brow was
very full as well as broad, and the forehead high, the whole face too
large, even for a man so tall, and disquieting in its proportions.
Philip bent his head forward a little when at rest; when he looked about
him it moved with something of the slow, sure motion of a piece of
mechanism, stopping now and then, as the look in the eyes solidified to
a stare, and then, moving again, until curiosity was satisfied and it
resumed its first attitude, and remained motionless, whether the lips
were speaking or not.

Very tall and thin, and narrow chested, the figure was clothed all in
cream-coloured silk and silver, relieved only by the collar of the
Golden Fleece, the solitary order the King wore. His step was ungraceful
and slow, as if his thin limbs bore his light weight with difficulty,
and he sometimes stumbled in walking. One hand rested on the hilt of his
sword as he walked, and even under the white gloves the immense length
of the fingers and the proportionate development of the long thumb were
clearly apparent. No one could have guessed that in such a figure there
could be much elasticity or strength, and yet, at rare moments and when
younger, King Philip displayed such strength and energy and quickness as
might well have made him the match of ordinary men. As a rule his anger
was slow, thoughtful, and dangerous, as all his schemes were vast and
far-reaching.

With the utmost deliberation, and without so much as glancing at the
courtiers assembled, he advanced to the throne and sat down, resting
both hands on the gilded arms of the great chair; and the Queen took her
place beside him. But before he had settled himself, there was a low
sound of suppressed delight in the hall, a moving of heads, a
brightening of women's eyes, a little swaying of men's shoulders as they
tried to see better over those who stood before them; and voices rose
here and there above the murmur, though not loudly, and were joined by
others. Then the King's waxen face darkened, though the expression did
not change and the still eyes did not move, but as if something passed
between it and the light, leaving it grey in the shadow. He did not turn
to look, for he knew that his brother had entered the throne room and
that every eye was upon him.

Don John was all in dazzling white--white velvet, white satin, white
silk, white lace, white shoes, and wearing neither sword nor ornament of
any kind, the most faultless vision of young and manly grace that ever
glided through a woman's dream.

His place was on the King's right, and he passed along the platform of
the throne with an easy, unhesitating step, and an almost boyish smile
of pleasure at the sounds he heard, and at the flutter of excitement
that was in the air, rather to be felt than otherwise perceived. Coming
up the steps of the throne, he bent one knee before his brother, who
held out his ungloved hand for him to kiss--and when that was done, he
knelt again before the Queen, who did likewise. Then, bowing low as he
passed back before the King, he descended one step and took the chair
set for him in the place that was for the royal princes.

He was alone there, for Philip was again childless at his fourth
marriage, and it was not until long afterwards that a son was born who
lived to succeed him; and there were no royal princesses in Madrid, so
that Don John was his brother's only near blood relation at the court,
and since he had been acknowledged he would have had his place by right,
even if he had not beaten the Moriscoes in the south and won back
Granada.

After him came the high Ministers of State and the ambassadors in a rich
and stately train, led in by Don Antonio Perez, the King's new
favourite, a man of profound and evil intelligence, upon whom Philip was
to rely almost entirely during ten years, whom he almost tortured to
death for his crimes, and who in the end escaped him, outlived him, and
died a natural death, in Paris, when nearly eighty. With these came also
the court ladies, the Queen's Mistress of the Robes, and the maids of
honour, and with the ladies was Doña Ana de la Cerda, Princess of Eboli
and Melito and Duchess of Pastrana, the wife of old Don Ruy Gomez de
Silva, the Minister. It was said that she ruled her husband, and Antonio
Perez and the King himself, and that she was faithless to all three.

She was not more than thirty years of age at that time, and she looked
younger when seen in profile. But one facing her might have thought her
older from the extraordinary and almost masculine strength of her small
head and face, compact as a young athlete's, too square for a woman's,
with high cheekbones, deep-set black eyes and eyebrows that met between
them, and a cruel red mouth that always curled a little just when she
was going to speak, and showed extraordinarily perfect little teeth,
when the lips parted. Yet she was almost beautiful when she was not
angry or in a hurtful mood. The dark complexion was as smooth as a
perfect peach, and tinged with warm colour, and her eyes could be like
black opals, and no woman in Spain or Andalusia could match her for
grace of figure and lightness of step.

Others came after in the long train. Then, last of all, at a little
distance from the rest, the jester entered, affecting a very dejected
air. He stood still a while on the platform, looking about as if to see
whether a seat had been reserved for him, and then, shaking his head
sadly, he crouched down, a heap of scarlet velvet with a man's face,
just at Don John's feet, and turning a little towards him, so as to
watch his eyes. But Don John would not look at him, and was surprised
that he should put himself there, having just been dismissed with a
sharp reprimand for bringing women's messages.

The ceremony, if it can be called by that name, began almost as soon as
all were seated. At a sign from the King, Don Antonio Perez rose and
read out a document which he had brought in his hand. It was a sort of
throne speech, and set forth briefly, in very measured terms, the
results of the long campaign against the Moriscoes, according high
praise to the army in general, and containing a few congratulatory
phrases addressed to Don John himself. The audience of nobles listened
attentively, and whenever the leader's name occurred, the suppressed
flutter of enthusiasm ran through the hall like a breeze that stirs
forest leaves in summer; but when the King was mentioned the silence was
dead and unbroken. Don John sat quite still, looking down a little, and
now and then his colour deepened perceptibly. The speech did not hint at
any reward or further distinction to be conferred on him.

