The Spanish Cavalier: A Story of Seville
by A. L. O. E. · English · Gutenberg #35705 · 363,200 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Spanish Cavalier: A Story of Seville
Author: A. L. O. E.
Release date: March 29, 2011 [eBook #35705]
Language: English
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[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE.
Page 21.]
THE SPANISH CAVALIER.
A STORY OF SEVILLE.
By A. L. O. E.
[Illustration: THE GATEWAY OF A SPANISH MANSION.
Page 26.]
T. Nelson and Sons
LONDON EDINBURGH AND NEW YORK
THE
SPANISH CAVALIER.
A Story of Seville
By
A. L. O. E.,
_Author of "Rescued from Egypt," "The Lady of Provence," "Hebrew
Heroes," &c._
London:
T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW.
EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK.
1900
Contents.
I. THE COUNTING-HOUSE 7
II. A SAUNTER THROUGH SEVILLE 17
III. FADED SPLENDOUR 26
IV. PRIDE AND ITS PENALTY 35
V. ANNOUNCEMENTS 43
VI. A SISTER'S SACRIFICE 50
VII. DRIVEN TO THE SLAUGHTER 62
VIII. WITHOUT AND WITHIN 69
IX. THE BRIEF FAREWELL 78
X. STRUCK DOWN 83
XI. FAILURE 93
XII. DARKNESS AND LIGHT 101
XIII. NEW LIFE 108
XIV. AN UNPARDONABLE WRONG 116
XV. CONFESSION 122
XVI. A MIRAGE 132
XVII. ARRESTED 147
XVIII. TURNED AWAY 155
XIX. WANDERING ALONE 161
XX. AN IDOL ON ITS PEDESTAL 170
XXI. TWO ANGELS 181
XXII. STRANGE COMPANY 185
XXIII. PREACHING IN PRISON 193
XXIV. A FRIEND 201
XXV. WARNINGS 212
XXVI. THE LONELY POSADA 220
XXVII. FOLLOWING SCENT 231
XXVIII. WANDERINGS 239
XXIX. THE EARTHQUAKE 247
XXX. PURSUED 253
XXXI. VENGEANCE 262
XXXII. A LAST FAREWELL 270
XXXIII. A TREASURE 275
XXXIV. GLAD TIDINGS 284
XXXV. FICTION AND TRUTH 291
List of Illustrations.
THE CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE, _Frontispiece_
THE GATEWAY OF A SPANISH MANSION, _Vignette_
THE ALCAZAR OF SEVILLE, _Facing Page_ 20
SPANISH SENORAS AND THEIR DUENNA, " 24
BEFORE AND AFTER THE FIGHT, " 66
THE ENTRANCE TO THE PRISON, " 184
A STREET IN SEVILLE, " 212
INTERIOR OF A SPANISH POSADA, " 220
THE SPANISH CAVALIER.
CHAPTER I.
THE COUNTING-HOUSE.
"He has not made his appearance in the office to-day!" exclaimed Mr.
Passmore, the working partner in an ironware manufactory in Seville.
"If this Senor Don Alcala de Aguilera think it beneath his dignity to
keep faith with his employer, and stick to his business, I'll find
some one else who will. The high and mighty caballero may smoke his
cigar, or take his siesta, like the rest of his lazy nation; I'll not
disturb him, though his nap should last till the Moors come again!"
Mr. Passmore rubbed his heated face with his spotted handkerchief as
he concluded his speech, for the fiery sun of Andalusia had not yet
sunk, and the small office-room attached to his manufactory glowed
like one of his own furnaces.
"De Aguilera may have been kept away by illness, sir," suggested
Lucius Lepine, a young English clerk in the employ of the
manufacturer. "He appeared to be far from well yesterday, when
translating the letters from Madrid."
"And a pretty hash he made of the business," exclaimed Mr. Passmore in
a tone of irritation, yet unable to refrain from laughing. "The don's
thoughts must have been wandering to the Plaza de Toros,[1] or he
would scarcely have made out that Tasco and Co. sent our firm an order
for twenty dozen bulls instead of knife-blades."
"De Aguilera is not wont to make such blunders," said Lucius, who had
sympathy for his fellow-clerk, partly arising from a belief that their
circumstances were somewhat the same--that the proud Spaniard had
been, like himself, driven by necessity to work under one who, by
birth and education, belonged to a sphere much lower than their own.
"I thought," continued Lepine, "that De Aguilera looked very ill."
"Ill! yes, he always looks ill--as if he fed, or rather starved, on
chestnuts and raisins," interrupted Mr. Passmore, "and had never
tasted a slice of good roast beef in the course of his life! I guess
there's many a one of the whining beggars that beset one in the Calle
de los Sierpes, that fares better than the caballero Don Aguilera. And
yet, forsooth, the senor must keep his horse (a lean one, to be sure),
and carry himself with a lofty air, as if he were, at the least,
Secretary of State to Queen Isabella! I do believe that his worthiness
never made his appearance to-day, because I offended his dignity
yesterday by calling him simply 'Aguilera,' without all the fine
additions to a name already too long, which Spaniards wear as their
mules do tassels and fringes, I suppose, to make one forget the length
of their ears!" Mr. Passmore rubbed his hands in evident enjoyment of
his own joke, and laughed his peculiar, explosive laugh, which
reminded his hearers of the snort of a hippopotamus rapidly repeated.
Lucius was not inclined to appreciate or join in his mirth.
"By-the-by, Lepine," said the manufacturer abruptly, "would you like
to go to the bull-fight to-morrow? for if so, I'll treat you to a
seat, as I'm going myself. As these affairs always come off on a
Sunday, there will be no business time lost."
Had the offer been an acceptable one, the coarse air of patronage with
which it was made would have prevented the young Englishman from
feeling grateful for an invitation so proffered. But Lepine's views of
keeping the day of rest were by no means in harmony with the
sickening horrors of the Plaza de Toros, and he rather coldly replied,
"I thank you; but I have no wish to witness a bull-fight."
"Nor I, nor I; but just for once in a way, one must do at Rome as the
Romans do," observed Mr. Passmore, as he fastened the clasp of the
large ledger-book in which he had been making some entries at the end
of the week. "Barbarous spectacle it is, disgraceful to any civilized
people, but quite in harmony with Spanish character. A century or two
ago," (Mr. Passmore was less accurate in his chronology than in his
accounts,) "these people had their autos-da-fe,[2] in 1868 they must
have their bull-fights; fire or blood, fire or blood, the only means
of rousing them up from their lazy lethargy, and keeping them wide
awake for a couple of hours!" Peter Passmore, himself a sharp trader
and active man of business, regarded idleness as one of the greatest
of sins.
"Bull-fighting causes a waste of human life," began Lucius; but his
employer cut him short.
"I don't think much of that," observed Passmore. "If a fellow choose
to run the chance of getting a horn between his ribs, I'd let him have
his fancy; if he's killed, there's but one fool less in the world.
Ho, ho, ho! But it's a disgraceful waste of horse-flesh. Not but that
the Spaniards, to do them justice, manage the thing in an economical
way. They send blindfold into the circus poor brutes only fit to be
made into dogs' meat, and the bull does the job of the knacker, that's
all!"
An expression of disgust crossed the frank features of Lucius Lepine.
He was impatient to leave the counting-house; but as to him belonged
the duty of shutting up the place, he was unable to quit it till his
employer should please to depart. Mr. Passmore was in a conversational
mood; and while his short, thick fingers slowly tied up some bundles
of papers, he went on talking, regardless either of the oppressive
heat of the room or the impatient looks of his hearer.
"Spain will never be much of a country," said Passmore, "until her
people learn to do their own business, manufacture their own wares,
lay down their own lines, instead of making over everything that is
useful to strangers. The dons leave others to cut up their meat for
them, and think it condescension enough if they open their mouths to
eat it! Ho, ho, ho! Idleness is the bane of this land."
"And superstition," added Lucius Lepine.
"Ay, superstition, as you justly observe. The country is eaten up by a
swarm of lazy monks and friars, who tell their beads instead of
tilling their ground, and who make every other day a saint's day, to
give the laity an excuse for being as idle as they are. If I'd the
rule here," continued Mr. Passmore, "I'd make a clean sweep of them
all; turn the convents into parish unions, and clap into them all the
beggars. What Spain wants to make it a fine land, as fine a country as
any in Europe, is a better government, a more vigilant police, brisker
trade, and--"
As the manufacturer paused, as if at a loss for words with which to
wind up his oration, Lucius suggested--"a purer religion."
"Ah, there's one of your Exeter Hall notions," cried Peter Passmore,
tossing down on the table the packet which he had just fastened up
with a bit of red tape; "you young hot-brains are always ready to air
your romantic ideas on subjects which you don't understand." Let it be
observed, in passing, that young Lepine seldom uttered a dozen
consecutive words on any subject whatever in the presence of his
employer; but the manufacturer, probably from liking to monopolize the
talking, was wont to accuse of loquacity every one with whom he
conversed. "But hark'ee, young man," continued the principal of the
firm, in a tone rather more dictatorial than usual, "I'd advise you,
whilst you remain in Seville, to lock up your fanatical notions as
tight as you would your cash-box. The Plaza is not Piccadilly, nor
Isabella our good Queen Victoria. The Inquisition may not be actually
catching and squeezing victims to death, as in the old times; but, as
Joe Millar would say, 'The snake is scotched, not killed.' The
priests, lazy as they are, will be sharp enough, in both senses of the
word, if any one meddle with their profits. Don't you be playing the
Don Quixote against what you are pleased to call superstition. It is
not only in the Plaza de Toros that a fool may wave a red rag, go full
tilt against an enemy too hard for him, and find himself caught on the
horns of a dilemma. You may get yourself into grief," continued the
oracular Passmore; "and I've no mind to spend time or money in fishing
my clerk out of prison, if he manage to stumble into one unawares.
That's no part of the bargain between us; so I give you fair warning,
my lad." Taking up his hat as he ended his oration, Peter Passmore
quitted the place.
Lepine saw the stout figure of his employer disappear through the
doorway, and gave a sigh of relief. It was during conversations like
the preceding that the young English gentleman most keenly realized
the trials of his position. He was isolated from his family and
friends in a foreign land, and forced to endure the companionship of a
low-minded man, who regarded money-making as the great aim and end of
existence. Lucius was obliged to listen with a decent appearance of
respect to the advice which Passmore proffered with an assumption of
superior wisdom, which was in itself offensive. It was somewhat hard
for a youth, who had been one of the cleverest scholars at Rugby, to
receive instruction on all kinds of subjects from a man who had never
construed a line in Horace or opened a page of Caesar.
"But what could the eldest of a family of nine do, without money,
without interest, but take advantage of the first opening that
presented itself to him?" mused Lepine, as, able to leave the
office-room at last, he locked the heavy door behind him, and went
forth into the street. "I knew that to accept the clerkship was like
plunging into a river in December, and that he who would make his way
thus must throw off, as a swimmer does his clothes, all consideration
of personal inclination and family pride before making the plunge. But
what matters it!"--thus flowed on the current of thought--"I am
thankful to have the means of swimming, thankful to be no drag on a
widowed mother--nay, to be able already to hold out a helping hand to
the young ones. Anything is better than standing idly on the brink of
the icy stream, waiting till some boat should chance to appear and
ferry me across. The struggle is strengthening, the cold is bracing,
and the feeling of independence is worth all that I have given up for
awhile. Yes, my northern constitution may bear it; but the strain
comes much harder, I fear, on poor Alcala de Aguilera. He has
doubtless been brought up from childhood to regard labour as
degradation, and clerk-work under a despised foreigner as but a degree
better than the galleys. He has not the buoyancy of spirit with which
I am blessed, and the cold which is bracing to an Englishman may bring
deadly chill to a Spaniard. I must find out De Aguilera's house, and
ascertain the cause of his absence to-day. Though there may be no
foundation for that extraordinary report which I heard this morning,
and which I cannot believe to be true, I shall not rest easy until I
learn its falsehood from himself. I trust that the cavalier's Spanish
courtesy will forgive my intrusion, if intrusion it be. I long to
penetrate through the reserve which De Aguilera wraps around him like
his mantero, and speak to him freely as man to man, in a place where
we can be secure from perpetual interruptions, and unfettered by the
trammels of business. The address given me was the Calle de San Jose,
in the suburb of Triana, somewhere at the other side of the river. As
I am now pretty well up in my Spanish, I think that I shall have no
great difficulty in finding my way."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Circus for bull fights.
[2] Public burning of those convicted of heresy, or what the Church of
Rome regarded as such.
CHAPTER II.
A SAUNTER THROUGH SEVILLE.
Lucius Lepine was the son of an officer of the royal navy. The youth
had been eagerly and successfully pursuing a course of education in
one of the public schools of England, when the sudden death of his
father had deprived him of the means of completing it, and of leaving
Rugby, as he had hoped to do, at the head of the school. The widowed
mother of Lucius was left to support, on very slender means, a
numerous family, of which he was the first-born. The youth's ambition
had been to enter one of the universities, with a desire--as yet
mentioned to no one--of preparing himself for the ministry of the
Church. He now saw that the desire must be suppressed, the ambition
relinquished. Lepine's first earthly object must be to become, not a
burden, but a stay to his mother. Lucius had for some time exerted
himself unsuccessfully to discover some means of earning
independence, when a situation was offered to him in the firm of
Messrs. Passmore and Perkins, which conducted an ironware factory in
Seville. A boyish fancy, which had induced Lucius to acquire the
Spanish language that he might read Don Quixote in the original, great
intelligence, and a talent for keeping accounts, made the admiral's
son peculiarly qualified to fill such a situation with credit to
himself and advantage to his employers. Mr. Passmore's terms were
liberal: he was at least good as a paymaster, whatever he might be as
a man. Lucius did not hesitate long ere accepting the offer made to
him. He took the "plunge" so bravely, and apparently cheerfully, that
none, save perhaps his mother, guessed with what an inward shudder of
repugnance it was made.
When thus separated from his family and all the companions of his
youth, Lucius, who was of a genial temperament, looked around him for
friends in what was to him a land of exile. He had had no letters of
introduction, and the society of Mr. Passmore, the working head of the
firm, and of a few merchants and manufacturers occasionally met with
at his table, by no means satisfied the yearning of the young man's
heart for intercourse with congenial spirits. The only person in
Seville towards whom Lucius felt drawn by a feeling of sympathy was
the stately young Spaniard, De Aguilera,--who had, like himself, been
induced by liberal offers to accept a situation in the firm of Messrs.
Passmore and Perkins. The aristocratic bearing of Don Alcala de
Aguilera, his refined manners, his lofty courtesy, gave to him an
interest in the mind of Lucius--an interest made up of mingled
admiration, curiosity, and pity. The Spanish clerk, compared to his
English employer, appeared to Lucius like a polished Toledo blade
compared to a kitchen utensil. Lucius was occasionally reminded by the
mien of his companion of other qualities of the rapier besides its
exquisite polish. Insult, or what he deemed such, would make the
Spaniard's dark eyes flash with an expression which told that his
pride was not subdued, and that his anger might be dangerous. It was
perhaps well that Mr. Passmore's inability to speak Spanish with
anything approaching to fluency made him generally employ Lepine as
the channel of communication between himself and De Aguilera. Many a
dictatorial command or coarse reproof, uttered by Passmore, came
softened from the lips of the English gentleman,--words which, if
repeated in the tone in which they had first been spoken, would have
made the haughty Spaniard lay his hand on his stiletto.
[Illustration: THE ALCAZAR OF SEVILLE.
Page 20]
"Inglesito!" (Englishman!) muttered a gitana (gipsy), looking after
Lucius as, after courteously inquiring his way, he passed down one of
the narrow winding lanes which give to a great part of Seville the
character of a labyrinth. It would have needed no gipsy skill to have
detected the nationality of the stranger, even had the gitana but seen
him with his back turned towards her. The quick, firm step of Lepine
could not be mistaken for the step of a Spaniard. But the woman had
seen the face, bronzed, indeed, by the southern sun, yet of complexion
naturally fair; the bright gray eye; the auburn hair, clustering at
the temples, and shading the upper lip. Lucius might have been singled
out as an Englishman amongst crowds of the cigar-puffing idlers who
were enjoying their _dolce far niente_ at the corner of every street.
And at that hour of gorgeous sunset, under the most brilliant of
skies, there was indeed in Seville a luxury in mere existence which
might form some excuse for the indolence of its people. As Lucius
emerged from a lane into one of the open plazas, he was strongly
sensible of the charm which enwraps the queen-city of Andalusia.
Bathed in golden glory rose the Alcazar, that splendid monument of
Moorish art which has been compared to a palace of fairies, with its
gorgeous colouring, its profusion of ornament, its gilded arches and
marble columns. At some distance, in strong relief against the sky,
appeared the glorious Cathedral, a rival in beauty, but a contrast in
style, being the most magnificent Gothic building to be found in all
Spain. The square tower of the Saracenic Giralda--grand relic of the
past when the Moors bore sway in Andalusia, but now used as belfry to
the Cathedral--glowed rosy red in the beams. Lucius paused for several
minutes to admire the exquisite beauty of the buildings around
him,--that beauty which to a poetic mind is heightened by the charm of
antiquity, the colouring of romance. The Englishman seemed to have
left every care behind him in the counting-house in the Calle San
Francisco,--cares can be readily thrown aside at the age of nineteen.
The eye was not the only sense that drank in delight. The air was
fragrant with the perfume from orange-trees, and musical with the peal
of bells from the summit of the Giralda, blending softly with the
nearer sound of a Spanish song, sung in rich tones to the
accompaniment of a guitar.
[Illustration: SPANISH SENORAS AND THEIR DUENNA.
Page 22.]
"What a glorious city is this Seville!" said Lucius to himself as he
went on his way. "There is not an object on which the eye rests in
which an artist would not find a subject for a sketch. What a picture
might be made of yonder donnas, with their mantillas and graceful lace
veils, as, accompanied by their duenna, they ascend the steps of that
magnificent church! No women are lovelier than those of Seville,--long
may they keep their graceful costume! How picturesque is yon group of
gipsies by the fountain--the man in his striped mantle of many hues
leaning over the back of his ass, as he talks to the dark-eyed girl
with scarlet blossoms wreathed in her raven-black hair! The very
beggars wear their rags with grace! And what thoughts of the past
crowd upon the mind in this old city of the Moors! Yes, what thoughts
of the past!" repeated Lucius to himself, while a sterner expression
marked his features; for he had now reached a spot associated with
memories of the Inquisition, which had held its headquarters at
Seville. Again Lucius paused, but it was not now to admire, and it was
before the mind's eye that a picture of thrilling interest arose.