When Perez had finished reading, he paused a moment, and the hand that
held the paper fell to his side. Then he raised his voice to a higher
key.

"God save his Majesty Don Philip Second!" be cried. "Long live the
King!"

The courtiers answered the cheer, but moderately, as a matter of course,
and without enthusiasm, repeating it three times. But at the last time a
single woman's voice, high and clear above all the rest, cried out other
words.

"God save Don John of Austria! Long live Don John of Austria!"

The whole multitude of men and women was stirred at once, for every
heart was in the cheer, and in an instant, courtiers though they were,
the King was forgotten, the time, the place, and the cry went up all at
once, full, long and loud, shaming the one that had gone before it.

King Philip's hands strained at the arms of his great chair, and he half
rose, as if to command silence; and Don John, suddenly pale, had half
risen, too, stretching out his open hand in a gesture of deprecation,
while the Queen watched him with timidly admiring eyes, and the dark
Princess of Eboli's dusky lids drooped to hide her own, for she was
watching him also, but with other thoughts. For a few seconds longer,
the cheers followed each other, and then they died away to a comparative
silence. The dwarf rocked himself, his head between his knees, at Don
John's feet.

"God save the Fool!" he cried softly, mimicking the cheer, and he seemed
to shake all over, as he sat huddled together, swinging himself to and
fro.

But no one noticed what he said, for the King had risen to his feet as
soon as there was silence. He spoke in a muffled tone that made his
words hard to understand, and those who knew him best saw that he was
very angry. The Princess of Eboli's red lips curled scornfully as she
listened, and unnoticed she exchanged a meaning glance with Antonio
Perez; for he and she were allies, and often of late they had talked
long together, and had drawn sharp comparisons between the King and his
brother, and the plan they had made was to destroy the King and to crown
Don John of Austria in his place; but the woman's plot was deeper, and
both were equally determined that Don John should not marry without
their consent, and that if he did, his marriage should not hold, unless,
as was probable, his young wife should fall ill and die of a sickness
unknown to physicians.

All had risen with the King, and he addressed Don John amidst the most
profound silence.

"My brother," he said, "your friends have taken upon themselves
unnecessarily to use the words we would have used, and to express to you
their enthusiasm for your success in a manner unknown at the court of
Spain. Our one voice, rendering you the thanks that are your due, can
hardly give you great satisfaction after what you have heard just now.
Yet we presume that the praise of others cannot altogether take the
place of your sovereign's at such a moment, and we formally thank you
for the admirable performance of the task entrusted to you, promising
that before long your services shall be required for an even more
arduous undertaking. It is not in our power to confer upon you any
personal distinction or public office higher than you already hold, as
our brother, and as High Admiral of Spain; but we trust the day is not
far distant when a marriage befitting your rank may place you on a level
with kings."

Don John had moved a step forward from his place and stood before the
King, who, at the end of his short speech, put his long arms over his
brother's shoulders, and proceeded to embrace him in a formal manner by
applying one cheek to his and solemnly kissing the air behind Don John's
head, a process which the latter imitated as nearly as he could. The
court looked on in silence at the ceremony, ill satisfied with Philip's
cold words. The King drew back, and Don John returned to his place. As
he reached it the dwarf jester made a ceremonious obeisance and handed
him a glove which he had dropped as he came forward. As he took it he
felt that it contained a letter, which made a slight sound when his hand
crumpled it inside the glove. Annoyed by the fool's persistence, Don
John's eyes hardened as he looked at the crooked face, and almost
imperceptibly he shook his head. But the dwarf was as grave as he, and
slightly bent his own, clasping his hands in a gesture of supplication.
Don John reflected that the matter must be one of importance this time,
as Adonis would not otherwise have incurred the risk of passing the
letter to him under the eyes of the King and the whole court.

Then followed the long and tedious procession of the court past the
royal pair, who remained seated, while all the rest stood up, including
Don John himself, to whom a master of ceremonies presented the persons
unknown to him, and who were by far the more numerous. To the men, old
and young, great or insignificant, he gave his hand with frank
cordiality. To the women he courteously bowed his head. A full hour
passed before it was over, and still he grasped the glove with the
crumpled letter in his hand, while the dwarf stood at a little distance,
watching in case it should fall; and as the Duchess Alvarez and the
Princess of Eboli presented the ladies of Madrid to the young Queen, the
Princess often looked at Don John and often at the jester from beneath
her half-dropped lids. But she did not make a single mistake of names
nor of etiquette, though her mind was much preoccupied with other
matters.

The Queen was timidly gracious to every one; but Philip's face was
gloomy, and his fixed eyes hardly seemed to see the faces of the
courtiers as they passed before him, nor did he open his lips to address
a word to any of them, though some were old and faithful servants of his
own and of his father's.

In his manner, in his silence, in the formality of the ceremony, there
was the whole spirit of the Spanish dominion. It was sombrely
magnificent, and it was gravely cruel; it adhered to the forms of
sovereignty as rigidly as to the outward practices of religion; its
power extended to the ends of the world, and the most remote countries
sent their homage and obeisance to its head; and beneath the dark
splendour that surrounded its gloomy sovereigns there was passion and
hatred and intrigue. Beside Don John of Austria stood Antonio Perez, and
under the same roof with Dolores de Mendoza dwelt Ana de la Cerda,
Princess of Eboli, and in the midst of them all Miguel de Antona, the
King's fool.

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER VII


When the ceremony was over, and every one on the platform and steps of
the throne moved a little in order to make way for the royal personages,
making a slight momentary confusion, Adonis crept up behind Don John,
and softly touched his sleeve to attract his attention. Don John looked
round quickly, and was annoyed to see the dwarf there. He did not notice
the fact that Doña Ana de la Cerda was watching them both, looking
sideways without turning her head.

"It is a matter of importance," said the jester, in a low voice. "Read
it before supper if you can."

Don John looked at him a moment, and turned away without answering, or
even making a sign that he understood. The dwarf met Doña Ana's eyes,
and grew slowly pale, till his face was a yellow mask; for he feared
her.

The door on the other side of the throne was opened, and the King and
Queen, followed by Don John, and preceded by the Master of Ceremonies,
went out. The dwarf, who was privileged, went after them with his
strange, rolling step, his long arms hanging down and swinging
irregularly, as if they did not belong to his body, but were only
stuffed things that hung loose from his shoulders.

As on all such state occasions, there were separate suppers, in separate
apartments, one for the King, and one for the ministers of state and the
high courtiers; thirdly, a vast collation was spread in a hall on the
other side of the throne room for the many nobles who were but guests at
the court and held no office nor had any special privileges. It was the
custom at that time that the supper should last an hour, after which all
reëntered the throne room to dance, except the King and Queen, who
either retired to the royal apartments, or came back for a short time
and remained standing on the floor of the hall, in order to converse
with a few of the grandees and ambassadors.

The royal party supped in a sombre room of oval shape, dark with
tapestries and splendid with gold. The King and Queen sat side by side,
and Don John was placed opposite them at the table, of which the shape
and outline corresponded on a small scale with those of the room. Four
or five gentlemen, whose office it was, served the royal couple,
receiving the dishes and wines from the hands of the chief butler; and
he, with two other servants in state liveries, waited on Don John.
Everything was most exactly ordered according to the unchangeable rules
of the most formal court in Europe, not even excepting that of Rome.

Philip sat in gloomy silence, eating nothing, but occasionally drinking
a little Tokay wine, brought with infinite precaution from Hungary to
Madrid. As be said nothing, neither the Queen nor Don John could speak,
it being ordained that the King must be the first to open his lips. The
Queen, however, being young and of a good constitution in spite of her
almost delicate appearance, began to taste everything that was set
before her, glancing timidly at her husband, who took no notice of her,
or pretended not to do so. Don John, soldier-like, made a sparing supper
of the first thing that was offered to him, and then sat silently
watching the other two. He understood very well that his brother wished
to see him in private, and was annoyed that the Queen should make the
meal last longer than necessary. The dwarf understood also, and smiled
to himself in the corner where he stood waiting in case the King should
wish to be amused, which on that particular evening seemed far from
likely. But sometimes he turned pale and his lips twisted a little as if
he were suffering great pain; for Don John had not yet read the letter
that was hidden in his glove; and Adonis saw in the dark corners of the
room the Princess of Eboli's cruel half-closed eyes, and he fancied he
heard her deep voice, that almost always spoke very sweetly, telling him
again and again that if Don John did not read her letter before he met
the King alone that night, Adonis should before very long cease to be
court jester, and indeed cease to be anything at all that 'eats and
drinks and sleeps and wears a coat'--as Dante had said. What Doña Ana
said she would do, was as good as done already, both then and for nine
years from that time, but thereafter she paid for all her deeds, and
more too. But this history is not concerned with those matters, being
only the story of what happened in one night at the old Alcazar of
Madrid.

King Philip sat a little bent in his chair, apparently staring at a
point in space, and not opening his lips except to drink. But his
presence filled the shadowy room, his large and yellowish face seemed to
be all visible from every part of it, and his still eyes dominated
everything and every one, except his brother. It was as if the
possession of some supernatural and evil being were stealing slowly upon
all who were there; as if a monstrous spider sat absolutely motionless
in the midst of its web, drawing everything within reach to itself by
the unnatural fascination of its lidless sight--as if the gentlemen in
waiting were but helpless flies, circling nearer and nearer, to be
caught at last in the meshes, and the Queen a bright butterfly, and Don
John a white moth, already taken and soon to be devoured. The dwarf
thought of this in his corner, and his blood was chilled, for three
queens lay in their tombs in three dim cathedrals, and she who sat at
table was the fourth who had supped with the royal Spider in his web.
Adonis watched him, and the penetrating fear he had long known crept all
through him like the chill that shakes a man before a marsh fever, so
that he had to set his teeth with all his might, lest they should
chatter audibly. As he looked, he fancied that in the light of the waxen
torches the King's face turned by degrees to an ashy grey, and then more
slowly to a shadowy yellow again, as he had seen a spider's ugly body
change colour when the flies came nearer, and change again when one was
entangled in the threads. He thought that the faces of all the people in
the room changed, too, and that he saw in them the look that only near
and certain death can bring, which is in the eyes of him who goes out
with bound hands, at dawn, amongst other men who will see the rising sun
shine on his dead face. That fear came on the dwarf sometimes, and he
dreaded always lest at that moment the King should call to him and bid
him sing or play with words. But this had never happened yet. There were
others in the room, also, who knew something of that same terror, though
in a less degree, perhaps because they knew Philip less well than the
jester, who was almost always near him. But Don John sat quietly in his
place, no more realizing that there could be danger than if he had been
charging the Moors at the head of his cavalry, or fighting a man hand to
hand with drawn swords.