"Do I indeed stand on the very spot where, a few centuries ago,
thousands of martyrs yielded their bodies to the flames, their souls
to their God?"[3] mused Lepine. "Was it here that--clad in their
yellow san-benitos,[4] and surrounded by curious crowds to whom their
pangs were a pastime, and fanatical priests to whom their torments
were a triumph--men and tender women endured the most painful of
deaths! Yes; this pure balmy air was once polluted with the smoke from
human sacrifices--this sunshine darkened with the clouds rising from
stakes to which living victims were bound! What deeds of heroism--what
unblenching courage--what unshaken faith displayed in the hour of
nature's agony, have made this spot holy ground! Here--a spectacle to
angels and to men--martyrs showed what the sons of Spain could dare
and her daughters endure! Are the idle, self-indulgent inhabitants of
Seville in the nineteenth century descendants or representatives of
heroes who counted not their lives dear to them, but who, having
embraced evangelical truth, grasped it firmly even unto death? Or can
it be that martyrs have suffered in vain--that the light which they
kindled is quenched for ever in Spain? Is the cry, 'How long, Lord,
how long?' never to meet an answer as regards this benighted though
beautiful land? I cannot believe it;" and Lucius resumed his rapid
walk. "The seed sown amidst tears and blood must spring up one day,
and ripen to a harvest of light! Happy--thrice happy--the reapers!
Spaniards will show themselves worthy of their martyrs, and no longer
appear to the world as a degenerate race, indifferent to their highest
interests, or cold in the holiest cause. But what right have I to
upbraid them either with indifference or coldness? Here am I, proud of
the name of Englishman, thankful for having been brought up in the
clearness of gospel light. I have been for a year in Seville, and I
have never so much as shown to a Spaniard the New Testament in his own
language, which I carry now on my person. Nay, the only man in this
country for whom I have a feeling of friendship--the man whom I meet
almost every day of my life--he knows nothing of the faith which I
hold, save that he probably deems me a heretic, simply because I was
reared in England. Of Alcala's inner life, his views, his hopes, I,
his friend, am as ignorant as if we had never met till to-day! I
cannot tell--I have never inquired--whether De Aguilera be a bigoted
son of that Church which is drunken with the blood of the saints, or
whether, like many of his countrymen, he has adopted sceptical views,
the pendulum swinging from superstition into infidelity--from
believing that which is false, into denying that which is true.
"And the Spaniard may now be on the eve of meeting a violent
death--of having the martyr's agonies without the martyr's crown! I
have been made uneasy by the bare rumour of the danger to which his
person may be exposed. How little have I thought of the perils which
surround the soul of one brought up under the dark shadow of Romish
error! I must see De Aguilera, and speak to my friend as I have not
ventured to speak before. God help me to break through a reserve which
I have often suspected to be cowardly, but which I now feel to be
criminal!"
FOOTNOTES:
[3] It is said that in the year 1461, when the Inquisition was
established in Seville, it sacrificed _two thousand_ victims; and that
from the same date to 1517, _twelve thousand_ were burned alive.
[4] A garment, covered with representations of demons, worn by the
condemned.
CHAPTER III.
FADED SPLENDOUR.
"Is this a prison or a palace?" was the mental inquiry of Lucius, as,
after again asking his way to the house of Don Alcala de Aguilera, he
reached the stately building, which was one of the numerous relics
which the Moors have left behind them in Seville. The high, dead,
fortress-like wall, suggested the former term; a glimpse through the
open archway of the dwelling, the latter. From this archway a
vestibule led into an inner court, from which it was divided by an
ornamental grating; this grating also being open at the time, nothing
impeded the view into the marble-paved patio beyond. This patio, or
court, was surrounded by clustering columns of the most graceful
proportions; while in the centre of it orange-trees and broad-leaved
bananas, the oleander and the myrtle, bordered a fountain of exquisite
design. The vestibule itself was paved with Moorish tiles, of hue the
most brilliant; and the exterior of the archway was gracefully
sculptured. The first impression made by a glance through the opening
was, that a scene of Oriental beauty and splendour lay beyond it. Had
Lucius had time for closer observation, he must have noticed also
marks of poverty and decay. Every here and there a bright tile in the
passage, and marble square in the patio, had been broken or
displaced--the carving on the fountain had in many places been
injured, and no water fell into its basin; but the plants in the
little central garden looked fresh and green in the softened light, as
if tended by a woman's hand. The aspect of the place, so unlike that
of any mansion in a northern clime, was calculated to raise admiration
and excite curiosity in the mind of a stranger, and waken a desire to
explore the interior, and make acquaintance with the dwellers in so
picturesque and romantic a home.
The appearance of the one whom Lucius saw at the entrance, however,
contrasted with the stately elegance of the mansion of which she was
an inmate. Chaffering with an itinerant vendor of fish stood an old
woman, wrinkled and bent. From her coarse dress, arms bare to the
elbow, and the strong scent of garlic which hung about her, the dame
might rather have been deemed a denizen of one of the low purlieus of
Seville, than the servant of an aristocrat. The old crone, who used
much gesticulation in speaking, was so eager about her bargaining that
she did not notice the approach of Lucius Lepine. The colloquy between
her and the hawker had probably lasted for some time, as both parties
looked heated and angry.
"Five cuartos a piece! why, I would not give twenty for the whole lot
of them; they're not fresh--not fit to set before the senora!" were
the first words heard by Lucius as he came up to the archway.
"I tell you again, they were alive and swimming this morning,"
interrupted the man.
"Don't you think I know good fish when I see them?" cried the
shrill-voiced dame. "I who have been for nigh sixty years in the
service of the illustrious caballero Don Pedro de Aguilera, his son,
and his grandson besides!"
"It's not the fish, but the price, that don't suit you," retorted the
hawker. "Come, you shall have them a bargain,--let's say nine cuartos
a pair."
"I'll give eight, and no more," cried the dame, eying the fish with a
hungry look, but clinching hard the coppers which she held in her
hand.
The hawker shook his head, and shouldered his basket.
"You'll lose the custom of the house," threatened the woman.
"No great loss," laughed the hawker, as he turned from the arch; "the
barber round the corner will buy all this fish, and he earns enough
with his razor to pay a fair price for his dinner!"
The torrent of abuse which the old dame launched after the retreating
hawker, was suddenly stopped by the question of Lucius,----
"Is Don Alcala de Aguilera within?"
Old Teresa was startled and annoyed at the preceding colloquy having
been overheard by a stranger. It was also wounding to her vanity as a
woman, and her pride as a retainer of a noble family, that she should
be seen in the deshabille in which she had emerged from the kitchen,
instead of the black silk dress in which she was wont to attend Donna
Inez to mass. In a tone of irritation Teresa replied that the
illustrious caballero was not in the house.
"Is he likely soon to come in?" inquired Lucius Lepine.
The servant did not know, or chose not to tell. The caballero came in
and out at his pleasure: he might be spending the evening at the
governor's palace, he might not be home till midnight. Teresa stood in
the middle of the archway like a jealous guardian of the place, who
would suffer the entrance of no stranger to disturb its dignified
seclusion. But the sound of Lepine's question had reached other ears
than those of Teresa.
"Alcala, is it you at last?" exclaimed a sweet, eager voice from
within; and Lucius caught a glimpse of a youthful form hurrying across
the patio with a rapidity very unusual in the movements of a lady of
Spain. It was indeed but a glimpse, for the donna, seeing that he at
the entrance was a stranger and not her expected brother, instantly
retreated, disappearing behind the foliage of the shrubs that
surrounded the fountain.
The young Englishman would fain have sent in his card, and presented
himself to the lady or ladies within, but shyness prevented his thus
making an attempt to enter the house without a formal introduction.
Lucius had seen little or nothing of society in the higher circles of
Seville, and feared to give offence by some unintentional breach of
its rules. The manner of Teresa would have shown a less intelligent
observer than Lucius, that she at least would have resented and
resisted as an intrusion any attempt on his part to venture within the
archway. A little disappointed at his failure in procuring an
interview with his friend, Lucius placed his card in the soiled,
wrinkled hand of Teresa, to be given to her master on his return. With
a lingering look through the vestibule into the beautiful patio
beyond, the Englishman quitted the place.
In a state of high irritation, Teresa hurried through the passage into
the court, taking care to close and lock the grating between them.
With the air of a duenna who, having grown gray in service, thinks
that she is privileged to say what she pleases, the old woman
approached her young lady.
Donna Inez, on a low marble seat, was bending over the work on which
she had been engaged when roused by hearing the voice of Lucius.
The work was that of decorating some garment of the gayest
description,--of bright green richly embroidered with silver, into
which Inez was fastening spangles of the same brilliant metal. A scarf
of the most vivid scarlet lay carelessly thrown across her knees. The
gay colouring of the work on which she was employed contrasted with
the black dress of the Spanish maiden; and she was pursuing her
occupation with anything but pleasure, if one might judge from the
gushing tears which ever and anon fell on her beautiful work.
"Donna Inez, Donna Inez! how could you do anything so unseemly?"
exclaimed old Teresa, giving vent to her irritation. "What would the
hidalgo Don Pedro de Aguilera have said, could he have seen his
grand-daughter, without so much as a veil on her head, rushing towards
an English stranger--a heretic, too!--with no more dignity than if she
were some wandering gitana?"
Inez raised her tear-swollen eyes, and there was no lack of dignity in
the tone of her gentle reply, "Methinks you forget your place,
Teresa."
"Forget!" repeated the old woman angrily; "I should remember well
enough, if I knew what is, or rather what is _not_, my place in this
house. Am I not doctor, sick-nurse, and attendant to the old senora,
and duenna to the young one; purveyor, keeper of stores, preparer of
meals, anything and everything here,--helped by no one but
bandy-legged Chico, who only serves the senor because no one else
thinks him worth the puchero[5] which he eats? Ah! it was very
different, child, in your grandfather's days, before the hated French
soldiers swarmed like wasps into Seville!"
Inez knew that poor old Teresa had entered on an inexhaustible theme
when she began to speak of the good old days before the occupation of
the city by the French in 1810. Teresa had been little more than a
child when she had entered the service of Donna Benita de Aguilera,
then a happy young wife and mother, but soon to be left a widow with
wrecked fortune and shattered mind. Her husband, Don Pedro, a wealthy
nobleman, and of the bluest blood in Spain, had joined the army raised
to repel the invader. The tidings of De Aguilera's death in fight had
reached his young wife at a time when French soldiers were quartered
in her house. The shock had weakened the lady's intellect; and though
she had lived on, was living on still in extreme old age, her
subsequent life had been but as a lengthened childhood.
The family fortune had also at that time received a blow from which it
had never recovered. Teresa was never weary of telling of the
treasures which Don Pedro once had possessed, services of silver
plate, and a splendid goblet of gold, and of the jewels of his
bride,--which, by her account, might have purchased half Andalusia.
Bitter were Teresa's invectives against the foreign robbers, who had
not only killed her master, but plundered his helpless widow and
orphan. Teresa had clung to the De Aguilera family in weal and in woe;
but age and adversity had rendered more irritable a temper not
naturally sweet; and having once dandled in her arms the father of
Inez, the old duenna always looked on his daughter as a mere child.
Teresa was as ready to chide as to serve the senorita; but the
retainer's long-tried fidelity made Inez tolerate from her what from
another she could not have borne.
Teresa now went rambling on with her reminiscences; but the mind of
Inez was so painfully preoccupied, that she took in the meaning of
nothing, and was only aware of the fact that the old woman was
speaking, by the babble of her voice distressing an ear intently
listening for the step of Alcala. The sun had sunk, and the first
faintly visible star shone over the patio, which was unprovided with
the awning commonly used in the courts of the wealthy to soften the
glare of a southern sky. Inez could no longer see to work; but her
labour was finished--the last silver spangle had been fixed on the
glossy green satin sleeve. The maiden sat listening, waiting, weeping,
till startled again by a sound at the entrance to the house, which
made her spring to her feet with the exclamation, "It is my brother at
last!"
FOOTNOTES:
[5] A kind of soup, common in Spain
CHAPTER IV.
PRIDE AND ITS PENALTY.
But again Inez was disappointed. Instead of her brother appearing,
Teresa ushered in a visitor, Donna Maria de Rivas, a middle-aged lady
of Seville, well known to the Aguileras, as she had been brought up in
the same convent as the late mother of Alcala and Inez.
The senora entered the patio with the stately grace peculiar to
Spanish ladies. But the expression on her face was that of keen
curiosity; and even before she greeted Inez with a kiss on either
cheek, the visitor's eyes were riveted on the garments of scarlet and
green.
"It is then true!" exclaimed Donna Maria, "and Don Alcala is to appear
in full fico[6] in the Plaza de Toros to-morrow!"
The look of anguish on the pale face of the sister might have been
sufficient reply, but Donna Maria was not one whose curiosity could
be so easily satisfied. She was an old friend of the family, and, as
such, she deemed it her right to know all that concerned them. Perhaps
to the motherless girl at her side it was some relief to pour forth
the tale of her sorrows to one who professed at least to feel a strong
interest in the children of her early companion. In the deepening
twilight, under the clear blue sky of Andalusia, while star after star
twinkled forth, Inez, often interrupting herself to listen, told the
cause of that distress which was blanching her cheek and well-nigh
breaking her heart.
"You know--I need not tell you--that we--my grandmother and brother, I
mean--have no longer the wealth possessed by our fathers."
"They were some of the most distinguished hidalgos of Spain,"
interrupted Donna Maria.
"My brother," continued Inez, "though willing to suffer anything
himself rather than degrade his dignity by doing anything that the
world might deem unbecoming in one of his rank, could not endure to
see our aged grandmother wanting what her infirmities required. Alcala
therefore consented to--to"--Inez was a Spaniard, and may be forgiven
if she had inherited enough of the pride of her race to feel it a deep
humiliation to own that the heir of the Aguileras had stooped to
serve in an ironware factory, and accept the foreigner's gold.
"I know, I know, my poor child," said Donna Maria, pitying her friends
under what she regarded as an almost unbearable misfortune and
disgrace.
Inez went on with her story.
"But Alcala had still, of course, the right to mix in the highest
society of Seville. He spent his evenings often--ah! much too
often--at the palace of the governor, Don Lopez de Rivadeo."
"Ah! the governor has a daughter, and Donna Antonia has beautiful
eyes," observed the visitor with a meaning smile, which it was well
that Inez did not see.
"The evil eye, the evil eye!" exclaimed the poor girl with passionate
emotion; "would that Alcala had never, never met their basilisk
glance! It is not her wealth that he cares for,--that wealth which
draws round Antonia so many idle worshippers, like moths round a
flame!"
"I have heard that one of these suitors insulted De Aguilera in her
presence," said Donna Maria.
"One whose ancestors would have deemed it an honour to hold the
stirrup of an Aguilera disputed with Alcala the privilege of handing
Donna Antonia into her galley on the Guadalquivir," said Inez. "'The
hand that had accepted payment for clerk's work,' sneered the
courtier, 'has no right to touch a lady's white glove.' Then Alcala
fired up at the taunt; it had stung him to the quick. He was roused to
speak of his fathers, of their triumphs over the Moors, and to tell
how one of our race had gained a chain of gold from Queen Joanna for
spearing a huge bull at a _gran foncion_ held in her presence. 'It is
pity,' said the mocking Don Riaz, 'that in these days caballeros are
content to win money, though their fathers only cared to win fame.'
Alcala was goaded by the taunt into saying that he was as ready as was
ever an Aguilera to ride in the bull-ring, and break a lance for the
smile of a lady."
"And they actually nailed him to a word so hastily spoken?" asked the
visitor eagerly.
"Ay," replied Inez bitterly; "though every one knows that caballeros
never now encounter the bull, that the desperate struggle is left to
picador and matador[7] trained and paid to expose their lives for the
sport of the crowd."
"Did not Donna Antonia forbid her cavalier to attempt so rash an
exploit?" asked Donna Maria.
"Forbid! oh no!" exclaimed the indignant Inez; "for an Aguilera to
risk or to lose his life for her sake would be to her proud nature as
the crowning triumph of her beauty! She will be there--Antonia will
be in the Plaza de Toros, and she will look on with those calm, cruel
eyes, whilst Alcala, my pride--my darling,"--Inez could not finish the
sentence, but buried her face in her hands.
"Do not despair, _cara amiga_," said Donna Maria, laying her hand
caressingly on the shoulder of the sobbing girl; "Donna Antonia de
Rivadeo may see the triumph of your brother. Don Alcala is a good
horseman, and a brave cavalier."
"Brave as a lion, and he rides like the Cid!" exclaimed Inez, raising
her head, and speaking with animation. "But what will that avail him?"
she added sadly. "Alcala has had no training for the bull-ring, as had
knights and gentlemen of old. They had active and powerful steeds;
Alcala has but poor old Campeador, who bore our father ten years
ago--good faithful Campeador, whom I have often fed from my hand!"
"But your brother will not be alone in the arena," suggested Donna
Maria; "there will be the matadors, the picadors, the chulos,[8] to
divert the bull's attention, or to give him the _coup-de-grace_."
"May they come to the rescue! the blessing of all the saints be on
them if they do!" cried Inez with fervour. "But oh! _amiga mia_, I
hope little from those who make this horrible sport a profession. They
are natural enemies of the caballero who dares to do for honour what
they are trained to do for gold. These men are jealous, and they are
cruel; is it not their very trade to torture and to kill? I never saw
a bull-fight but once," continued Inez, speaking rapidly. "My father
took me when I was a child; but he never ventured to take me again.