But still the fear grew, and even the gentlemen and the servants
wondered, for it had never happened that the King had not at last broken
the silence at supper, so that all guessed trouble near at hand, and
peril for themselves. The Queen grew nervous and ceased to eat. She
looked from Philip to Don John, and more than once seemed about to
speak, but recollected herself and checked the words. Her hand shook and
her thin young nostrils quivered now and then. Evil was gathering in the
air, and she felt it approaching, though she could not tell whence it
came. A sort of tension took possession of every one, like what people
feel in southern countries when the southeast wind blows, or when,
almost without warning, the fresh sea-breeze dies away to a dead calm
and the blackness rises like a tide of pitch among the mountains of the
coast, sending up enormous clouds above it to the pale sky, and lying
quite still below; and the air grows lurid quickly, and heavy to breathe
and sultry, till the tempest breaks in lightning and-thunder and
drenching rain.

In the midst of the brewing storm the dwarf saw only the Spider in its
web, illuminated by the unearthly glare of his own fear, and with it the
frightened butterfly and the beautiful silver moth, that had never
dreamed of danger. He shrank against the hangings, pressing backwards
till he hurt his crooked back against the stone wall behind the
tapestry, and could have shrieked with fear had not a greater fear made
him dumb. He felt that the King was going to speak to him, and that he
should not be able to answer him. A horrible thought suddenly seized
him, and he fancied that the King had seen him slip the letter into Don
John's glove, and would ask for it, and take it, and read it--and that
would be the end. Thrills of torment ran through him, and he knew how it
must feel to lie bound on the rack and to hear the executioner's hands
on the wheel, ready to turn it again at the judge's word. He had seen a
man tortured once, and remembered his face. He was sure that the King
must have seen the letter, and that meant torment and death, and the
King was angry also because the court had cheered Don John. It was
treason, and he knew it--yet it would have been certain death, too, to
refuse to obey Doña Ana. There was destruction on either side, and he
could not escape. Don John had not read the writing yet, and if the King
asked for it, he would probably give it to him without a thought,
unopened, for he was far too simple to imagine that any one could accuse
him of a treasonable thought, and too boyishly frank to fancy that his
brother could be jealous of him--above all, he was too modest to suppose
that there were thousands who would have risked their lives to set him
on the throne of Spain. He would therefore give the King the letter
unopened, unless, believing it to be a love message from some foolish
woman, he chose to tear it up unread. The wretched jester knew that
either would mean his own disgrace and death, and he quivered with agony
from head to foot.

The lights moved up and down before his sight, the air grew heavier, the
royal Spider took gigantic proportions, and its motionless eyes were
lurid with evil It was about to turn to him; he felt it turning already,
and knew that it saw him in his corner, and meant to draw him to it,
very slowly. In a moment he should fall to the floor a senseless heap,
out of deadly fear--it would be well if his fear really killed him, but
he could not even hope for that. His hands gripped the hangings on each
side of him as he shrank and crushed his deformity against the wall.
Surely the King was taming his head. Yes--he was right. He felt his
short hair rising on his scalp and unearthly sounds screamed in his
ears. The terrible eyes were upon him now, but he could not move hand or
foot--if he had been nailed to the wall to die, he could not have been
so helpless.

Philip eyed him with cold curiosity, for it was not an illusion, and he
was really looking steadily at the dwarf. After a long time, his
protruding lower lip moved two or three times before he spoke. The
jester should have come forward at his first glance, to answer any
question asked him. Instead, his colourless lips were parted and tightly
drawn back, and his teeth were chattering, do what he could to close
them. The Queen and Don John followed the King's gaze and looked at the
dwarf in surprise, for his agony was painfully visible.

"He looks as if he were in an ague," observed Philip, as though he were
watching a sick dog.

He had spoken at last, and the fear of silence was removed. An audible
sigh of relief was heard in the room.

"Poor man!" exclaimed the Queen. "I am afraid he is very ill!"

"It is more like--" began Don John, and then he checked himself, for he
had been on the point of saying that the dwarfs fit looked more like
physical fear than illness, for he had more than once seen men afraid of
death; but he remembered the letter in his glove and thought the words
might rouse Philip's suspicions.

"What was your Serene Highness about to say?" enquired the King,
speaking coldly, and laying stress on the formal title which he had
himself given Don John the right to use.

"As your Majesty says, it is very like the chill of a fever," replied
Don John.

But it was already passing, for Adonis was not a natural coward, and the
short conversation of the royal personages had broken the spell that
held him, or had at least diminished its power. When he had entered the
room he had been quite sure that no one except the Princess had seen him
slip the letter into Don John's glove. That quieting belief began to
return, his jaw became steady, and he relaxed his hold on the
tapestries, and even advanced half a step towards the table.

"And now he seems better," said the King, in evident surprise. "What
sort of illness is this, Fool? If you cannot explain it, you shall be
sent to bed, and the physicians shall practise experiments upon your
vile body, until they find out what your complaint is, for the
advancement of their learning."

"They would advance me more than their science, Sire," answered Adonis,
in a voice that still quaked with past fear, "for they would send me to
paradise at once and learn nothing that they wished to know."

"That is probable," observed Don John, thoughtfully, for he had little
belief in medicine generally, and none at all in the present case.

"May it please your Majesty," said Adonis, taking heart a little, "there
are musk melons on the table."

"Well, what of that?" asked the King.

"The sight of melons on your Majesty's table almost kills me," answered
the dwarf.

"Are you so fond of them that you cannot bear to see them? You shall
have a dozen and be made to eat them all. That will cure your abominable
greediness."

"Provided that the King had none himself, I would eat all the rest,
until I died of a surfeit of melons like your Majesty's great-grandsire
of glorious and happy memory, the Emperor Maximilian."

Philip turned visibly pale, for he feared illness and death as few have
feared either.

"Why has no one ever told me that?" he asked in a muffled and angry
voice, looking round the room, so that the gentlemen and servants shrank
back a little.

No one answered his question, for though the fact was true, it had been
long forgotten, and it would have been hard for any of those present to
realize that the King would fear a danger so far removed. But the dwarf
knew him well.

"Let there be no more melons," said Philip, rising abruptly, and still
pale.

Don John had suppressed a smile, and was taken unawares when the King
rose, so that in standing up instantly, as was necessary according to
the rules, his gloves slipped from his knees, where he had kept them
during supper, to the floor, and a moment passed before he realized that
they were not in his hand. He was still in his place, for the King had
not yet left his own, being engaged in saying a Latin grace in a low
tone, He crossed himself devoutly, and an instant later Don John stooped
down and picked up what he had dropped. Philip could not but notice the
action, and his suspicions were instantly roused.

"What have you found?" he asked sharply, his eyes fixing themselves
again.

"My gloves, Sire. I dropped them."

"And are gloves such precious possessions that Don John of Austria must
stoop to pick them up himself?"

Adonis began to tremble again, and all his fear returned, so that he
almost staggered against the wall. The Queen looked on in surprise, for
she had not been Philip's wife many months. Don John was unconcerned,
and laughed in reply to the question.

"It chances that after long campaigning these are the only new white
gloves Don John of Austria possesses," he answered lightly.

"Let me see them," said the King, extending his hand, and smiling
suddenly.

With some deliberation Don John presented one of the gloves to his
brother, who took it and pretended to examine it critically, still
smiling. He turned it over several times, while Adonis looked on,
gasping for breath, but unnoticed.

"The other," said Philip calmly.

Adonis tried to suppress a groan, and his eyes were fixed on Don John's
face. Would he refuse? Would he try to extract the letter from the glove
under his brother's eyes? Would he give it up?

Don John did none of those things, and there was not the least change of
colour in his cheek. Without any attempt at concealment he took the
letter from its hiding-place, and held out the empty glove with his
other hand. The King drew back, and his face grew very grey and shadowy
with anger.

"What have you in your other hand?" he asked in a voice indistinct with
passion.

"A lady's letter, Sire," replied Don John, unmoved.

"Give it to me at once!"

"That, your Majesty, is a request I will not grant to any gentleman in
Spain."

He undid a button of his close-fitting doublet, thrust the letter into
the opening and fastened the button again, before the King could speak.
The dwarf's heart almost stood still with joy,--he could have crawled to
Don John's feet to kiss the dust from his shoes. The Queen smiled
nervously, between fear of the one man and admiration for the other.

"Your Serene Highness," answered Philip, with a frightful stare, "is the
first gentleman of Spain who has disobeyed his sovereign."

"May I be the last, your Majesty," said Don John, with a courtly gesture
which showed well enough that he had no intention of changing his mind.

The King turned from him coldly and spoke to Adonis, who had almost got
his courage back a second time.

"You gave my message to his Highness, Fool?" he asked, controlling his
voice, but not quite steadying it to a natural tone.

"Yes, Sire."

"Go and tell Don Antonio Perez to come at once to me in my own
apartments."

The dwarf bent till his crooked back was high above his head, and he
stepped backwards towards the door through which the servants had
entered and gone out. When he had disappeared, Philip turned and, as if
nothing had happened, gave his hand to the Queen to lead her away with
all the prescribed courtesy that was her due. The servants opened wide
the door, two gentlemen placed themselves on each side of it, the chief
gentleman in waiting went before, and the royal couple passed out,
followed at a little distance by Don John, who walked unconcernedly,
swinging his right glove carelessly in his hand as he went. The four
gentlemen walked last. In the hall beyond, Mendoza was in waiting with
the guards.