The sight--the horrible sight of the poor gored horses madly rushing
round the circus in their agony haunted me for weeks,--it brought on a
nervous fever! And how the scene comes back on my memory now in
terrible distinctness! I long lay awake last night trying, but trying
in vain, to drive away thought by repeating _aves_ and _credos_, till
I dropped asleep at last, and then--and then," added Inez with a
shudder, "I was in the dreadful arena! I saw the bull tearing onwards,
the banderillas in his thick strong neck; with bloodshot eye, and head
bent down, he made his furious charge! I shrieked so loud that I awoke
my grandmother, who usually sleeps so soundly! I used to pity and
grieve over her feebleness of mind,--I could almost envy it now; she
is spared the horrors of my dream, and the worse misery of my waking!"
There was an oppressive silence for several seconds and then Donna
Maria said, "Have you attempted to dissuade your brother from
prosecuting this wild adventure?"
"Have I not?" exclaimed Donna Inez; "have I not knelt and clasped his
knees, and implored as if for my life? I pained, but I could not move
him; Alcala said that his honour was pledged."
"You have been preparing the picador costume," observed Donna Maria,
glancing down at the embroidered jacket and scarlet scarf which lay
beside her, faintly visible in the starlight.
"Yes; if Alcala must appear in the arena before all those gazing eyes,
he shall appear as becomes an Aguilera," replied the Spanish maiden.
She did not dwell on the theme, or tell how much of her brother's
hardly-earned gains had been frittered away on that gaudy costume; nor
how she had not only given the labour of her hands, but sacrificed
every little silver ornament which she possessed to add to its value
and beauty. Bitterly had the poor girl felt, as she plied her needle,
that she was but, as it were, decking out a victim for slaughter.
"Don Alcala will look a goodly cavalier," observed Donna Maria in an
encouraging tone. "We will pray the Madonna to give him success."
"I have wearied every saint with my prayers," sighed Inez de Aguilera,
"and yet--hark! surely there is the sound of a ring!" and again she
eagerly sprang to her feet.
"Your brother would not ring, but enter," suggested Donna Maria. "Poor
child! how you are trembling!"
Inez was indeed trembling violently; she had to lean against a column
for support, as the grating of the vestibule was unclosed, and not
Alcala but Teresa appeared. The old servant bore in one hand a letter,
in the other a lantern borrowed from Donna Maria's attendant, who was
waiting with her mule-carriage in the street. Inez had a presentiment
that the missive was from her brother, and that his sending it was a
sign that he was not coming himself. She took the letter from Teresa,
and eagerly tore it open; for by the lantern's light Inez recognized
the handwriting of Alcala.
The brief note was as follows:--
"It is better, dearest, that we meet not again till all is over. Send
Chico at dawn with Campeador and my dress to the Posada[9] de Quesada;
he knows the place well. Kiss for me the hand of our venerable parent.
Farewell! a brother's blessing be with you! Inez, you have been more
than a sister to Alcala."
FOOTNOTES:
[6] The full costume of a picador.
[7] The picador is he who encounters the bull on horse-back. The
matador meets him on foot, and gives the last stroke.
[8] Those who irritate the bull by sticking into him small darts with
flags attached, called banderillas.
[9] An inn
CHAPTER V.
ANNOUNCEMENTS.
It has been seen that rumours of Alcala's proposed venture had reached
the ears of Lucius Lepine, but he had not been disposed to give full
credence to such reports. Lucius had been long enough in Spain to be
aware that in the nineteenth century it is as unusual for a Spanish
nobleman to take an active part in the bull-circus, as it would be for
an English one to show off his strength in the prize-ring. The strange
report was, however, painfully confirmed in the mind of Lucius when on
that Saturday evening he was proceeding on his way to the house of Mr.
Passmore, where he was engaged to take dinner.
A large lamp burning before an image of the Virgin Mary, at the corner
of one of the narrow lanes through which Lucius was passing, threw
light on the opposite side, where a large space of boarding had been
taken advantage of by the bill-posters of Seville. It would have
required less light to have deciphered the large red capital letters
in which appeared the following announcement:--
"GRAND AND EXTRAORDINARY ATTRACTION.
"To-morrow, August --, 1868, the most noble and illustrious
caballero, Don Alcala de Aguilera, mounted on his superb
charger, will encounter a bull of unequalled size and
fierceness in the circus of the Coliseo."
The red letters seemed to swim before the eyes of Lucius Lepine. He
stood as if rooted to the ground, till roused by a light touch on the
shoulder. Turning round, he saw a stout personage, who from his black
robe, huge hat with flaps turned up at the sides, and rosary with
crucifix suspended from his neck, he knew to be one of the Spanish
priests.
"Inglesito, mark _that_ well!" said the priest emphatically, pointing,
ere he passed on, to another placard which, printed in black and in
smaller type, and therefore not so conspicuous, appeared close to the
announcement of the bull-fight in the Plaza de Toros. The attention of
Lucius being thus directed towards it, he read with surprise the
following extraordinary charge from the Lord Bishop of Cadiz:--[10]
"The Enemy of mankind desists not from his infernal task of sowing
tares in the field of the Great Husbandman, and to us it belongs, as
sentinels of the advanced post of the house of Israel, to sound the
alarm, lest his frauds and machinations should prevail. We say this,
because we have read with profound grief, in a periodical lately
published, that the Protestant Bible Societies and Associations for
the distribution of bad books are redoubling their efforts for
inoculating our Catholic Spain with the venom of their errors and
destructive doctrines, selecting, in particular, our religious
Andalusia as the field of their operations," &c. &c.
At another time such a placard as this would have been read by Lucius
with intense interest, and would have wholly engrossed his thoughts
for the time. Even under present circumstances, with his mind
painfully preoccupied by anxiety for his friend, the charge of the
Bishop of Cadiz left a deep impression on Lucius. Others then were
actually doing the work from which he had shrunk. Others were coming
forward, like Gideon's three hundred heroes moving bravely on through
the darkness. Already the lights which they bore must be flashing here
and there; for Rome would not sound such a cry of alarm had she not
heard the tramp of an enemy's feet in her camp, and caught sight of
gleams of evangelical truth carried into the midst of her hosts.
"There must be a movement going on, even in Seville," thought Lucius,
"of which I never knew till this moment. Not all of my countrymen have
been cold-hearted laggards like me."
Lucius, for once, arrived late for dinner, found the company already
seated at table, and forgot to make an apology. Mr. Passmore, at the
head of a board loaded with a repast more profuse than elegant, was
too much engaged with his double occupation of eating and talking even
to notice the entrance of his clerk. The familiar sound of the
snorting laugh of his employer reached Lucius before he came into the
room.
"Ho, ho, ho! it was a shabby trick in the cavalier to engage himself
as a butcher, without giving due notice that he intended to leave the
ironware business! And I paid the fine gentleman his quarter's salary
only last week! Don Alcala de Aguilera is no great loss to the firm,
for he took his very pay with an air which seemed to say, 'I'm a
hidalgo, a gentleman born; I honour you too much by soiling my fingers
with an Englishman's dirty cash.'"
"Aguilera has not a bad headpiece, though," observed one of the party.
"Oh, for a Spaniard he's clever enough," replied Passmore, speaking
with his mouth full; "had it not been for his ridiculous Spanish
pride, the don would have made a fair man of business. Save in that
matter of the translation yesterday;--I told you that capital story!
ho, ho, ho! I see now how twenty dozen bulls came to be running in the
poor fellow's head; no wonder that he looked pale at the idea of such
an awful squad of the beasts!" Peter Passmore leant back in his chair,
and laughed till he seemed to be in danger of suffocation.
"Aguilera will find one of them enough, and too much, I'm afraid,"
said the former speaker.
"Perhaps the don thought that he'd do a sharp bit of business,"
resumed Mr. Passmore, as soon as his explosive mirth had sufficiently
subsided; "he'd contrive to get double pay for double work, by writing
on week-days and fighting on Sundays. I wonder now what he'll receive
for sticking his bull!"
"Nothing but honour," said an onion-merchant who was one of the
guests. "Folk say that there is some fair donna of Seville mixed up
with the business."
"Then Don Alcala de Aguilera is a greater idiot than I took him for!"
exclaimed the ironware manufacturer. "I can imagine a man's selling
his blood to support himself and his family; every soldier does that,
and if he get a cannon-ball instead of promotion, one can only say
that the poor fellow has had the worst of the bargain. But a man who
is willing to run the chance of being gored or tossed for the sake of
the prettiest girl that ever danced a bolero, is madder, in my
opinion, than Moliere's far-famed knight of La Mancha. Ah! Lepine, so
you're here at last. You are Aguilera's friend; did you know anything
beforehand of this freak of romantic folly?"
Lucius only shook his head; he could not trust himself to make other
reply.
"They say," observed the merchant who had spoken before, "that Don
Aguilera's family, of whom he is the chief if not the only support,
are mightily distressed at his venturing as a picador into the Plaza
de Toros. I hear that he has a poor old grandmother, who lost her
husband in the war with the first Napoleon; and a young sister who, it
is said, is breaking her heart with grief."
Lucius remembered the light graceful form which he had seen springing
across the patio, and the tones of the sweet eager voice which had
exclaimed, "Alcala, is it you at last?" The young Englishman thought
of his own favourite sister, and felt for the Spanish girl, though the
reality of her misery exceeded the picture drawn by his fancy.
The conversation now turned on other subjects, but the mind of Lepine
was full of but one. He could not join in discussions on Spanish
politics, or the current business of the day. The untasted viands lay
before him; he cared not to touch food, though he had fasted since the
morning. Lucius took the earliest opportunity of quitting the party
and returning to a small lodging which he had taken in one of the
humbler streets of Seville.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] This is taken verbatim from a translation of the charge, given in
"Daybreak In Spain," by the Rev. J. Wylie, D.D.
CHAPTER VI.
A SISTER'S SACRIFICE.
It is the dawn of a sweet Sabbath morn, peaceful and calm. The last
lingering star is trembling still in the sky, but the fleecy clouds
have caught a tint of rose from the not yet risen sun.
By the archway of the dwelling of the Aguileras stands a bay horse,
gaily caparisoned. His saddlecloth has been made out of a Moorish
mantle striped with gold, a relic of happier days. Deep fringes of
scarlet girdle his chest and encircle his haunches, and tassels of the
same bright hue hang from the band above his eyes. The noble animal
looks conscious of his dignity; he has been generously fed for the
last few days, and the unwonted luxury of corn has restored to the old
war-horse some of his former spirit. But "with arched neck, and
drooping head, and glancing eye, and quivering ear," Campeador gently
receives the caresses of the young mistress whose hand has helped to
deck and to feed him, and who with tears and sighs is bidding him now
farewell.
Inez is no striking specimen of Spanish beauty, though her appearance
on this morning must have awakened sympathy and interest even in a
stranger. Her graceful form is rather below the middle size; she has
the clear brunette complexion and the large almond-shaped eyes, shaded
with long dark lashes, which are characteristic of the Andalusian
race. The cheek is very pale, and the eyes are heavy with weeping, and
the slender hand trembles as it strokes Campeador's long flowing mane.
Inez has passed a restless, miserable night, devising all kinds of
wild schemes for keeping her brother from the perilous encounter;
schemes which melted away with the first gleam of morning light. If
she kept back his horse, if she detained his accoutrements, Alcala,
his sister well knew, would but provide himself with others. He would
rather ride into the circus on one of the wretched hacks destined for
slaughter, than fail at the hour of appointment. Inez could now but
send, both by letter and word, entreaties to her brother that he would
at least come and see her before going to the Plaza de Toros. The
letter and messages were intrusted to Chico, a dark-browed,
bandy-legged, ill-favoured groom, who was to lead the horse about a
mile beyond the boundaries of Seville, to the Posada de Quesada, where
Alcala had chosen to pass the preceding night. Chico's stunted form
was half hidden under the burden of finery which he carried; he did
not, however, bear with him the picador's spear, for that needful
weapon Alcala had selected for himself, not trusting the choice of it
to a servant.
A little in the rear of the group appeared Teresa; but Lucius, had he
been present, would scarcely have recognized in her the work-soiled,
poorly-dressed old drudge whom he had seen bargaining with the hawker.
Teresa was now attired in her best Sunday apparel; and the look of
complacent pride on her wrinkled face was in strong contrast to that
of despairing sorrow on that of her youthful lady. Teresa allowed
herself the one annual treat of going to a bull-fight, to her Spanish
mind the greatest of pleasures. She had a cousin to whom belonged the
office of cleansing the blood-stained arena, and who always contrived
to smuggle Teresa into a good seat, she being content to go early and
wait for hours before the entertainment began. Nothing would have
bribed the ancient Andalusian to have been absent from the Plaza de
Toros on the present occasion; her strong desire to go overcame her
reluctance to leaving for the greater part of the day her infirm old
mistress and the sorrowing Inez. To Teresa, blinded by pride even
greater than that which usually characterizes the Spaniard, the coming
struggle in the Plaza de Toros appeared in a very different light from
that in which it was viewed by Alcala's more clear-minded and
tender-hearted sister. Full of the glories of the race of heroes from
whom her master was descended, Teresa felt not a doubt that she was
going to be a witness to his triumph. It had been a bitter humiliation
to the old domestic to know that Alcala was earning his bread by
honest industry. Had he consulted Teresa, the family might have
starved before the caballero had so demeaned himself as to work for
the firm of Messrs. Passmore and Perkins. But it was a very different
thing to behold Don Alcala de Aguilera ride in magnificent array into
the Coliseo, to confront danger with all the courage of his race, and
win the plaudits of assembled thousands. Teresa felt as an old
retainer of some knight might have done in days of chivalry, when his
master rode forth, with gilded spurs and waving plume, to win honour
in the lists at some brilliant tourney. To Teresa's partial eyes
Campeador was the noblest of steeds, worthy to carry the bravest of
masters. The arm of an Aguilera, once raised to strike, must hurl to
the dust whatever opposed it. Teresa would not have feared the result
had Alcala had, like Hercules, to slay the Nemean lion.
And the hopes of Teresa extended far beyond the triumph of a day.
Donna Antonia de Rivadeo, the wealthiest as well as the most beautiful
heiress in Seville, was to be present at the _gran foncion_ in the
Coliseo. The lady would look on Alcala no longer as the drudging
clerk, serving a foreign heretic, but as the chivalrous caballero of
Andalusia, valiant as ever was knight who couched lance against the
Moors in the time of Queen Isabella. The days of pinching poverty and
humiliation would be ended at last; Alcala would spear his bull, and
win his beautiful bride, and Teresa would receive at last the reward
of her long faithful service. In imagination Teresa, in the richest
and stiffest of silks, already presided over a numerous household in a
sumptuous palace, instead of toiling from morning till night, ill paid
and scantily fed, with no one to abuse and order about but
bandy-legged Chico, who always disputed her commands. Such bright
visions seemed to take ten years of age from the ambitious Teresa, and
she saw with impatience and indignation the grief which showed how
little Inez shared in such hopes.
"Shame on those tears, Donna Inez!" exclaimed old Teresa. "It is well
that your illustrious brother is not here to see your weakness; it
would make the caballero blush for his sister! Are you a daughter of
the house of De Aguilera, and yet tremble with cowardly fear?" The
spirit of Inez was too much broken for the insolent taunt to raise
even a flush on her cheek.
They were gone. Campeador had been led away by Chico, and Teresa had
hobbled off with what energy hope and pride could lend towards the
Plaza de Toros. Inez returned into the house to perform a homely duty
which sorrow did not make her forget. There was no one but herself to
prepare her grandmother's early cup of chocolate; Inez made it ready,
and then carried it to the bedside of Donna Benita.
There were fewer signs of poverty in the old lady's apartment than
perhaps in any other in the house. The draperies, though very ancient,
had yet an effect picturesque and rich. The coverlet over the bed was
delicately white, and had been embroidered with small bunches of
flowers in coloured silks by Inez. There was fine old lace on the cap
which covered Donna Benita's scanty gray hairs; very thin and aged was
the face which appeared beneath it.
"Where's Alcala? where's my boy?" murmured the widowed lady. The cloud
on her intellect did not prevent Donna Benita from loving her
grandson, or missing his presence, as a child might do that of an
accustomed companion. "He was not here yesterday, was he? tell him to
come to me quickly."
Inez silently kissed the thin wasted hand extended towards her. She
stood with her back to the light as she first beat up the pillows and
then proffered the cup, that the old lady might not see the traces of
tears on her face. When Donna Benita, in a fretful tone, repeated her
question, Inez tried to speak cheerfully, as she replied that Alcala
had been specially engaged. Inez had to say the words thrice over
before the aged lady could take in their meaning.
"And where's Teresa? why does she leave me?" asked the invalid, in
feeble complaining accents.
"Teresa has gone to the Plaza de Toros," replied poor Inez with an
effort.
"Ah! I used to go there with my Pedro--long, long ago," murmured Donna
Benita. The feeble mind was trying to recall images once traced on the
memory, but gradually fading away into one dull blank of oblivion.
Even that slight mental effort wearied the aged lady, and having
finished her chocolate, she soon fell into that dozing state in which
she now passed by far the greater part of her time.
As soon as Inez saw that her grandmother slept, she glided away to the
patio, and from thence through the vestibule to the archway, to watch
for the coming of her brother. Could he resist her entreaties? could
he refuse her the one poor boon which she had asked, the sad luxury of
bidding him--perhaps a last--farewell?
While she was gloomily gazing forth into the now silent street, a
sudden thought occurred to the mind of the sister. Inez would make one
effort more to move the resolution of Aguilera, or to bribe her patron
saint to protect him. The maiden hastened back into the patio without
giving herself time for reflection. There, in a recess between two
columns, Inez had left the writing materials which she had used when
penning the note intrusted to Chico. She sank down on her knees at the
place, and resting her blotting-book on the base of one of the
columns, hastily, and with trembling fingers, wrote the following
letter:--
"I have vowed a solemn vow to Santa Anna. If you, brother of my heart,
venture to-day into the arena, and the blessed saint bear you unharmed
out of the terrible encounter, I will take the veil, and devote myself
to her service for the rest of my life in the nunnery of Cordova.
Judge what you risk, Alcala, before you ride into the Plaza de Toros.
If, regardless of my prayers and my tears, you keep your fatal
appointment, you lose either your sister or your life. You may return
unharmed and victorious, but it will be but to see your only sister
offer herself up as a thank-offering for your preservation. If you
would miss your Inez, if you have ever loved her, break your dreadful
engagement. I know too well what it will cost you to do so, but
anything is better than the misery--the ruin which is before us all if
you keep it!"
With this missive in her hand Inez returned to the archway. If Alcala
were coming at all before going to the circus, by this time he would
surely have come. The poor girl glanced up and down the street; there
was not a single person to be seen, save a muleteer who chanced to be
passing, and who turned in some surprise to see a senora standing
alone at the entrance of a mansion. Teresa and Chico both being
absent, Inez had no messenger to send with her letter, unless she
employed the stranger whom chance had brought into her way. The lady
beckoned to the muleteer to approach her, drew off her rosary--the
only ornament which she wore--for money she had none, and gave the
coral beads, with the letter, into the hand of the man.
"For the love of mercy," she cried, "hasten with this letter to Don
Alcala de Aguilera, at the Posada de Quesada. Oh, delay not; go as
for your life!"
"I know the illustrious caballero, senora," said the muleteer, with an
air of respectful pity. "The lady shall have no cause to complain of
my slackness; ere an hour be passed I will bring a reply."
Was it a satisfaction or a terror to Inez when that letter was
despatched? Perhaps it was both. Various feelings struggled in her
breast, and it would have been difficult, even to herself, to have
decided which was uppermost there. Inez, though pious, according to
her superstitious views of religion, had no inclination whatever for
the prison life of a convent. It was only her intense, unselfish love
for her brother which induced her to threaten him and herself with a
separation which would be, she felt, to her a living death. Inez had,
from infancy, clung with the fondest affection to Alcala, her only
brother. He had been to her companion, tutor, friend; and since the
death of their last surviving parent, had almost taken towards the
orphan girl the place of a father. With Alcala, Inez had shared
poverty, and had scarcely felt its burden. What luxury that wealth
might have procured would have been to Inez like that of sitting
beside or at the feet of Alcala, in the cool of the evening, enjoying
the music of his guitar, or blending her voice with his own? Often
too had Alcala read aloud to his sister, while her fingers plied the
needle. Inez had specially loved to work for her brother, that so
poverty should not oblige him to dress in a way unbefitting his birth.
The library of the Aguileras was but a small one; it consisted of a
few books which had belonged to their wealthy grandfather,--it need
scarcely be said that a Bible was not amongst them; but from reading,
and listening to reading, the mind of Inez had received more
cultivation than is usually found amongst women in Andalusia, though
in England her education would have been considered very incomplete.
It had been no small advantage to Inez that she had been almost
entirely secluded from the frivolous society of Seville. The pride of
poverty had had much to do with the maiden's seclusion; for Alcala had
been unwilling that his sister should accept hospitality which he had
not the means of returning. Inez had never complained of want of
amusement; she had scarcely even regretted the quietness in which she
was passing the spring-time of youth, her hours divided between
attendance on her grandmother and other duties, and the sweet
employment of making her brother happy. Inez had her little garden in
the patio to tend, and the maiden delighted in flowers. It seemed to
her now, as she stood in that court, leaning against a pillar, with
her eyes gloomily fixed on the broken fountain, that the past had been
a bright dream, which was passing from her for ever. Unless Alcala
should yield to her entreaties (and then his life would be clouded
over by a sense of disgrace), there seemed to Inez to be no
alternative between weeping over a sepulchre or in a convent cell. In
either case Alcala, the joy, the sunshine of her life, would be lost
to his only sister.
Slowly, very slowly to Inez passed the minutes. Alcala had not come,
and his absence was in itself a reply. But before the hour was over,
Inez, who had gone back to her watch at the entrance, saw the muleteer
returning. The young lady could not refrain from running forth into
the street to meet the messenger, who might be the bearer of a letter.
The man held out to the eager girl a fragment of paper, crumpled and
dusty, which had evidently been torn from a book. A few scarcely
legible words were written in pencil on the margin of the page,--"_It
is too late! Forgive, and pray for Alcala!_"
CHAPTER VII.
DRIVEN TO THE SLAUGHTER.
During the reign of Queen Isabella there was no church in Seville in
which Protestants could assemble for worship.[11] Deprived thus of
outward means of grace, Lucius had formed a habit of walking on
Sundays as far as he could into the country, and there, under the
shade of some cork-tree, or clump of stone-pines, reading his Spanish
Testament, and, in perfect solitude, lifting up his heart in prayer
and in praise. On this Sunday he started on his walk rather more early
than usual, glad to leave behind him the jarring sounds of the city.
Already, however, Seville was all astir. Groups of people were passing
to the different churches, but these groups consisted almost entirely
of priests or women; by far the larger portion of the male population
of Seville were drawn towards a centre of stronger attraction,--that
centre was, as Lucius well knew, the Plaza de Toros. Thither, in an
hour or two, gay carriages would be bearing their smiling occupants to
gaze on scenes at which the bravest Briton might shudder. Already
little streams of people were flowing forth from winding street and
narrow lane, clad in holiday attire, eager to secure good places. Many
a ragged beggar, many a barefooted urchin, who could not hope to be
admitted into El Coliseo (as the Spaniards proudly name their circus),
went to swell the crowd round the entrance. They would at least enjoy
a sight of the gay procession of picadors, matadors, and chulos; they
would be able to join in the shout when a slaughtered bull should be
dragged out by a team of gaudily caparisoned mules.
At almost every street corner Lucius saw flaming placards from which
glared on his view the name of his hapless friend. When he reached the
bridge which spans the Guadalquivir, Lucius found the river dotted
with boats bringing gaily-dressed sight-seers from villages and
hamlets situated near its banks. Well pleased was the Englishman to
turn his back upon the city, and pursue his walk along the wild
Dehesa, as that tract of broken country is called which intervenes
between the towns of Seville and Xeres. The mind of Lucius on this
Sabbath-day was not attuned to enjoy the beauties of nature. He
noticed not the glades carpeted with yellow lotus, or fragrant with
the alhucena, the purple lavender of Andalusia. Unobserved by him,
brilliant butterflies fluttered over the blossoms of the gum-cistus,
or lizards of green and gold basked in the glowing sunshine. The
spirit of Lucius was not only oppressed by anxiety, but saddened by
self-reproach.
"Had Aguilera known the Word of Truth," was the young man's
reflection, "he might have learned from its pages that his life is not
his own, to be hazarded like the stake of a gambler on the cast of the
dice! He might have learned that a nobler object is offered for the
aspirations of the soul than the plaudits of a Seville mob, or even
the favour of a woman! I have feared to offend the prejudices and lose
the friendship of Aguilera,--and all opportunity of doing him good may
now be passed away. Buried talent--buried talent--taken from me for
ever!"
Lucius had not proceeded far on his way, when he was roused from his
bitter reflections by the loud voice of some one in front of him
warning him to stand aside. Raising his eyes, which had been fixed on
the ground, the Englishman observed a cloud of dust before him, and
heard the trampling of hoofs. The road in this place had been a
cutting through a hill, and was somewhat narrow in breadth; high rough
banks rose on either side. Advancing along this road were now seen two
Spaniards on horse-back, armed with long spears. Behind them came a
troop of Andalusian bulls, driven by men on foot, who were clad in
sheep-skin, and armed with slings. Warned as he had been to get out of
the way, Lucius took a few steps up the right bank of the cutting,
less to place himself beyond reach of possible danger, than to obtain
a better view of the troop. Formidable animals appeared the bulls,
with their thick, powerful necks and large horns, as they moved
onwards towards the city, snorting and pawing the ground in the pride
of their mighty strength. As they passed the spot where Lucius stood,
the largest of the herd raised his dilated nostrils in the air, and
gave a bellow of defiance, which from that deep chest sounded terrible
as the roar of an angry lion.
The savage beasts passed on, but one of their drivers lingered for a
few minutes behind them, in order to repair his sandal, of which one
of the fastenings had given way on the road. Lucius descended from his
higher position, and joined the herdsman, who had seated himself on a
small projecting knoll, to effect his work with more ease. Lucius
courteously wished the man good-morning, and the roughly-clad peasant
returned the stranger's greeting with Spanish politeness.
[Illustration: BEFORE THE FIGHT.]
[Illustration: AFTER THE FIGHT.
Page 66]
"Are these bulls bound for the circus?" inquired the Englishman with
interest.
The driver nodded his head. "Ay, not one of them will be alive this
evening," observed the peasant. "The poor brutes would not go on so
proudly towards Seville if they knew what is before them."
"Danger awaits others besides them," muttered Lucius Lepine.
"Ay, senor," observed the herdsman, misunderstanding the drift of the
words; "other folk may go as blindfold as these bulls to their death,
strong and gay in the morning, dragged in the dust before night.
There's my own brother, for instance, he who lives in our village
under the sierra yonder. Poor Carlos was dancing the fandango one day
at a bridal, the merriest of the company there; on his way home he but
slipped his foot on a steep, rocky path, and down falls the strong,
active man, to be picked up with a broken back, and carried to our
cottage to lie, as he has done for months, groaning with pain, and
helpless as a child."
It occurred to Lucius that here might be an opportunity given to him
of introducing into an abode of suffering the comfort of God's holy
Word. "Can your brother read?" he inquired.
"Read!--ay, almost as well as the priest. Carlos always took to the
learning, whilst most of our folk know no more of letters than one of
the beasts that they drive." The man rose from his seat as he spoke,
for he had finished repairing his sandal with a morsel of string.
"Will you give your brother this from me?" said the Englishman, taking
from his breast-pocket the Spanish Testament, and offering it to the
hind with an effort to overcome the shyness which had hitherto
prevented his attempting to spread gospel-knowledge in Spain.
The man took the little volume with a blank stare of surprise at the
stranger who had made so extraordinary a present. The peasant then
opened and glanced at the contents of the book, and the expression on
his face changed to that of fanatical fierceness.
"Bad book--heretical--_muera a los Protestantes_!" (death to the
Protestants!) exclaimed the peasant, tearing out several pages from
the sacred volume, and then flinging it back at the face of the giver.
The fanatic would probably have added insults and imprecations, had
not the necessity of making up for lost time, by rejoining the herd
with all speed, obliged the driver to run on quickly in the direction
of Seville.
Lucius with a sigh--for failure in an attempt to do good is always
painful--picked up first the Testament, and then the scattered
leaves,--all save one which escaped his notice, for a light wind had
whirled it away.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] I have been informed, since writing the above, that there was an
English chaplain; but we may suppose him to have been absent at this
time.
CHAPTER VIII.
WITHOUT AND WITHIN.
Not long after Lucius had quitted that spot, there came to it a single
horseman, slowly riding towards the city of Seville. The cavalier was
richly attired in green and silver; a broad scarlet scarf was wound
round his waist, and its fringed end hung gracefully over his
shoulder. His feet, cased in high boots, rested on stirrups of
peculiar shape, designed from their size and strength to act as a
protection to the rider. A Spanish sombrero shaded the cavalier's
brow, and his hand grasped a sharp spear. The horseman was Alcala de
Aguilera, in full fico as a picador, bound for the Plaza de Toros.
But, save in costume, the young Spaniard had nothing in common with
the bull-fighter by profession; Alcala's face and form were both in
strong contrast to those of the low-bred favourite of the Coliseo. The
form was tall and slight, and conveyed no impression of possessing
great physical strength. The pale intellectual countenance, with its
delicately-formed features, suggested the idea of a student or poet,
rather than that of a bold picador as dead to fear as to mercy. The
expression on those features was that of intense melancholy, and
formed but too faithful an index to the feelings of the heart which
beat beneath the folds of that brilliant scarf.
Alcala was sensible that he had committed an act of the greatest
folly. He had ventured all--his sister's peace of mind, his family's
comfort, his own life--for a bubble that was not worth the grasping,
even were it within his reach. Alcala was not one to care for the
applause of a mob; nay, his proud, reserved nature shrank sensitively
from the idea of appearing to court it. The greatest success in the
common circus would be rather a disgrace than an honour to an
Aguilera; he could not raise but degrade himself by competing for
popular favour with professional picadors.
Nor had Alcala the incitement of passion to impel him onwards in his
perilous career. His admiration of the governor's daughter had been
but a passing fancy, a homage paid to mere beauty; it had no strong
hold on his soul. The discovery of Antonia's heartlessness and selfish
pride had changed that admiration into something almost resembling
contempt. Alcala contrasted Antonia with Inez, the vain selfish beauty
with the loving, self-forgetting woman, and felt much as did the
knight of old who scornfully flung at the feet of his lady the glove
which she had bidden him bring from the arena in which wild beasts
were contending.
"Were I offered the hand of Antonia de Rivadeo," mused Aguilera, "I
would not now accept it, though she should bring as her dowry all
Andalusia!"
Thus even in success there was nothing to attract the young Spaniard.
But Alcala had scarcely any hope of success; and if the brighter side
of the picture was but dull, the darker was gloomy indeed. Alcala had
not frequented bull-fights; the sport was little to his taste, though
he did not regard it with all the horror and disgust which he would
have felt had he been brought up in England. But though the cavalier
had not been frequently seen at the Plaza de Toros, he had often
enough been a spectator of the scenes acted in the circus to know well
what dangers attend the contest with a furious bull, and how
absolutely essential to the safety of a picador is skill in the use of
his weapon. Such skill could only be acquired by practice, and until
this time Alcala had never handled a spear. In the grasp of the young
cavalier it felt unwieldy and cumbrous. He was as little likely to use
it effectually, as he would have been to climb to the mast-head of a
vessel in the midst of a storm, having never had nautical training.
Superstition, from which Alcala was not perfectly free, although far
more enlightened than most of his countrymen, tended to deepen the
impression on his mind that he was riding to his destruction. When
Alcala had been very young, his mother had consulted an old Gitana,
famed for her skill in prognostications, as to the future fate of her
boy. The child had never forgotten the weird appearance of the old
wrinkled hag, nor the words of her mumbled reply: "He will die in his
prime a violent death, and many shall look on at his fall." The
warning recurred to Alcala's memory with almost the force of prophecy,
now that he appeared so likely to meet such a fate as had been thus
foretold.
Then, to think on the position in which his death would leave his
family made Alcala de Aguilera writhe with mental torture. What would
become of his aged parent, widowed and imbecile--what would become of
his gentle loving sister, if their one prop were taken away? They had
already parted with most of the relics left of his grandfather's
wealth; not an acre which had once belonged to the estates of the
Aguileras remained to them now. The mansion in Seville was out of
repair, and situated in a now unfashionable quarter; should the ruined
family be driven to part with their home, the sale of the house would
bring but temporary relief to their need. It was not without a sharp
pang that Alcala thought even of Teresa, with all her faults so loving
and faithful a retainer, and revolved the probability of her ending
her long life of service by becoming a beggar in Seville!
And it was his madness that had done all. He was ruthlessly
sacrificing all who loved him, all whom he loved, to the Moloch of his
own pride! Alcala, when tortured by such reflections, again and again
almost resolved to break his fatal engagement, and make some excuse
for not entering the circus. But the sneers of his acquaintance, the
scoffs of his rivals, the yells of a disappointed mob, were harder to
be encountered than the charge of a savage bull. Alcala had not the
moral courage to face them. He could not endure to live on to be
taunted as the foreign manufacturer's clerk, who with the estates of
his ancestors had also lost all their courage and spirit. There was
but one thing (and that thing the cavalier lacked)--the constraining
power of faith and love--that could have enabled the Spaniard to
throw down and trample under foot that Moloch of pride.
But worse even than fears for his family, worse than the anticipation
of a violent death for himself, was the awful darkness which to Alcala
hung over the future beyond the grave! To die was to him as a leap
into chaos! Alcala was, as has been observed, more enlightened than
many Spaniards: he had used the taper-gleams of man's knowledge; but
of clear light from Heaven he had none. Alcala had read enough to make
him loosen his hold on the vain superstitions of the Church in which
he had been reared, but not enough to make him grasp any firm hope in
their place. The Spaniard did not believe that a priest could absolve
him from sin, therefore he felt that those sins were yet unforgiven.
He could not ease his conscience by repeating Latin prayers or
reciting a given number of penitential psalms, therefore his
conscience remained oppressed. The cavalier had no faith in prescribed
penance, purchased masses, or confessions to man, as means of
propitiating One who was to him indeed an "unknown God"; where then
was he to find peace? What was to assure Alcala that, if he gasped out
his last breath that day in the circus, he might not be but exchanging
the death agony for torments infinitely more terrible, because they
would never be closed by death? The state of mind of the cavalier
might, with little alteration, be described in the words of the
poet:--
"Before him tortures which the soul may dare,
But doubts how well the shrinking flesh may bear,
Yet deeply feels a single cry would shame
To valour's praise his last, his dearest claim.
The life he lost below--denied above.
....*....*....*....*
A more than doubtful Paradise, his heaven
Of earthly hope, his loved one from him riven.
These were the thoughts that [Spaniard] must sustain
And govern pangs surpassing mortal pain,
And these sustained he, boots it well or ill,
Since not to sink beneath is something still."
In the anguish of his spirit the mind of Alcala reverted again and
again to Lucius Lepine. The Spaniard was of course aware that his
English companion held views of religion very different from those
adopted by the Roman Catholic Church. Alcala had secretly wished to
know more of these Protestant views, and now the wish became intense
when it was too late to gratify it. Alcala thought his English friend
the most upright and highminded man with whom he had ever met, and was
acute enough to distinguish that highmindedness from pride. The
Spaniard saw that Lepine had a loftier standard of duty than those
around him, and asked himself whence had that standard been drawn.
Alcala had never indeed heard his friend converse on the topic of
Divinity; but in many things, some of them trifling in themselves,
the observant eye of the cavalier had seen that his companion was
guided by a sense of religion. No profane word ever crossed the lips
of Lepine; he was pure in his life; he reverenced the Sabbath in a way
that appeared novel and strange to Alcala, but which the Spaniard
could not but respect.
And yet this noble-hearted, conscientious Englishman was one whom the
Romish priests would denounce as a heretic doomed to perdition! "How
strange," mused Alcala, "that from the root of error should spring a
tree bearing fruits so fair!" The Spaniard had yearned for a clearer
knowledge of that faith which was branded as worse than infidelity,
and which yet could produce such effects. He would fain have
questioned Lucius on the subject, but pride and reserve kept him
silent.