A little while after they were all gone, Adonis came back from his
errand, with his rolling step, and searched for the other glove on the
floor, where the King had dropped it. He found it there at once and hid
it in his doubtlet. No one was in the room, for the servants had
disappeared as soon as they could. The dwarf went quickly to Don John's
place, took a Venetian goblet full of untasted wine that stood there and
drank it at a draught. Then he patted himself comfortably with his other
hand and looked thoughtfully at the slices of musk melon that lay in the
golden dish flanked by other dishes full of late grapes and pears.

"God bless the Emperor Maximilian!" he said in a devout tone. "Since he
could not live for ever, it was a special grace of Providence that his
death should be by melons."

Then he went away again, and softly closed the door behind him, after
looking back once more to be sure that no one was there after all, and
perhaps, as people sometimes do on leaving a place where they have
escaped a great danger, fixing its details unconsciously in his memory,
with something almost akin to gratitude, as if the lifeless things had
run the risk with them and thus earned their lasting friendship. Thus
every man who has been to sea knows how, when his vessel has been hove
to in a storm for many hours, perhaps during more than one day, within a
few miles of the same spot, the sea there grows familiar to him as a
landscape to a landsman, so that when the force of the gale is broken at
last and the sea subsides to a long swell, and the ship is wore to the
wind and can lay her course once more, he looks astern at the grey water
he has learned to know so well and feels that he should know it again if
he passed that way, and he leaves it with a faint sensation of regret.
So Adonis, the jester, left the King's supper-room that night, devoutly
thanking Heaven that the Emperor Maximilian had died of eating too many
melons more than a hundred and fifty years ago.

Meanwhile, the King had left the Queen at the door of her apartments,
and had dismissed Don John in angry silence by a gesture only, as he
went on to his study. And when there, he sent away his gentlemen and
bade that no one should disturb him, and that only Don Antonio Perez,
the new favourite, should be admitted. The supper had scarcely lasted
half an hour, and it was still early in the evening when he found
himself alone and was able to reflect upon what had happened, and upon
what it would be best to do to rid himself of his brother, the hero and
idol of Spain.

He did not admit that Don John of Austria could be allowed to live on,
unmolested, as if he had not openly refused to obey an express command
and as if he were not secretly plotting to get possession of the throne.
That was impossible. During more than two years, Don John's popularity,
not only with the people, but with the army, which was a much more
serious matter, had been steadily growing; and with it and even faster
than it, the King's jealousy and hatred had grown also, till it had
become a matter of common discussion and jest among the soldiers when
their officers were out of hearing.

But though it was without real cause, it was not without apparent
foundation. As Philip slowly paced the floor of his most private room,
with awkward, ungainly steps, stumbling more than once against a cushion
that lay before his great armchair, he saw clearly before him the whole
dimensions of that power to which he had unwillingly raised his brother.
The time had been short, but the means used had been great, for they had
been intended to be means of destruction, and the result was tremendous
when they turned against him who used them. Philip was old enough to
have been Don John's father, and he remembered how indifferent he had
been to the graceful boy of twelve, whom they called Juan Quixada, when
he had been brought to the old court at Valladolid and acknowledged as a
son of the Emperor Charles. Though he was his brother, Philip had not
even granted him the privilege of living in the palace then, and had
smiled at the idea that he should be addressed as "Serene Highness."
Even as a boy, he had been impatient to fight; and Philip remembered how
he was always practising with the sword or performing wild feats of
skill and strength upon half-broken horses, except when he was kept to
his books by Doña Magdalena Quixada, the only person in the world whom
he ever obeyed without question. Every one had loved the boy from the
first, and Philip's jealousy had begun from that; for he, who was loved
by none and feared by all, craved popularity and common affection, and
was filled with bitter resentment against the world that obeyed him but
refused him what he most desired.

Little more than ten years had passed since the boy had come, and he had
neither died a natural death nor fallen in battle, and was grown up to
young manhood, and was by far the greatest man in Spain. He had been
treated as an inferior, the people had set him up as a god. He had been
sent out to command expeditions that be might fail and be disgraced; but
he had shown deeper wisdom than his elders, and had come back covered
with honour; and now he had been commanded to fight out the final battle
of Spain with the Moriscoes, in the hope that he might die in the fight,
since he could not be dishonoured, and instead he had returned in
triumph, having utterly subdued the fiercest warriors in Europe, to reap
the ripe harvest of his military glory at an age when other men were in
the leading-strings of war's school, and to be acclaimed a hero as well
as a favourite by a court that could hardly raise a voice to cheer for
its own King. Ten years had done all that. Ten more, or even five, might
do the rest. The boy could not be without ambition, and there could be
no ambition for him of which the object should be less than a throne.
And yet no word had been breathed against him,--his young reputation was
charmed, as his life was. In vain Philip had bidden Antonio Perez and
the Princess of Eboli use all their wits and skill to prove that he was
plotting to seize the crown. They answered that he loved a girl of the
court, Mendoza's daughter, and that besides war, for war's sake, he
cared for nothing in the world but Dolores and his adopted mother.