Once only had the ice been slightly broken. Lucius had been led to
allude in conversation to the death of his father, who, when cruising
in the Pacific, had been struck dead by a flash of lightning. It was a
painful subject, and one on which he rarely touched; but the two
friends were together alone under the quiet moonlight, and there had
been more of interchange of thought between them than there had ever
been before.
"It must have embittered your trial," Alcala had observed, "that your
father had no time for preparation for death--no time to receive the
last rites of his Church." Greatly had the Spaniard been struck by his
companion's reply, "No; for my father had made his peace with God long
before." Not a shadow of doubt had darkened the countenance of the
Protestant as he uttered these words; Lepine had looked as fully
assured of the happiness of his parent as if he had himself seen him
carried by angels into the skies. Alcala could not utter the question
which trembled on his lips, "Have you then no fear of the purgatorial
pains which, as our priests tell us, are needed to purify even the
good?" That question was answered, ere it was asked, by the peace--the
more than peace--which shone in the eyes of Lucius.
"What would not I give," thought the unhappy Alcala, as he rode
towards Seville, "to know on what basis rested that assurance of hope
which evidently made the Protestant look upon sudden death but as a
step into glory! Lepine's father had 'made his peace with God long
before!' How had he made his peace; how could he know that his sins
were forgiven, and that he might stand without trembling before the
awful judgment-seat of his God?"
CHAPTER IX.
THE BRIEF FAREWELL.
Alcala had now reached the place where the narrow lane in which stood
the posada in which he had passed the night opened into the highway
leading directly to Seville. He was now on the road along which, ten
minutes previously, had passed the herd of fighting-bulls destined for
the arena. Alcala saw the print of their hoofs in the dust; he noticed
at no great distance the gleam of their horns above the cloud raised
by their tramping and that of their mounted conductors. Alcala had
been near enough to hear that defiant roar of the monarch of the herd
that had thrilled on the ear of Lucius. Campeador had raised his
tasselled head, and pricked up his ears at the noise.
Alcala bent down to stroke the neck of his steed. "Ah! Campeador," he
gloomily said as he did so, "does instinct tell you that there is
death in that sound? You too will suffer from my accursed folly and
pride. You deserve a better fate, my poor horse, and a far better
master!"
As Alcala slowly rode onwards, following in the track of the bulls, he
saw a muleteer approaching towards him. Lepine, after his brief and
unsatisfactory colloquy with the herdsman, had turned off in a
different direction, or he must have encountered his friend. The
figure of the muleteer was the only one visible at this point upon the
narrow road, which lay through a cutting.
Alcala, buried in his painful reflections, would scarcely have noticed
the muleteer, had not the man, when they had almost met, respectfully
greeted him by his name.
"Senor de Aguilera," said the messenger of Inez, approaching the
cavalier's stirrup, "I bear to you a letter from a senorita." And the
muleteer held up to Alcala the epistle which had been intrusted to his
charge.
Alcala stopped his horse, shifted his lance to his bridle-hand, took
the note, and with a little difficulty disengaged it from its
envelope. Only the presence of a stranger made him refrain from
groaning aloud as he read the impassioned words of his sister. Her
threat to bury herself in a convent thrilled his soul with unspeakable
anguish; for gentle and yielding as was the nature of Inez, her
brother had never yet known her fail in keeping her word, even in the
face of opposition. If anything could have added to the misery of the
young Spaniard, it was such a letter as this. For a moment it almost
shook his firm resolution to brave out the consequences of his rash
boast; for a moment Alcala thought of turning his bridle and urging
Campeador to bear him afar from Seville! But it could not be; every
drop of proud Spanish blood in the veins of an Aguilera seemed to
protest against so ignominious a flight. Alcala, whose brain was dizzy
from the violence of his emotions, was recalled to himself by the
muleteer's question,--
"Has the caballero any message for me to take back to the senorita?"
The muleteer was no stranger to Alcala, who knew him to be an honest
but ignorant man, unable even to read. The cavalier would not send a
verbal reply to the note of Inez, but had no time to return to the
posada in order to write what he could not speak. Alcala drew out a
pencil-case which he chanced to have on his person, but he carried
with him no paper, and he would not return to the unhappy Inez her own
epistle; that token of her affection he would bear with him to the
last. The muleteer guessed from his gesture that the cavalier wished
to write, and saw that he had no writing materials save the
pencil-case in his hand. The man supplied the want, in his own rough
way, by stooping and picking up from the road a dusty fragment of
paper which happened to be lying upon it. There was no opportunity of
procuring a more suitable sheet; Alcala scarcely even noticed that the
paper was part of a leaf torn from a printed book. There was room on
the margin for a few words; and resting the paper on his saddle, after
giving the muleteer charge of his spear, Alcala hastily scrawled the
brief note which was soon afterwards received by his sister. How many
bitter tears were to be shed over that leaf!
"It is I who am blighting her young life; it is I who am riveting
chains upon her whose only fault is that of loving an ungrateful
brother too well," muttered Alcala to himself, as he saw his messenger
speed on before him.
The painful task of answering the letter of Inez being over, Alcala
thrust it under his scarf, gently shook his rein, and rode on. No
prisoner condemned to suffer at an auto-da-fe had ever gone to the
stake erected in the Plaza more hopeless of deliverance than Alcala
felt at that moment. His embroidered vestments were to him as the
san-benito worn by the doomed; the horrible ordeal from which nature
shrank was before him, and he had no enthusiasm of zeal, no joy of
hope, to bear him through it.
Some stragglers, bound for the sport at the Coliseo, were overtaken by
Aguilera. They recognized him as a picador by his peculiar dress,
turned eagerly to look at him, and in loud tones made their remarks on
the horseman as he passed them.
"Brave caballero! how splendid he looks!" cried an Andalusian maiden.
"But scarcely strong enough to drive his spear deep into the tough
hide of a bull," remarked her more experienced companion.
"Tush, Tomaso, it's all skill," laughed the girl. "I warrant you the
picador knows how to manage his horse in the ring, and avoid the
thrust of the horns--"
The conclusion of the sentence did not reach the ears of Alcala; he
had urged his steed to a quicker pace, in order to get beyond
hearing.
CHAPTER X.
STRUCK DOWN.
Lucius endeavoured so to time the hour of his return to Seville that
he might re-enter the town when the result of the bull-fight might be
known. He proposed calling at the mansion in the Calle de San Jose on
his way back to his lodging, with the hope, if not of seeing Alcala,
at least of hearing tidings of his safety.
The sun was still some height above the western horizon when Lucius
entered the deserted street. The glare reflected back from the high
dead wall was oppressive.
"I am too early; I have been too impatient," thought the young
Englishman, as he laid his hand on the bell which hung in the shadow
of the archway. He marked that the grating of the patio was ajar. Inez
had forgotten to lock it after receiving from the muleteer the note
from Alcala which crushed her last hope. The unprotected state of the
house mattered, however, little; there was no great danger of thieves
invading a place in which they would find no plunder.
Lucius rang softly, as one who would by no loud summons disturb a
house of mourning; but the bell was instantly answered. The grating at
the end of the vestibule was thrown hastily back, and the trembling
Inez herself hurried through the opening, and along the arched
passage. Her dark eyes were dilated with fear, her pale lips trembled.
She knew not whom she was addressing, but her whole soul appeared to
flow forth in the question, "Bring you tidings from the Plaza de
Toros?"
"I come to ask for them, senorita," began Lucius. But the eyes of Inez
rested on him no longer, they were turned wistfully in another
direction. Her ear, quickened by fear, had caught a sound which Lucius
had heard not, and breathless with expectation she gazed up the
street. In another moment a crowd of persons appeared emerging from
the entrance of a lane which crossed the Calle de San Jose. They came
not with shout or mirth, as if escorting a victor home, but slowly,
like a throng who follow a funeral procession. There was no noise,
save the tramping of feet, and ever and anon the wail of a woman.
Lucius glanced at Inez, and read despair in her face. An icy numbness
was creeping over her frame; she had no power to go forward to meet
the corpse of her brother. Soon the crowd reached the entrance of the
dwelling of Aguilera; in the midst of the throng was seen a litter
borne by men. On that litter lay stretched a motionless form. Pale and
ghastly, with garments blood-stained and torn, Alcala de Aguilera was
borne back to the home of his fathers.
Lucius intuitively took the place of a brother. "Back--back!" he
exclaimed in a tone of authority to the crowd who pressed round the
litter,--"none but the bearers shall enter. Who will go for a
surgeon?"
"I--I," replied several voices, and the crowd dispersed in various
directions, whilst the litter was borne through the arched passage.
"Show the way to his room," said Lucius to Teresa, whom he recognized,
as she followed her master closely, crying and wringing her hands.
The litter was carried across the patio, and through a long spacious
corridor, at the end of which lay the cavalier's apartment. Alcala's
wound had already been roughly bound up at the circus, the flowing
blood had been stanched. He was, with the help of Lucius and Inez,
gently lifted from the litter and placed on his bed, to await the
surgeon's arrival.
"Water--bring water!" cried Lucius. Teresa hurried to obey the
command, but her young mistress had forestalled her. In this emergency
the energy of Inez had returned. But not a word had she uttered, not a
tear had she shed; her anguish had sealed her lips, her terror had
dried up her tears. Kneeling beside her brother's low bed, Inez
sprinkled with water his corpse-like face; Lucius, gently supporting
his head, put a cup to his lips.
"Oh, Heaven be praised!--he drinks! there is life in him still!"
exclaimed Inez.
"He's dying--he's dying--last of his race! Oh, woe's me! woe's me!"
moaned Teresa.
Lucius dismissed the bearers, satisfying their demands with the
coin--it was but little--that he chanced to have on his person. They
had scarcely left the place ere the anxiously expected surgeon
arrived.
The surgeon removed the bandages from the insensible Alcala, and
examined his ghastly wound. There was a deep gash in the left
shoulder, from which there had been a great effusion of blood. The
full extent of the injury sustained by the unfortunate cavalier could
not be ascertained at once.
"He was crushed up against the barrier,--I saw it with my own
eyes,--oh that I should have lived to see it!" cried Teresa, with
passionate gestures. "The bull charged, and in a moment man and horse
were down in the dust. Campeador never rose again, the horns of the
savage--"
"Be silent, woman!" said Lucius sternly; "does not your lady already
suffer enough?"
Teresa stared in angry surprise at this unexpected rebuke from the
stranger, who had assumed a post of command in the house of his friend
by the tacit consent of its mistress; for Inez felt as if, in her
sorest need, a helper and supporter had been sent to her by Heaven.
The old woman dared not reply, but muttering something between her
teeth about "insolent heretic," busied herself with the bandages
required for the wound.
When the surgeon had finished his work, Lucius accompanied him out of
the room, that his question, "Do you think that there is hope?" might
not be heard by Inez.
"It is impossible to give any decided opinion as yet, senor," answered
the surgeon. "Fever will probably ensue; let some one sit up with the
caballero during the night."
As the surgeon crossed the patio, it was entered by a priest. In this
stout personage, swathed in long black robe with rosary and crucifix
dependent; with plump, dark, close-shaven face, and tonsured head from
which the huge flapped hat was now removed, Lucius recognized the
priest who had touched him on the shoulder on the previous evening.
There was no word spoken between the two men; the family confessor
needed no guide to the room of Alcala. But the eyes of the Spaniard
and the Englishman met, and each read in the glance of the other, "I
shall find an opponent in you."
From motives of delicacy, Lucius did not follow the priest into
Alcala's apartment, but remained waiting in the lofty corridor. He
would not by his presence disturb the visit of a spiritual director.
The door was closed between them; no ordinary conversation could
therefore be heard by one standing outside, who had no wish or
intention to listen. The priest, however, probably purposely, spoke
loudly enough in the chamber of sickness for a word or two
occasionally to reach the ear of Lucius.
"Not at confession for the last year,--bad
influence--heretic--Protestant," such were the words which the raised
tone in which they were spoken rendered audible,--though an indistinct
murmur was all that was otherwise heard of the voice of the
ecclesiastic through the closed door.
"Would that I had better deserved the priest's suspicions!" thought
Lucius, with some self-reproach.
When the priest left Alcala's apartment he was followed by Inez and
Teresa, though the former went but a few steps beyond the door. Her
hands were clasped; a look of entreaty was on her pale face.
"You will not refuse my brother the last rites of the Church?" she
said faintly.
"I will come again to-morrow, and hear his confession, if Don Alcala
be then able and willing to confess," was the sternly uttered reply.
"I hope that I shall find him a true son of the Church;" the hope was
expressed in a tone that was more suggestive of doubt. Inez bowed low
with submissive reverence, and returned to her post.
As Father Bonifacio--such was the name of the priest--passed Lucius,
again his eyes rested on the young Englishman with an expression of
dislike and suspicion. The glance was calmly returned.
Teresa accompanied the priest to the outer arch, while Lucius went
back to the room of his friend.
"I knew that there was something wrong," muttered Teresa, when
Bonifacio had passed out into the street. "Don Alcala has been too
much with those vile blasphemers of the saints and the blessed Virgin.
If all the bulls that graze on the Sierra Nevada had come against him,
the arm of an Aguilera would have prevailed, had his lance but been
sprinkled with holy water. Had the caballero been to mass and
confession in the morning, he would never have rolled in the dust at
noon. If I had my will, that English heretic should never come near or
look at him again!"
But Teresa had not her will, at least on the night which followed that
anxious day. Lucius shared with Inez the long sad watch by the
sufferer's pillow. As his presence certainly did not seem to be
unwelcome to the sister of his friend, he remained at his post until
dawn.
How often the scene in that sick-room afterwards returned to the
recollection of Lucius, its most trifling accessories imprinted
indelibly on his mind! The large and lofty but scantily-furnished
apartment, so dimly lighted by one small lamp that its further corners
were left in almost absolute darkness; the walls, on which the plaster
was cracked and peeling; while square-shaped marks and projecting
nails showed that pictures had once been hung where they no longer
remained to bear witness to the wealth and taste of their late
possessors. One family portrait alone was left, evidently painted by
the hand of a master; but it had apparently served as a pistol target
in the time when the French were quartered in Seville, as it was
drilled with several holes. The ceiling had once been richly painted
and gilded; but the gold had long since lost all trace of brightness,
and the faded painting showed in the dull light like mere undefined
stains of various hues. There was no carpet on the floor; this was not
necessarily a sign of poverty in a climate so warm as that of
Andalusia, but the boards themselves were time-worn, and in some
places seemed going to decay.
The part of the scene on which interest centred was that where Alcala
lay, on his bed of pain, with countenance so pale that it looked as if
it belonged to a monumental recumbent figure chiselled out of marble.
Almost as pale and as still, his sister sat watching beside him,
scarcely ever raising her long dark lashes, so fixed was her gaze on
the face of Alcala. Inez seemed scarcely to be aware of the presence
of a stranger, save when Lucius helped her to change the position of
the sufferer, or placed the fever-draught in her hand. Inez would then
thank him by a mute and scarcely perceptible gesture.
Hour after hour passed away, whilst the only sounds that broke the
stillness were the rustle of Teresa's dress, or the crack of one of
the old boards under her heavy tread. The old servant flitted about
uneasily, like a bird whose nest is invaded. It was against all the
duenna's ideas of propriety, as well as the devotee's prejudiced views
of religion, that the English heretic should remain in the sick-room,
which nothing would persuade Donna Inez to quit. But Teresa dared not
speak out her mind in the presence of Lucius Lepine, above all in
that still and solemn apartment. Even Teresa could hardly help seeing,
though she would not have openly acknowledged the fact, that the
services of the young stranger could not, on that night, have been
well dispensed with. No one would ever have introduced Chico into a
sick-room; and before the long night was over, Teresa's own eyelids
were closed in sleep. The old servant was worn out with the fatigue,
excitement, and distress of the day.
Alcala gave few signs of life during the long weary hours of darkness.
Occasionally he clutched his hand, sometimes his lips slightly moved
and his brow was contracted with pain. Once a few scarcely articulate
words escaped him: "Not a convent--no, not a convent!" Towards
morning, however, the wounded man sank into quiet sleep; and Lucius
felt that he could now leave him with a more easy mind.
"It is dawn--you had better depart; thanks, thanks for your kindness
to him," murmured Inez, as a slight sound of movement made her aware
that Lucius had risen from his seat. The Englishman bent his head to
whisper a word of comfort to the poor watcher before he quitted her
side.
"Senorita, trust in the mercy of God, and hope. I believe that your
brother will be spared to you yet."
CHAPTER XI.
FAILURE.
Lucius was dizzy from want of sleep when he left the mansion of the
Aguileras and went forth into the fresh morning air. But he had no
time for repose. He could but partake of a simple breakfast at his
lodging before beginning the week's work in the Calle San Francisco.
Lepine's presence in the counting-house and factory was now more
indispensable than usual, as he would, at least till a substitute
could be found for Alcala, have to do the young Spaniard's work in
addition to his own.
The mind of Lucius Lepine was very full of his friend. What he had
seen of the interior of the fine old house in the Calle de San Jose
had made Lucius sure of what he had long suspected, that Alcala de
Aguilera, though of high lineage and aristocratic bearing, was yet
exceedingly poor. Lucius doubted that the wounded man's family would
be able to procure for him even the common comforts which his
exhausted state required. Never had Lepine been more tempted to wish
himself rich. He could give no further pecuniary help; he had cut down
already to a very narrow limit his own personal expenses; his savings
had been lately forwarded to England to pay for a brother's schooling.
Lucius saw no way of supplying the need of Alcala, unless he could
interest his employer in the behalf of his friend. Mr. Passmore had a
well-filled purse, his business profits were large, and the
disbursement of twenty, thirty, or fifty doubloons would not alter his
style of living, or cause the absence of one dainty from his luxurious
table.
But Peter Passmore was not a man from whom it was pleasant to ask a
favour, or easy to draw a donation. Lucius, when he made up his mind
to plead for assistance for Alcala, was doing for his friend a thing
which nothing short of starvation would have induced him to do for
himself.
Lepine had been for two hours in the counting-house before he heard
the heavy step and puffing breathing of Mr. Passmore.
"So your friend, the picador, was yesterday carried home dead," was
the first sentence with which the master of the iron-works greeted his
clerk.
"Not dead, sir, I am thankful to say, but gored and sorely injured,"
was the reply.
"How he escaped with life is a miracle," said the manufacturer; "but
of course the chulos went to his help. It was indeed a sight to make
one hold one's breath! The bull, a magnificent brute, rushed on with
the force of a steam-engine. The horse received the goring thrust full
in his chest, so was put at once out of pain, more lucky than the
wretched hacks usually are. Of all barbarous sports invented by man or
by demon, bull-fighting is to my mind the most atrocious."
"The sufferings which I witnessed last night," said Lucius, "make me
more ready than ever to subscribe to that opinion;" and he gave a
graphic description of what he had seen in the Calle de San Jose, but
as briefly as possible, for Passmore was never a patient listener, at
least to the tale of other's woe. But the glimpse given by Lucius of
the poverty of Alcala's home made the manufacturer more indignant than
ever.
"Not the means of getting comforts!" he exclaimed, striking his flabby
hand on the desk; "then why, in the name of common sense, did the
madman, when in the receipt of a handsome salary--punctually
paid--choose to ruin not only himself but his family, in order to
gratify some fantastic, most incomprehensible whim of his own?"
"I understand that De Aguilera had some mistaken idea of honour,"
began Lucius; but his employer would not suffer him to finish the
sentence.
"Honour! fiddlestick and nonsense!" exclaimed Mr. Passmore. "What has
a clerk in an ironware factory to do with honour? Nay, you need not
fire up, young man; the blow does not hit you. My notion of true
honour is for a man to pay his way and earn his pay; and I'm satisfied
that you do both. But for this wretched Spanish pride I've no
patience! It is anything but honourable in a man to take the bread
from the mouths of his family by squandering all his money on finery
only fit for the stage; it is anything but honourable to cheat his
employer by spending on bull-sticking the time which should have been
given to book-keeping--a much wiser, safer, and, to any man with an
atom of sense, a far more agreeable employment!"
Lucius saw that it was utterly useless to attempt to draw a single
dollar from Mr. Passmore for the relief of the Aguileras. He was
disappointed, but scarcely surprised. It was impossible to refute what
the manufacturer had said, however unpalatable truth might be,
conveyed in a manner so coarse.
Another disappointment awaited Lucius Lepine. After a day of unusual
toil, rendered more irksome by the heat of the weather acting on a
frame wearied by a long night of watching, Lucius, as soon as his work
was done, set out for the Calle de San Jose. He was anxious to know
the state of his friend, and again to take his place by his bedside.
Should the improvement in Alcala's state continue--and Lucius, who was
hopeful by nature, regarded recovery as probable--what opportunities
there would be during his convalescence for quiet religious converse!
Lucius felt that he could and would say by the bedside what he could
not say in the counting-house or the Prado. Aguilera would have to
pass many long weary hours of confinement in his apartment, and then
his mind would be free to receive the good seed of the Word.
"Into how rich a soil," thought the young Englishman, "that seed will
be dropped; and who can estimate what may be the result, not only to
Alcala, but to others whom he may influence! The man who dared face a
horrible death for love or honour, must become a Christian hero if
once he embrace evangelical truth."
It was with a feeling of triumph, that made him forget for awhile
personal weariness and anxiety for his friend, that Lucius glanced
again at the placard-covered boarding which had arrested his
attention on the Saturday night preceding the bull-fight. The
invitation to the Plaza de Toros had either been torn down as out of
date, or covered with more recent advertisements; the charge from the
Bishop of Cadiz, in all the clearness of its black type, remained
there still. Lucius smiled at the thought that he himself was about to
join the band of those who were attacking Rome in her stronghold; his
second attempt to strike at superstitious error was, he trusted, not
likely to end like his first.
Lucius soon found himself at the entrance of the Aguilera mansion. The
grating at the end of the arched passage was shut, which it had not
been on the occasions of his two previous visits.
The Englishman rang gently, but his summons remained unanswered. He
rang again rather more loudly, and then walked up to the grating. He
heard a heavy step crossing the patio, and through the perforated iron
screen which divided them saw the bent form of Teresa approaching
towards him.
"How fares the senor?" inquired Lucius.
"Better, thanks to the blessed Santa Veronica, a lock of whose holy
hair has been under the caballero's pillow," was the old woman's
reply.
"Pray open the gate; I have come to nurse your master to-night," said
Lucius.
"The caballero wants none of your nursing," exclaimed Teresa, in her
harshest tone; "and if you wait till I open the gate for you, why, you
may stand there till the Guadalquivir runs dry! Away with you and your
white Judaism![12] To have the like of you prowling about sick men's
beds is enough to make the bones of good old Torquemada[13] shake in
the grave!"
Teresa's form vanished from behind the grating, and Lucius, not a
little annoyed at this unexpected obstacle to his intercourse with
Alcala, returned to his cheerless lodging.
Evening after evening the young Englishman renewed his attempt to gain
admission into the mansion of De Aguilera, but always with a similar
result. In vain he hoped for a sight of the senorita; she at least, he
believed, would not shut out the friend of her brother. Lucius saw no
one during repeated visits but the bandy-legged, ill-favoured Chico,
or the fanatic Teresa. The latter as jealously guarded the entrance to
forbidden ground as ever did fabled dragon of old. As regarded Chico,
the case was different. Lucius more than suspected that when this
servant answered his summons, the grating might have been unlocked by
means of a silver key. But Lucius was too poor to give bribes, and
the disappointed Chico became almost as rude as Teresa herself. The
young foreigner only exposed himself to insult and abuse by his
attempts to visit Alcala.
"This is my just punishment for former neglect of a clear duty," said
Lucius to himself one evening, as he turned from the Moorish archway.
"There was a time when an open gate was before me, but now the gate is
shut."
FOOTNOTES:
[12] "White Judaism, which includes all kinds of heresy, such as
Lutheranism, Freemasonry, and the like." See the Spanish priest's
definition of the term, in the seventeenth chapter of Borrows' "Bible
in Spain."
[13] A celebrated Spanish inquisitor.
CHAPTER XII.
DARKNESS AND LIGHT.
It is not the tongue of man alone that can speak to the soul of man;
God's rod hath often a solemn voice, and the conscience cannot but
hear it. Much was passing through the mind of Alcala of which those
around him knew nothing, as he lay with closed eyes and silent lips
upon his couch of pain. He was often supposed to be sleeping, when
thoughts on the deepest subjects were absorbing his mind.
The horror of the bull-fight had been to Alcala what the earthquake
was to the jailer of Philippi; it had startled his soul into uttering
the cry, "What must I do to be saved?" Not that any dark deed of guilt
lay on the young Spaniard's conscience. In a place where the standard
of morality is low, De Aguilera had led a life comparatively
blameless; the picture of maidenly purity ever before him in the
sister whom he tenderly loved, had kept him from many an error.
Alcala had little to reproach himself with as regarded man, but he had
become conscious that he had offended his Maker, and had never yet
made his peace with his God.
Alcala's ideas in regard to the Supreme Being were vague, as might be
expected in a man who had never studied the Scriptures. The Spaniard
did not know God, and therefore did not love Him. Alcala regarded the
Almighty as a Being awful in purity and terrible in justice, who
required an unhesitating obedience, an absorbing devotion, which the
young man knew had never been rendered by himself. If the horn of the
bull had gone a little deeper, if it had sent the sinner to the dread
tribunal above, how would the disembodied soul have endured the
searching scrutiny of an Omniscient Judge, and what would His awful
verdict have been? Such was the question which Alcala asked of his
conscience, and conscience gave no answer of peace.
The wounded man rather submitted to than sought the ministrations of
Bonifacio; they satisfied neither his heart nor his reason. Alcala
heard of the sanctity of the (so-called) Catholic Church, the efficacy
of her sacraments, the power of her priests, the intercession of
martyrs, the wonders to be wrought by fragment of wood or morsel of
bone,--he heard of all these things with weariness and distaste.
Alcala was as a man perishing of thirst to whom is held out an
elaborately chased cup, within which there is not a single drop of
life-giving water.
Bonifacio's rebukes were even more trying to the sufferer than were
the priest's exhortations. The confessor tried to probe his penitent's
conscience, but never laid his finger on the real wound. Alcala's
remorse was not for having read some books that did not increase his
reverence for the hierarchy of Rome, nor for not having more
frequently laid bare his inmost thoughts to a tonsured fellow-sinner.
He could not be argued into believing it to be a crime to have had a
Protestant friend. It was not recollection of such transgressions that
was troubling the cavalier's soul with the yet unanswered question,
"What must I do to be saved?"
Though Alcala never spoke to his sister of his mental struggles, she
perceived, with the quick instinct of affection, that his mind was not
at ease. Inez saw also that Bonifacio was by no means satisfied with
her brother's spiritual state. This was distressing to the gentle
Inez. "The pious father," she said to herself, "cannot know how good
is Alcala; I do not think that there is a cavalier to be compared to
him in all Andalusia."
Inez was, indeed, aware that Alcala was not quite so strict a Catholic
as if he had been brought up in a cloister. She remembered that when
Queen Isabella (whom the most loyal of her subjects could not regard
as a saint) had presented to the black image of our Lady of Atocha a
robe crusted with jewels said to be worth thirty thousand pounds,[14]
Alcala had not admired her devotion. He had even said that the queen
might have pleased Heaven better by feeding her starving people with
the money spent on that gift. Was such a thought very profane? If so,
Inez feared that she shared the sin of her brother.
In the desire to do something that might bring solace to the spirit of
Alcala, Inez, on the following Sabbath morn, softly laid beside him,
while he was sleeping, a Romish manual of devotion, containing prayers
or invocations to half the saints in the calendar of her Church. Inez
had herself made much use of the book in the time of her overwhelming
anxiety, though she had found no great relief from such prayers. The
maiden was alone at the time by her brother's sick-bed, and was so
wearied by nearly a week of nursing, that, now that her worst fears
were removed, exhausted nature claimed her due, and Inez fell fast
asleep on her chair.
Alcala awoke while Inez slumbered, and gazed with grateful affection
on his devoted sister. His eyes then fell on the book which she had
placed near his pillow, and his emaciated hand took it up. Alcala
opened the volume less from expectation of finding comfort in its
contents, than from a wish to please her who had put it beside him, he
guessed with what intention. As Alcala unclosed the book, a small
piece of paper fell out. It was something that Inez had dearly
treasured, for it held what she had feared might be her brother's last
message. She had kept it in her manual of devotion, as the safest and
the holiest place.
Alcala dropped the book, and took up the leaf; he recognized the scrap
of paper on which he had written in the bitterest moment of his life.
Strange and painful associations were connected with the torn, soiled
fragment which had been picked up from the road. Alcala gazed,
read--not his own pencilled words, but the printed part of the
paper--and in a moment all merely personal associations were
forgotten. The Spaniard's whole attention was concentrated on the
first verse of Scripture on which his eyes rested--"_Therefore, being
justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus
Christ_" (Rom. v. 1).
Here was something that might satisfy the soul's deep longings; it was
as if a voice from heaven, in tones that pierced the inmost heart, had
replied to that question to which earth had given no answer. The
first sensation to the Spaniard resembled that of one dazzled by
sudden overpowering light. Then came the thought, "Can this be truth?
Whence comes this torn leaf; of what book has it formed a portion?"
Alcala scarcely doubted that words so sublime in their simplicity, and
so utterly at variance with the teachings of Rome, must be part of the
Book the reading of which his priest had denounced as a crime; that
Book which the Protestants call the WORD OF GOD. This conviction
became stronger in the mind of De Aguilera, as again and again--till
he knew it by heart--he perused that verse from which he was drinking
in life, and hope, and joy.
"_Justified_,--what is that? Is it to be pronounced 'not guilty' at
the very tribunal of Heaven? Is it to have no transgression punished,
no sin imputed; to be saved from all the terrors of the world unknown?
_Justified by faith._ Can it be by simply believing? Not by penance
here, or purgatorial fires hereafter; not by the work of the hands or
the anguish of the soul, the alms or the sacrifice, but _justified by
faith_. Oh! could I but believe this, then indeed should I _have peace
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ_!
"And with what is that _therefore_, that golden link, connected?"
Alcala asked himself, as he eagerly glanced at the context, the verse
which concludes the fourth chapter of Romans--"_Who was delivered for
our offences, and raised again for our justification_." All pointed to
the Redeemer, and to Him _only_, the One Source of Salvation and
Justification. The doctrine was clear as the light of day which was
streaming in at the window; but could it be true? was it not too good
to be true? Dared the poor sinner believe it, and trust the safety of
his soul simply and unreservedly to Him who died to redeem it?
"I must see Lucius Lepine," murmured Alcala; "I must show him this
paper. I marvel that he has never come near me since the first night,
when I have a dim recollection of hearing his voice." The cavalier hid
the precious leaf under his pillow; for he heard the heavy step of
Teresa, and her entrance with some cooling drink for the patient
wakened Inez out of her sleep.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] _Vide_ "Daybreak in Spain."
CHAPTER XIII.
NEW LIFE.
"Has the English senor never called to see me?" was Alcala's abrupt
question to Teresa as she came into his room.
The duenna was taken by surprise, and Alcala read assent in her look
of confusion.
"Why was my friend not admitted at once?" cried the cavalier, in tones
so angry and loud that his astonished hearers could scarcely believe
that they came from lips which, but a day before, had seemed scarcely
able to speak above a whisper.
"The Inglesito was not wanted here," muttered Teresa, who scarcely
knew whether to be pleased at the improvement in her patient, or vexed
at the way in which that improvement was manifested.
"It was for me to judge whether my visitor's presence was wanted or
not," said Alcala de Aguilera. "I will write to him,--no, I have not
strength to write"--(not even the feverish energy which possessed his
spirit could give steadiness to his hand)--"send Chico directly,
without one minute's delay, to pray the senor to come hither. Is it
not Sunday?" added Alcala more gently, turning his head towards Inez;
"Lepine has no business to do upon Sundays, so his time will be free."
Teresa dared not disobey the hest of her master; she saw the
fever-flush rising on his cheek, and could not risk the consequences
of thwarting his will. Wishing in her heart that the vile foreign
heretic were at the bottom of his own British Channel, Teresa went in
search of Chico. There was, however, no need to find him, for the
duenna had scarcely passed through the corridor before she heard the
sound of Lepine's ring at the bell.
As for six successive evenings Lucius had been turned away from the
house of the Aguileras, he had almost resolved to give up for a time
all attempts to visit Alcala. On that very morning the young man had
said to himself, "I will try my chance but once more;" and it was with
very faint expectation of gaining admission that he came up to the
grating which he had never but once been suffered to pass. It was a
pleasant surprise to Lucius when Teresa, slowly and sullenly, drew
back the bolt, and let him enter the patio. The old woman did not
choose to usher the heretic herself into the presence of her master,
but with her wrinkled finger pointed towards the corridor which led to
Alcala's apartment.
Lucius needed no more distinct invitation. He crossed the court, and
entered the corridor with a heart that throbbed with expectation. Here
was the opportunity which he had desired, sought, and prayed for, of
conversing with his wounded friend on the most important of subjects.
Lucius felt that he must not again let such an opportunity slip. But
what should he say,--how should he enter on a topic which might be
unwelcome? Lucius felt that extreme difficulty of entering on
spiritual themes which so often fetters the lips even of experienced
Christians.
But how often man's whole difficulty lies in forming a firm resolution
to do what conscience commands. No sooner does he begin to put that
resolution into practice than the apprehended difficulty vanishes
away! Such was to be the young Englishman's experience on the present
occasion.
Lucius found Alcala alone, for Inez had glided out of the room by
another door when she heard the visitor's approach. The wounded
cavalier welcomed his friend with eyes that sparkled with animation,
and an eagerness of manner for which Lucius was by no means prepared.
He had expected to find Alcala in a state of suffering, languor, and
depression, and never before had he seen the Spaniard's usually
melancholy face wear an expression so bright.
"You are welcome; you are the one whom I most desired to see!" cried
Alcala, holding out a thin hand which trembled with excitement as well
as with weakness. "I pray you to take a seat by my side."
Lucius did so, and watched as De Aguilera feebly searched for
something under his pillow, and then drew out carefully from its
hiding-place a little fragment of paper.
"Tell me," said Alcala earnestly, as he held out the leaf to his
companion--"tell me, Lepine, what is this?"
With emotions which cannot be described, Lucius first examined the
little torn scrap, and then met the gaze of the eager dark eyes that
seemed to be reading him through and through.
"This is a leaf that has been torn from a Bible," said Lucius.
"And do you believe its contents--are they truth?" asked Alcala, his
eyes riveted still on the face of his friend.
"This is the Word of the Eternal God of Truth," replied the young man
with reverence. "But," he added in a different tone, "it is to me a
strange, an unaccountable thing, how this paper should ever have come
into your possession, if--as I cannot but think--it belongs to a book
which I have on my person at this moment."
The Englishman drew his New Testament out of his breast-pocket, and
opened it at the Epistle to the Romans, Alcala watching his movements
with lively curiosity. Several leaves from that part of the volume had
evidently been torn out, and afterwards neatly replaced with paper and
gum; but of one leaf there remained but a portion. Lucius fitted the
fragment given to him by Alcala to the torn edge of this leaf, and
smiled to observe that the two portions fitted each other exactly.
The surprise of Alcala was quite as great as his own. "How can this
be?" exclaimed the Spaniard; "when was that fragment torn from that
book?"
"Last Sunday morning," replied Lepine. "It was torn by the first of
your countrymen to whom I ever offered a religious book. He was a
peasant, following a herd."
"A herd of fighting bulls--on the way to the Plaza de Toros?" asked
Alcala with interest.
"Yes," replied Lucius Lepine. "The drover was angry; he mutilated and
flung back my book. You must have picked up the leaf by chance."
"Not by chance; no, not by chance!" exclaimed De Aguilera, his lip
quivering as he spoke. "Mark you, Lepine, the pencilling on the
margin?--Perhaps not, the faint lines are almost effaced by the tears
of her who read them. Let them be effaced!" continued the cavalier
with passionate fervour; "let all be effaced that is a record of the
guilt and misery of man,--God's Word is legible still,--and it is the
Word of Life."