They spoke the truth, for they had reason to know it, having used every
means in their power to find out whether he could be induced to quarrel
with Philip and enter upon a civil war, which could have had but one
issue, since all Spain would have risen to proclaim him king. He had
been tempted by questions, and led into discussions in which it seemed
certain that he must give them some hope. But they and their agents lost
heart before the insuperable obstacle of the young prince's loyalty. It
was simple, unaffected, and without exaggeration. He never drew his
sword and kissed the blade, and swore by the Blessed Virgin to give his
last drop of blood for his sovereign and his country. He never made
solemn vows to accomplish ends that looked impossible. But when the
charge sounded, he pressed his steel cap a little lower upon his brow,
and settled himself in the saddle without any words and rode at death
like the devil incarnate; and then men followed him, and the impossible
was done, and that was all. Or he could wait and watch, and manoeuvre
for weeks, until he had his foe in his hand, with a patience that would
have failed his officers and his men, had they not seen him always ready
and cheerful, and fully sure that although he might fail twenty times to
drive the foe into the pen, he should most certainly succeed in the
end,--as he always did.

Philip paced the chamber in deep and angry thought. If at that moment
any one had offered to rid him of his brother, the reward would have
been ready, and worth a murderer's taking. But the King had long
cherished the scheme of marrying Don John to Queen Mary of
Scotland,--whose marriage with Bothwell could easily be annulled--in
order that his presumptuous ambition might be satisfied, and at the same
time that he might make of his new kingdom a powerful ally of Spain
against Elizabeth of England. It was for this reason that he had long
determined to prevent his brother's marriage with Maria Dolores de
Mendoza. Perez and Doña Ana de la Cerda, on the other hand, feared that
if Don John were allowed to marry the girl he so devotedly loved, he
would forget everything for her, give up campaigning, and settle to the
insignificance of a thoroughly happy man. For they knew the world well
from their own point of view. Happiness is often like sadness, for it
paralyzes those to whose lot it falls; but pain and danger rouse man's
strength of mind and body.

Yet though the King and his treacherous favourite had diametrically
opposite intentions, a similar thought had crossed the minds of both,
even before Don John had ridden up to the palace gate late on that
afternoon, from his last camping ground outside the city walls. Both had
reasoned that whoever was to influence a man so straightforward and
fearless must have in his power and keeping the person for whom Don John
would make the greatest sacrifice of his life; and that person, as both
knew, was Dolores herself. Yet when Antonio Perez entered Philip's
study, neither had guessed the other's thought.

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER VIII


The court had been still at supper when Adonis had summoned Don Antonio
Perez to the King, and the Secretary, as he was usually called, had been
obliged to excuse his sudden departure by explaining that the King had
sent for him unexpectedly. He was not even able to exchange a word with
Doña Ana, who was seated at another of the three long tables and at some
distance from him. She understood, however, and looked after him
anxiously. His leaving was not signal for the others, but it caused a
little stir which unhinged the solemn formality of the supper. The
Ambassador of the Holy Roman Empire presently protested that he was
suffering from an unbearable headache, and the Princess of Eboli, next
to whom he was seated, begged him not to stand upon ceremony, since
Perez was gone from the room, but to order his coach at once; she found
it hot, she said, and would be glad to escape. The two rose together,
and others followed their example, until the few who would have stayed
longer were constrained to imitate the majority. When Mendoza, relieved
at last from his duty, went towards the supper-room to take the place
that was kept for him at one of the tables, he met Doña Ana in the
private corridor through which the officers and ladies of the household
passed to the state apartments. He stood still, surprised to see her
there.

"The supper is over," she said, stopping also, and trying to scrutinize
the hard old face by the dim light of the lamps. "May I have a word with
you, General? Let us walk together to your apartments."

"It is far, Madam," observed Mendoza, who suspected at once that she
wished to see Dolores.

"I shall be glad to walk a little, and breathe the air," she answered.
"Your corridor has arches open to the air, I remember." She began to
walk, and he was obliged to accompany her. "Yes," she continued
indifferently, "we have had such changeable weather to-day! This morning
it almost snowed, then it rained, then it, began to freeze, and now it
feels like summer! I hope Dolores has not taken cold? Is she ill? She
was not at court before supper."

"The weather is indeed very changeable," replied the General, who did
not know what to say, and considered it beneath his dignity to lie
except by order of the King.

"Yes--yes, I was saying so, was I not? But Dolores--is she ill? Please
tell me." The Princess spoke almost anxiously.

"No, Madam, my daughters are well, so far as I know."

"But then, my dear General, it is strange that you should not have sent
an excuse for Dolores' not appearing. That is the rule, you know. May I
ask why you ventured to break it?" Her tone grew harder by degrees.

"It was very sudden," said Mendoza, trying to put her off. "I hope that
your Grace will excuse my daughter."

"What was sudden?" enquired Doña Ana coldly. "You say she was not taken
ill."

"Her--her not coming to court." Mendoza hesitated and pulled at his grey
beard as they went along. "She fully intended to come," he added, with
perfect truth.

Doña Ana walked more slowly, glancing sideways at his face, though she
could hardly see it except when they passed by a lamp, for he was very
tall, and she was short, though exquisitely proportioned.