I shall not attempt to give in full length the conversation that
followed. Many were the questions on doctrinal points eagerly asked by
Alcala, questions which showed that the speaker was one thirsting
indeed for the waters of life. The Testament was searched and studied,
Lucius preferring to answer the queries of his friend in God's words
instead of his own. The Englishman turned from gospel to epistle,
comparing this chapter with that, explaining scripture by scripture,
and proving with an ease and clearness which surprised himself the
truth of that grand central doctrine on which the Christian's hope is
rooted, the doctrine of _justification by faith in a crucified
Saviour_.
Lucius remained by the bedside of Alcala during the whole of that day;
he was scarcely suffered to quit it even when night was far advanced.
The friends partook together of a simple repast; their spirits were
enjoying together the richest spiritual feast. Lucius, who had been
brought up by pious and enlightened parents, could not remember a time
when he had doubted God's pardoning grace, or been ignorant of the
first principles of evangelical religion. It had not been so with the
Spaniard, and his friend was much struck by the rapturous surprise,
the intense thankfulness with which the glad tidings of great joy were
received by one from whose eyes truth had hitherto been hidden beneath
a mass of vain superstitions. Alcala welcomed that truth as one who
has suddenly found a priceless treasure, and gratefully received the
gift of the New Testament from his friend.
"This shall be my study, my guide, my joy!" said the cavalier,
pressing the book to his lips. "I will never part with it but with
life; it has given me more than life!"
Lucius left Alcala physically much exhausted, but full of joy and
peace in believing. A night of deep sweet sleep followed the day of
excitement. Alcala's soul was at rest; he had found what he long had
sought. God was to him no longer the terrible Judge, but the
reconciled Father; death was regarded no more as the dark angel who
would summon the soul to trial and condemnation, but as the seraph
that would call that soul to the presence of a glorified Saviour.
Has he whose eye now glances over these pages known experimentally
anything of the fears of one conscious of sin,--or the intense joy of
him who has heard in his heart, "_Go in peace, thy sins are forgiven
thee_."
CHAPTER XIV.
AN UNPARDONABLE WRONG.
The visits of Lucius to the house of Alcala were repeated on many
successive evenings, to the great annoyance of Teresa, who both
suspected and feared the stranger. Inez did not share the old
servant's displeasure. She saw that the society of the Englishman made
her brother strangely happy, as they studied together that marvellous
Book, of which Alcala spoke to her so often. Inez rather regretted
when she found that there would be a break in intercourse which was so
greatly enjoyed, Lucius having to go to Madrid on some mercantile
business in the latter part of September.
* * * * *
"Here, I have spent all, to the last maravedi,"[15] muttered old
Teresa, as she returned one Friday from market, laden with a basket
heavy with various provisions for the household: some bread, a flask
of oil (indispensable in a Spanish kitchen), a string of onions,
saffron for soup, a melon, chestnuts, oranges, and olives. Meat was a
luxury rarely tasted in the palace of the Aguileras. Wearily the old
woman set down the basket on the kitchen table, on which Inez, with
her delicate hands, was preparing her grandmother's cup of chocolate.
"I have satisfied the surgeon, as you desired, senorita," said Teresa,
"and have bought these things with what remained of the twenty dollars
which you gave me."
"You have laid out the dollars well, Teresa," said the maiden
graciously to her ungracious retainer; "I knew that you would do the
best that you could with the money."
"I wish that I knew where that money came from," said Teresa, her
sharp eyes surveying her young mistress with a keen look of suspicion.
As Inez never quitted the house unescorted by her duenna, and Teresa
had not once been asked to attend the senorita--except to mass--since
Alcala had received his wound, it had been a matter of curious
speculation to the old servant how the lady had suddenly become
possessed of twenty dollars, which seemed to her a very large sum.
Inez made no reply to the observation, but went on with her
occupation. This only served to intensify the curiosity of Teresa.
"I hope that those dollars were not given to the senorita by that
heretic Inglesito," hissed forth the old woman, as she rested her bony
knuckles on the table, and leant forward to peer more closely into the
face of Inez.
"You know well that Spanish ladies accept no money from cavaliers,"
replied Inez, with a heightened colour on her cheek and some
displeasure in her tone. "I had the dollars from Donna Maria de Rivas;
she was here yesterday, as you are perfectly aware."
Teresa did not look by any means satisfied with the reply; perhaps she
was too well acquainted with the family friend to deem her capable of
an act of free liberality. The old woman still sharply surveyed her
mistress as she observed, "I cannot abide that Donna Maria; she speaks
the thing which is false."
"Teresa!" Inez began reprovingly; but the old domestic tyrant would
have out her say.
"I heard this very morning that Donna Maria boasts that she possesses
a silver reliquary holding a lock of the blessed Santa Veronica's
hair" (here Teresa crossed herself devoutly), "a reliquary once
belonging to Philip the Second, our most Catholic king,--the saints
have his soul in their keeping!"
Inez moved from the table; the flush on her cheek had deepened to
crimson. The duenna presumed to lay her hand on her young lady's arm
to detain her.
"You know, senorita, that there is not a lock of that saint's hair to
be found in all Spain, from Navarre to Andalusia, save that one which
King Philip himself gave to your noble ancestor, Senor Don Amadeo de
Aguilera."
Inez tried to release her arm, but the pressure of the old woman's
hand had tightened into a gripe as she continued, after a pause: "You
would not have me imagine that a descendant of that illustrious
caballero, that a daughter of the house of Aguilera, has sold the
priceless relic for twenty dollars?" The question could not have been
asked with more pious horror, had it regarded the tombs containing the
bones of all the maiden's noble ancestors.
Inez, in her position of helpless poverty, could not throw off that
most intolerable yoke, the tyranny of an ill-tempered old duenna, who
knew herself to be indispensable, because her place could not be
supplied by another. Teresa considered that years of almost unpaid
service had given her the privilege of being as insolent as she
pleased to her gentle young mistress. On the present occasion Teresa
used--or abused--that privilege to the utmost.
"I would not have exchanged that precious relic," she cried, "for the
Golden Rose which his Holiness the Pope has sent to our queen! I'd
have begged--starved--thrown myself into the river--before I'd have
sold it for money! The glory of the house of De Aguilera is gone for
ever! The curse of the saints is upon us!" And Teresa, relaxing her
hold on Inez, burst into a flood of passionate tears.
Inez was not herself sufficiently free from a superstitious regard for
relics, not to be distressed and even somewhat alarmed at seeing the
light in which her act was viewed by the old duenna.
"We were in debt--in need," she said softly; "I hope that the blessed
saint herself would forgive what I did for the sake of a brother."
"The saint may--but I cannot!" exclaimed Teresa, hastily drying her
eyes, and then bursting out of the kitchen. Her anger, if the truth
must be told, sprang quite as much from her pride as from her
devotion. To have it noised about in the market-place of Seville that
the reliquary of King Philip, the heirloom of the Aguileras, had
actually been sold to purchase food,--this was even worse to the old
retainer of the family than the fear of offending Santa Veronica.
Inez stood for some moments with drooping head and downcast eyes. Had
she indeed, the poor girl asked herself, done something that might
draw down on herself and her family the wrath of the saints?
"Perhaps I should first have consulted my brother," thought Inez;
"though the reliquary was my own, the gift of my father. I should have
done so, had not most of the money which I received been required to
pay the surgeon to whose skill we owe so much. But I should not have
trusted my own judgment; I am but a weak, foolish girl. As soon as I
have carried this chocolate to my grandmother, I will go and confess
the truth to Alcala. He may condemn my act, but I am sure that he at
least will forgive it."
FOOTNOTES:
[15] A coin of less than a farthing's value.
CHAPTER XV.
CONFESSION.
There are those who have asserted that the doctrine of Justification
by Faith will lead to neglect of good works; that he who believes that
Christ has done all, will be content himself to do nothing. How false
is the assertion has been constantly proved by the lives of those who
have most simply and unreservedly thrown themselves on the free mercy
of Him who died for sinners! Love for the Saviour and the indulgence
of wilful sin can no more exist together than fire and water unite.
Where the Heavenly Guest enters, a halo of light shines around Him
which reveals impurities which have hitherto, perhaps, altogether
escaped the notice of conscience. Wheresoever the Saviour goes,
holiness is the print left by His footsteps.
Thus was it with Alcala. Having received the gospel with joy, he
intuitively began to consider what return of grateful obedience he
could make for unmerited mercy. Having cheerfully resolved to run the
race set before him, he felt that he must speed towards his glorious
goal disencumbered of the weight of the sin which most easily beset
him. Alcala had little difficulty in discovering what that sin was.
Turning from contemplation of Christian doctrine to that of Christian
duties, the Spaniard was struck by the very first sentence uttered by
Divine lips in the Sermon on the Mount--"_Blessed are the poor in
spirit._"
Alcala paused long, with his finger on that verse. He was a Spaniard,
and a Spaniard of noble birth. He had been, as it were, cradled in
pride; taught to regard pride as a lofty virtue. Was it needful, and
even if needful, was it possible, to overcome what seemed woven into
his very nature? Could the high-spirited cavalier ever become the meek
and lowly believer?
Alcala felt that, in the struggle against pride in its various forms,
he was now entering his spiritual Plaza de Toros; that his own
strength was as weakness compared with that of the mighty enemy before
him. He must ask for strength greater than his own, he must seek for
the aid of that Holy Spirit who could enable him to overthrow and
trample even upon pride. Alcala reflected deeply on the numerous
passages in Scripture which represent humility as essential to the
character of a believer. It was difficult indeed to throw aside
prejudices that had become as a part of himself, to recognize the
truth that nothing is really degrading but sin, and that the highest
and noblest have nothing whereof to boast. Alcala's reflections,
however, brought him to a conviction which was once simply and
beautifully expressed by a believer, whose life proved that she spoke
from the heart:[16]--"What is the position of a Christian? To wash the
disciples' feet, to sit at the Saviour's feet,--this is the position
of a Christian!"
"I shall bear on my person to the end of my days a scar to remind me
that God abhors pride," thought Alcala; "and the lesson will be
enforced by new privations, in which, alas! my family must share. Who
has more reason than I to know that pride is a fiend who, under the
name of high spirit, lures us on to destruction? But for unmerited
grace, I should have sacrificed to him both body and soul. His voice
was more strong in this guilty heart than the appeals of reason,
conscience, and affection. I preferred dying like a madman, to owning
that I had boasted like a fool!"
Alcala was thus pondering over the subject, when his sister entered
his apartment, knelt by his side, and timidly took his hand in her
own.
"Something has grieved my sweet one," said Alcala, reading trouble in
the face of his sister.
"Alcala, I must hide nothing from you," murmured Inez, with the
meekness of a child confessing a fault. "I fear that I may have done
wrong, but you will judge when you know the whole truth. Donna Maria
was here yester-evening, while the English senor was with you. I could
not help speaking to her of my troubles; I could not help telling her
of our--our difficulties," continued Inez, drooping her head. "I
thought that she had the means to help us, and--we are so poor,
Alcala!"
"Poverty is no disgrace, my Inez," said Alcala; "except," he added
gravely, "poverty brought on by such an act of criminal folly and
pride as that which has laid me here."
"I told our mother's friend that I had parted with all,--everything
that could be turned into money,--even your guitar, Alcala," continued
Inez with a sigh. "'What, child!' replied Donna Maria, 'even with King
Philip's reliquary, which holds the hair of Santa Veronica, the
heirloom of which your family is so proud? I would give you twenty
dollars for that!'"
"A liberal offer!" cried Alcala, with irony. "Our fathers would not
have sold the relic for twenty thousand!" The cavalier felt that the
little hand which he held was trembling, and reproached himself for
the unguarded exclamation.
"So you let the senora have the reliquary," he said, kindly sparing
the poor girl the pain of continuing her story.
"Did I do very wrong?" murmured Inez. "Must I tell Father Bonifacio,
when next I go to confession, that I have sold Santa Veronica's hair?"
"No; you did right," replied Alcala. And he added cheerfully, "One
verse from the Bible is worth more than all the relics in the
Cathedral of Seville; and as for confession, I would fain that you,
like myself, should resolve never again to confess to a Romish
priest."
"Renegade! infidel! apostate!" exclaimed a furious voice. Inez started
in terror to her feet. Bonifacio stood in the doorway, with raised arm
and clenched hand, as if he were launching a thunderbolt of vengeance
at the devoted head of her brother. Teresa, horror-struck, stood
behind the priest, whom she had been on the point of ushering into the
apartment, when he had paused upon the threshold to hear Alcala's
concluding sentence. "Wretch! abandoned by Heaven, lost to every
sentiment of religion!" continued the furious ecclesiastic, "think
not that you can with impunity defy the power of the Church! We have
a pious Queen, who has faithful counsellors in her confessor Claret
and the saintly Patrocinio.[17] The arm of the law is yet mighty
enough to strike--to crush the apostates who renounce their holy faith
to join the enemies of all true religion!" And after a gesture
expressing that he shook from his sandalled feet the polluted dust of
the heretic's dwelling, Bonifacio turned his back on Alcala, and
strode rapidly through the long corridor, followed to the entrance by
Teresa, who was wringing her hands.
"O Alcala! all is lost!" exclaimed Inez.
"Fear nothing, beloved," said Alcala, with a serene composure which
astonished his sister, "mere words have no power to hurt. Though
Bonifacio may have the spirit of old Torquemada, these are not days
when men can be sent to the stake for confessing the truth."
"But there may be persecution,--sharp, dreadful persecution," faltered
Inez.
"If so, my God will enable me to bear it," said Alcala, with a
countenance that brightened at the thought of enduring suffering and
shame for the sake of his Lord. "Inez, my heart's sister, be not
troubled. Think not of what your brother has lost, but what he has
found;" and Alcala laid his hand on the sacred Volume. "If you knew
more of the contents of this Book, you would fear no longer what man
can do unto those who have grasped the hope of eternal life. But you
shall know more of it, Inez. This evening you and our servants shall
hear me read the words of truth. My wound is almost healed, my
strength is gradually returning, and I would fain devote that strength
to the service of my Heavenly Master. It is meet that my first
audience should be those who form our own household. Lepine would have
explained evangelical doctrines better than I can, to whom they are as
a new revelation; yet I regret not that he is absent at Madrid, since,
if the rumour of even so small a meeting were noised abroad, it might
bring my friend into trouble. Let Teresa and Chico come to my room
after sunset; would that our dear grandmother's mind had power to
receive the glad tidings of free salvation!"
Insolent as Teresa often showed herself to her gentle mistress, the
old retainer stood in awe of her master; and though she might murmur
to herself at his commands, she never dared openly to dispute them.
Both she and Chico were therefore present at the first meeting for
Bible reading and family worship ever held in the stately old
mansion. Alcala, who for the first time since his illness had quitted
his couch, sat propped up with cushions. He looked pale and fragile,
but serenely happy, as he read aloud a portion from one of the
Gospels. The portion was necessarily short, for the reader was still
very weak. Small as was the audience--for no stranger was present--it
yet represented a variety of hearers. Inez, with her hands clasped,
and her soft eyes fixed on the reader, listened to the words of Holy
Writ with reverential attention; Teresa, with scarcely concealed
repugnance; Chico could hardly be said to listen at all. The uncouth
attendant's thoughts were distracted by the strange novelty of his
being permitted, nay, ordered, to be seated in the presence of the
caballero, Don Alcala de Aguilera,--a novelty which disgusted Teresa
more than anything else in the service.
"A low fellow like that to be treated as if his wretched soul were
worth as much as that of a grandee of Spain!" thought Teresa. "My
master's illness must have affected his brain, or he would sooner have
made a footstool of Chico than have bidden him sit down in his
presence!" To her mind such an extraordinary breach of etiquette on
the part of a hidalgo of Andalusia was much more strange and
unaccountable than his late exposure of his life to satisfy a wild
notion of honour.
Alcala was thankful that he had been strengthened to take the first
decided step in the course of service which he hoped through life to
pursue. He closed his Bible reading with a brief extempore prayer, of
which the fervour touched the spirit of Inez, and the humility
astonished that of Teresa. What cavalier had ever before prayed so
earnestly to be delivered from the power of pride!
With gloomy forebodings the duenna retired from Alcala's apartment
after family worship was ended. Often during the following night, as
she uneasily turned on her pallet-bed, Teresa moaned her complaint
that times were evil indeed, when noble pride could be deemed a sin in
the heir of the honours of the Aguileras!
Happy were the slumbers of Alcala. He dreamed that night that he was
again mounted on his steed in the Plaza de Toros, in the centre of the
circus, and surrounded by gazing thousands. But when the door of the
circus was flung open by the black-robed alguazil to whom that service
belongs, it was no fierce animal that rushed forth to encounter the
point of Alcala's lance. There came into the arena a procession of
priests, monks, and devotees, bearing aloft graven images of saints,
and swinging censers of incense, as they slowly approached him. Then,
in his dream, Alcala glanced around, and, lo! instead of the usual
spectators who were wont to throng the seats in the Coliseo of
Seville, the places were filled by thousands of martyrs who, in that
city, had passed through the ordeal of fire. They wore no longer the
yellow san-benito, the garb of shame, but robes compared to whose
whiteness dim were the diamond and dark the new-fallen snow. The
martyrs were "a cloud of witnesses," a cloud sparkling in the light of
the countenance of Him for whom they had suffered,--a cloud reflecting
His ineffable glory.
When the hour of persecution and trial arrived, Alcala drew courage
and hope from the recollection of that glorious dream.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] F. Tucker.
[17] Isabella's confessor, and a nun who had great influence with the
queen.
CHAPTER XVI.
A MIRAGE.
Inez de Aguilera always shared the sleeping-room of her grandmother,
and had often to minister during the night to the aged and imbecile
lady. It had never occurred to the Spanish girl to regard this duty as
a hardship, but she had never felt such sweet pleasure in its
performance as she did after listening to the words of her Heavenly
Master which had been read aloud by Alcala. He who had said, "_Love
one another as I have loved you_," would, Inez hoped, be pleased with
her care of the aged relative whom He had intrusted to her charge.
A trial to those who attended on Donna Benita was the poor old lady's
inability to understand the change in the circumstances of her family;
she who had come as a wealthy bride to a wealthy hidalgo, sorely
missed, and never ceased to expect, the luxuries connected with the
possession of riches. If Donna Benita desired to breathe the air in
the Prado, how was it that carriages with splendid horses were not
ready at her command? Where was the train of attendants that should
wait on the lady of a Spanish grandee? What had become of her jewels,
her bracelets of diamonds, her chaplet of pearls? Old Teresa lost
patience when she had to repeat for the hundredth time to her imbecile
mistress that her treasures had all been carried off, nearly fifty
years before, by the infidel French soldiers, who had dared to eat
their puchero and smoke their cigarillos in the patio of the palace of
the Aguileras.