"I do not understand," she said, in a clear, metallic voice. "I have a
right to an explanation, for it is quite impossible to give the ladies
of the court who live in the palace full liberty to attend upon the
Queen or not, as they please. You will be singularly fortunate if Don
Antonio Perez does not mention the matter to the King."

Mendoza was silent, but the words had their effect upon him, and a very
unpleasant one, for they contained a threat.

"You see," continued the Princess, pausing as they reached a flight of
steps which they would have to ascend, "every one acknowledges the
importance of your services, and that you have been very poorly rewarded
for them. But that is in a degree your own fault, for you have refused
to make friends when you might, and you have little interest with the
King."

"I know it," said the old soldier, rather bitterly. "Princess," he
continued, without giving her time to say more, "this is a private
matter, which concerns only me and my daughter. I entreat you to
overlook the irregularity and not to question me further. I will serve
you in any way in my power--"

"You cannot serve me in any way," answered Doña Ana cruelly. "I am
trying to help you," she added, with a sudden change of tone. "You see,
my dear General, you are no longer young. At your age, with your name
and your past services, you should have been a grandee and a rich man.
You have thrown away your opportunities of advancement, and you have
contented yourself with an office which is highly honourable--but poorly
paid, is it not? And there are younger men who court it for the honour
alone, and who are willing to be served by their friends."

"Who is my successor?" asked Mendoza, bravely controlling his voice
though he felt that he was ruined.

The skilful and cruel woman began to mount the steps in silence, in
order to let him suffer a few moments, before she answered. Reaching the
top, she spoke, and her voice was soft and kind.

"No one," she answered, "and there is nothing to prevent you from
keeping your post as long as you like, even if you become infirm and
have to appoint a deputy--but if there were any serious cause of
complaint, like this extraordinary behaviour of Dolores--why, perhaps--"

She paused to give her words weight, for she knew their value.

"Madam," said Mendoza, "the matter I keep from you does not touch my
honour, and you may know it, so far as that is concerned. But it is one
of which I entreat you not to force me to speak."

Doña Ana softly passed her arm through his.

"I am not used to walking so fast," she said, by way of explanation.
"But, my dear Mendoza," she went on, pressing his arm a little, "you do
not think that I shall let what you tell me go further and reach any one
else--do you? How can I be of any use to you, if you have no confidence
in me? Are we not relatives? You must treat me as I treat you."

Mendoza wished that he could.

"Madam," he said almost roughly, "I have shut my daughter up in her own
room and bolted the door, and to-morrow I intend to send her to a
convent, and there she shall stay until she changes her mind, for I will
not change mine"

"Oh!" ejaculated Doña Ana, with a long intonation, as if grasping the
position of affairs by degrees. "I understand," she said, after a long
time. "But then you and I are of the same opinion, my dear friend. Let
us talk about this."

Mendoza did not wish to talk of the matter at all, and said nothing, as
they slowly advanced. They had at last reached the passage that ended at
his door, and he slackened his pace still more, obliging his companion,
whose arm was still in his, to keep pace with him. The moonlight no
longer shone in straight through the open embrasures, and there was a
dim twilight in the corridor.

"You do not wish Dolores to marry Don John of Austria, then," said the
Princess presently, in very low tones. "Then the King is on your side,
and so am I. But I should like to know your reason for objecting to such
a very great marriage."

"Simple enough, Madam. Whenever it should please his Majesty's policy to
marry his brother to a royal personage, such as Queen Mary of Scotland,
the first marriage would be proved null and void, because the King would
command that it should be so, and my daughter would be a dishonoured
woman, fit for nothing but a convent."

"Do you call that dishonour?" asked the Princess thoughtfully. "Even if
that happened, you know that Don John would probably not abandon
Dolores. He would keep her near him--and provide for her generously--"

"Madam!" cried the brave old soldier, interrupting her in sudden and
generous anger, "neither man nor woman shall tell me that my daughter
could ever fall to that!"

She saw that she had made a mistake, and pressed his arm soothingly.

"Pray, do not be angry with me, my dear friend. I was thinking what the
world would say--no, let me speak! I am quite of your opinion that
Dolores should be kept from seeing Don John, even by quiet force if
necessary, for they will certainly be married at the very first
opportunity they can find. But you cannot do such things violently, you
know. You will make a scandal. You cannot take your daughter away from
court suddenly and shut her up in a convent without doing her a great
injury. Do you not see that? People will not understand that you will
not let her marry Don John--I mean that most people would find it hard
to believe. Yes, the world is bad, I know; what can one do? The world
would say--promise me that you will not be angry, dear General! You can
guess what the world would say."'

"I see--I see!" exclaimed the old man, in sudden terror for his
daughter's good name. "How wise you are!"

"Yes," answered Doña Ana, stopping at ten paces from the door, "I am
wise, for I am obliged to be. Now, if instead of locking Dolores into
her room two or three hours ago, you had come to me, and told me the
truth, and put her under my protection, for our common good, I would
have made it quite impossible for her to exchange a word with Don John,
and I would have taken such good care of her that instead of gossiping
about her, the world would have said that she was high in favour, and
would have begun to pay court to her. You know that I have the power to
do that."

"How very wise yo

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