Inez never lost her patience with the feeble invalid, but she was
pained when, on the morning following Alcala's first meeting for
family devotion, Donna Benita more fretfully than usual complained of
the want of the luxuries which her grandchildren had not the means of
providing.
"How I am neglected by all of you!" murmured the aged lady. "Have I
not told you these many times to bring me my goblet of chased gold,
filled with good Xeres wine? Where is it--why do you keep it from me?
There is no one to do my bidding,--no one cares to bring me the
delicate panada which is, as you know, my favourite dish. I am tired
of chocolate, and toast, and watery puchero! Every day seems a
fast-day here!"
"You shall have something nice, very nice, to-day, dear grandmother,"
said Inez, respectfully kissing the old lady's hand. "Teresa yesterday
brought home from the market a splendid basketful of good things." And
Inez glided out of the room, asking herself as she did so, "When shall
we find means of so filling that basket again?"
The kitchen, which was situated at the remotest part of the mansion of
the Aguileras, was very spacious, and from its emptiness now appeared
very dreary. There were scarcely as many utensils left in the place as
would have supplied the tent of a wandering Gitano. And yet in that
kitchen, in former days, banquets had been prepared to furnish a table
at which a hundred guests had sat down.
Teresa's bent, withered form was stooping over the fire, which, like
the inmates of the mansion, was very scantily fed. The step of Inez
was so light that the old woman did not hear it, and she was not aware
that the senorita was at her side, when she flung on the fagots a
small bound volume. Inez darted forward, with an exclamation of
indignation, just in time to snatch unharmed from the fire the New
Testament of her brother.
"Why do you presume to burn the treasured book of Don Alcala?"
exclaimed the maiden, pressing the volume to her breast.
"To save Don Alcala's life!" replied Teresa, raising her head with
angry surprise. "Did you not hear the threats of Father Bonifacio;
have you not been told of the warning sent out by our priests against
those who 'infest Catholic Seville with Bibles and _other pernicious
books_'?[18] Are you so ignorant, senorita, as to suppose that
Scripture readings can be safely carried on in a Christian country
like this?" Each question was asked in a tone more loud and shrill
than the last. "Every hour I am expecting the alguazils[19] to search
this house, this house polluted with heresy. Woe to Don Alcala de
Aguilera if that fatal book be found within it! He will be dragged out
of his bed, thrust into some loathsome prison which he will never quit
till his carcass be thrust forth to be flung like carrion into some
ditch! I'll not see it--I'll not see it," continued the old retainer
with a gesture of passionate grief; "Teresa's hand shall not be the
one to open the gate of this palace to those who come to arrest its
master! There's a _gran foncion_ to-day in honour of my patroness,
Santa Teresa; I will go and join the procession, and try if my prayers
cannot move the saint to save Don Alcala from the ruin which he is
bringing on himself and his house!"
Away hurried Teresa, leaving her young lady to do her work and think
over her warning.
The first occupation was easy enough: Inez had often prepared her
grandmother's meals. But while her slender fingers did their office,
the mind of the poor girl was painfully revolving the words of Teresa.
Might they not be only too true--might not Alcala have actually placed
himself within reach of the grasp of the law? Inez was constantly
turning in terror to listen for sounds that might announce the coming
of alguazils to seize on her brother, and search the house. The
horrors of a Spanish prison to a gentleman of refinement, who had not
yet recovered from the effects of a wound, and who was too poor to
bribe his jailers, might actually realize the picture drawn by Teresa.
The heart of Inez sank within her.
While Donna Benita was partaking of food so delicately prepared by her
grand-daughter, that not even the old lady's weak, fretful mind could
find in it subject for complaint, Inez was planning a little scheme
for Alcala's safety, in case a search-warrant should be issued.
"The Book must not be found in this house, at least not in my
brother's possession," thought Inez. "I will not destroy, but I will
conceal it. I will carefully wrap up the volume, and then bury it
deep, very deep, in the earth under the orange-trees which grow round
the fountain; no one will look for it there, and I will take it up
again when the danger is over. Alcala will spare it for a few days
when I tell him why I have buried the Book. He will miss it the less
since he knows, I believe, half of its contents by heart already."
It seemed a long time to Inez before Donna Benita concluded her
tedious repast; a long time before her grand-daughter could beat up
her pillow, shut out the daylight, and leave the old lady to enjoy the
siesta which always followed her morning meal.
Inez then hurriedly proceeded to the patio, and took, from a recess in
which she kept her few garden utensils, a spud with which she was wont
to weed her parterre. She noticed that her plants looked less
flourishing than they had done before her brother's illness; no one
had cared to water or tend them, and many a shrivelled leaf showed the
lack of a mistress's care. "Alcala must not find them thus," thought
Inez; "my chief joy in my garden comes from knowing that it gives
pleasure to him."
In haste to accomplish the work of burying the volume during the
absence of Teresa, Inez knelt down, and with her imperfect instrument
began to dig a hole in the earth which surrounded the fountain. The
maiden found the task more difficult than she had expected. The sod
was dry and hard; Inez had to bring water to saturate the earth before
she could make much impression upon it.
"A little deeper,--it will be safer to make the hole a little deeper,"
said Inez to herself, when she paused to take breath after labour
which the heat of the day made oppressive. The lady took up her garden
utensil again, and struck it, not down into deeper earth, but against
something hard which returned a metallic clink to the stroke.
"What can be here?" exclaimed the maiden. She removed more of the
earth, till a small pile of it was deposited on either side of the
hole which she had been digging. A little more scraping then revealed
to her view, as she bent over the opening, something like a wooden box
with a handle of metal. Stooping yet lower,--she was still on her
knees,--Inez took hold of the handle, and with an effort of her utmost
strength attempted to draw out the box; but she was unable even to
stir it.
"Can I help the senorita?" said Chico, who had been attracted to the
patio by the slight but unusual noise made by Inez when digging out
the earth. Since the death of poor Campeador, the bandy-legged groom
had found more time for idling about.
Inez started at the unexpected voice, threw back the long hair which
had fallen over her brow as she had stooped and laboured, and rose
from her kneeling position. Her first feeling was that of annoyance at
the intrusion of Chico; but as she was unable to accomplish her object
without assistance, she accepted the offer of his aid. The young lady
stood on the marble pavement watching while Chico, with considerable
labour and difficulty, disengaged the box from the earth in which it
had lain embedded, and, lifting it out of the hole, laid it heavily
down at her feet.
The box was not so large as an ordinary desk, but exceedingly heavy in
proportion to its size. It appeared to be made of walnut wood, with
hinges, lock, and handle of steel, and it was clamped with broad bands
of the same metal. But for many, many years that box had lain under
the earth, and now the steel was rusted, the wood was rotten. The
lock, indeed, was a good one still, but the hinges were eaten away
with rust, and had no power to resist the strong wrench with which
Chico, ere Inez could prevent him, tore off the lid of the box.
The sight of its contents, thus laid bare to the view, made Inez open
wide her dark eyes with surprise. The box was a little treasury in
itself, holding wealth packed up in the most portable shape. Rouleaus
of gold pieces, cases of jewels, a golden goblet filled with chains,
coins, snuff-boxes, all of the same precious metal, appeared before
the eyes of the wondering girl.
"Move nothing--touch nothing!" cried Inez to Chico, who, on his knees,
was gloating open-mouthed over the treasure, and about to lift the
goblet out of the box to explore what lay beneath it. "The Senor Don
Alcala must be the first to examine what is within."
Chico took out a piece of parchment and held it up to Inez, who read
on it the following words:--"_I, Don Pedro de Aguilera, before leaving
Seville to join the army, being apprehensive that the French may one
day possibly occupy this city, do bury this casket containing my
wife's most valuable jewels, and a portion of my family plate, 1810._"
"Heaven has sent help to us in our utmost need!" exclaimed Inez,
clasping her hands, and looking upwards with grateful joy.
But wealth is wont to bring care, and Inez had no sooner obtained
possession of the family treasure than she began uneasily to revolve
in her mind how she could best secure it. Her first impulse was to bid
Chico carry it at once to her brother's apartment, and place it under
the care of Alcala. But a moment's reflection made Inez doubt the
expediency of this course.
"Alcala is in peril already," thought Inez; "should I not greatly add
to his danger by placing in his room, which has not even a key to its
lock, a treasure like this? If the discovery of these rich jewels and
pieces of gold were bruited abroad in Seville, it would arouse the
cupidity of all the ruffians with whom this city abounds! My Alcala
might be murdered as well as robbed! Would I not act more wisely if I
buried the treasure again, only taking out, time by time, a few pieces
of money to supply our immediate need?"
Inez glanced down at Chico, who, in spite of her prohibition, seemed
unable to resist the temptation of fingering the gold with his coarse,
dirty hands. "I dare not trust Chico," thought Inez, in sore
perplexity; "if the treasure were buried, he at least would know the
secret, and there would be nothing to hinder him from abstracting
whatever he pleased from the box. I hope, I think that he is honest;
but the temptation might prove too great. The gold must be kept under
lock and key,--where can I place it in safety?" Inez raised her hand
to her brow, and reflected for several moments. It was so new a thing
to the maiden to be burdened with the care of riches! Presently an
expression of satisfaction came to the anxious young face.
"There is the armoury," thought Inez; "the door is strong, and the
lock is good. We will shut up the box within it, and give Alcala the
key."
The place which was called the armoury, from weapons and ammunition
having once been kept there, was little more than a deep recess in the
wall which enclosed the patio, closed in by a low strong door, which
had been so constructed as to attract little notice from without. A
stranger might have resided for months in the house of the Aguileras,
and have spent hours every day in the patio, without ever observing
that there was a door near to the ornamental grating--indeed, under
its shadow whenever the grating was thrown back. The small key of the
armoury had been left in the lock, for there had been no need to use
it, the place had been for many years empty of all but dust and
rubbish. There could be no better place in which to secure the
treasure.
"Chico," said Inez to her servant, who was still on his knees,
fumbling the gold, "mention to no one--not even to Teresa--the finding
of this box. You shall be well rewarded for your fidelity and your
silence. Now bear the box to the armoury yonder; I will first lock it
up there, and then take the key to Don Alcala, and tell him what I
have done."
Inez glided across the patio, glad that the grating was closed, so
that no stranger from the street could possibly see what was passing
within. Followed by Chico carrying the box, the lady reached the
armoury, opened the door, and tried the lock.
"Place the box there," said the maiden, pointing to the inmost corner
of the recess, close to the door of which she was standing.
Chico, instead of obeying, set down the heavy box on the pavement, and
then, by a movement so sudden that it took Inez completely by
surprise, he pushed the lady into the armoury, shut the door, and
locked it upon her!
Inez cried out aloud in her alarm, when she thus unexpectedly found
herself in darkness, a prisoner in her own home. With mingled threats,
entreaties, and promises she conjured the false Chico to open the
door. The traitor, however, thought time far too precious to wait
either to listen or to reply. He could not, indeed, pass through the
grating, of which Teresa had taken the key; but he easily made his way
out by the same passage as that through which he had entered, one
which communicated with the now empty stable.
Inez now exerted all her strength in the endeavour to force open the
door, but it resisted her utmost efforts. The air in the armoury was
close and confined. Inez could hardly breathe; she was faint with
exhaustion and terror. Her cries for help were not heard, though she
tried to call out loud enough for her voice to reach some passer-by in
the street. Inez at last, finding all her exertions vain, could only
await in discomfort and misery the return of Teresa, who would
liberate her from her prison.
How long, how intolerably wearisome was the time of waiting! What
painful companions to poor Inez in her solitude were her own
reflections! She could not doubt that the family had been robbed by
the worthless Chico,--robbed of their all at the very time when its
possession was most sorely needed. The short-lived hopes which the
sight of the treasure had raised in the mind of Inez, had vanished
from her view like some mirage in the desert before the thirsty
traveller's eyes. Poverty--destitution--appeared all the more dreadful
from contrast with abundance beheld, but not enjoyed.
The minor cares of the moment lent their weight to add to the pressure
of greater. Inez was uneasy at the thought of Donna Benita awaking
from her siesta, and being frightened at finding no one beside her.
Alcala, too, must need his lemonade, and would miss his Book,--the
precious volume which Inez had still in her bosom. Add to all this
the physical distress, the sense of suffocation consequent on
confinement in a place in which there was no circulation of air, and
some idea may be formed of the misery endured by Alcala's sister.
The impatience of Inez had risen to the point of agony long before, to
her intense relief, she heard in the vaulted passage the heavy step of
Teresa, wearily returning from her visit to the shrine of her patron
saint.
"Release me--oh, release me!" cried out Inez from her place of
confinement.
Teresa was so much astonished by hearing the cry for help, muffled as
it came through the closed door of the armoury, that she dropped the
key of the grating, which she was just about to open.
"Make haste--or I die!" gasped poor Inez.
Teresa made what haste her infirmities and her amazement would permit;
but she had to stoop and pick up the key, fit it into the hole, and
then push open the grating, and every moment thus employed was a
moment of torture to Inez. At length, guided by the voice of her
mistress, the old servant entered the patio, and turned round where
the armoury door stood close behind the grating. In another second
Inez, trembling and gasping for breath, was released from her terrible
prison.
"In the name of all the saints, how came you to be locked up here?"
exclaimed the wondering duenna.
"Chico has robbed us--I can say no more now!" faltered Inez, scarcely
able to speak. "Go quickly to Donna Benita,--she may want help,--while
I--" The sentence was never ended; for Inez, exhausted and faint as
she felt, was already on her way to her brother's apartment.
"Chico has robbed us!" echoed the bewildered Teresa, lifting up her
hands in amazement. "Robbed the house, and shut up the lady! I know
not what there was in the place that the poorest thief in Seville
would think it worth his while to take!"
Glancing around her, Teresa soon perceived the disordered state of the
patio; the marble round the parterre encumbered with heaps of dust and
earth, and in the ground under the bushes a hole large enough for an
infant's grave. Something had surely been dug out, something had been
carried away. Teresa was puzzling her brain to divine what could have
occurred during her absence, when she was alarmed by sounds,--but the
cause of these sounds must be reserved for the ensuing chapter.
FOOTNOTES:
[18] _Vide_ "Daybreak in Spain."
[19] A kind of police.
CHAPTER XVII.
ARRESTED.
"Inez!--truant! I have lost you all the morning!" cried Alcala, as he
heard the approach of his sister. Inez was surprised on entering the
room to see that the wounded man had managed to rise and dress himself
without assistance. "I waited for you till I had no patience for
longer waiting," continued Alcala cheerfully; "you have carried away
my Book, and have been so buried in its contents that you have quite
forgotten your brother."
The playful rebuke was given with a smile, which, however, vanished
from the face of Alcala as soon as he turned and looked on that of his
sister.
"What has happened?" exclaimed Aguilera, alarmed at the appearance of
Inez, who stood with pale lips apart, as if still gasping for breath;
her hair, usually smooth as satin, disordered, and pushed carelessly
back from a face that bore the impress of terror and suffering.
The poor girl, exhausted both by the strain on her physical endurance
and the alarm which she had undergone, came forward, sank on her knees
at her brother's feet, and burst into tears. Inez did not, however,
long give vent to her emotions. Struggling to speak through her sobs,
she gave an account of all that had happened,--the discovery of the
treasure, the treachery of Chico, and the cruel means which he had
taken to secure his own flight with the gold.
Alcala listened with breathless attention and burning indignation. The
fiery young Spaniard bit his nether lip hard to keep himself from
uttering the vow of deep vengeance which, a few weeks before, would
have been, under lighter provocation, sternly spoken and ruthlessly
kept. It was no easy task to Aguilera to wrestle down and keep under
control the passion which he now felt to be unbecoming a Christian.
Alcala, however, said not a word until Inez had finished her story.
Then he spoke in a tone of suppressed indignation.
"This false--Chico must be tracked at once, and forced to yield up his
ill-gotten spoil. Would that Lepine had not yesterday started for
Madrid,--his intelligence, his English energy, would have been
invaluable now. Give me my writing materials, Inez. If I had but
strength to go myself to the minister of justice,--surely I have
strength," added Alcala, rising and supporting himself by the table,
"I shall be given strength to rescue my family from want, and win back
the property of my grandmother. The alguazils must at once be set on
the scent of the thief."
"The alguazils!" faltered Inez, who was still in her crouching
position at the feet of her brother; "O Alcala, have we no reason to
dread them ourselves?"
A heavy tramping in the corridor without was as an answer to the
question. Inez sprang to her feet with an exclamation of terror, as
the door was opened and the room entered by a body of the Spanish
police.
The flush which indignation had lately brought to Alcala's pale face
passed away. Still leaning on the table for support, he drew himself
up to his full height, and in a calm voice demanded of the alcalde who
headed the party what errand had brought him to the house of a
cavalier.
"I come under a warrant from the corregidor, illustrious senor," said
the alcalde, advancing towards his prisoner, and bowing low with the
punctilious courtesy peculiar to Spaniards. "It is my painful duty to
arrest the noble caballero."
"Upon what charge?" demanded Alcala.
"The charge of having held an unlawful meeting for the purpose of
reading a forbidden Book, senor," was the answer.
"And who has preferred the charge?" asked Alcala.
"Your own servant, senor, by name Tomaso Chico, who was one of the
party assembled at the meeting, and who engages to bring many other
witnesses to support his accusation against you."
"Many witnesses!" murmured Inez.
"This Chico is a false villain, who has just robbed me, and who has
doubtless brought the charge against his injured master to
incapacitate him from pursuing the traitor, and giving him up to
justice," said the indignant Alcala.
"Of that, illustrious senor, it is not my part to judge," replied the
alcalde. "I have but to perform my duty, which is to search this house
for any prohibited writings or books, and to bear you off--pardon me,
senor--to the prison."
Resistance or expostulation would have been utterly useless. Alcala,
with quiet dignity, resumed his seat, and motioned to his sister to
take one beside him, while the alguazils commenced their search. It
was more rigid than it probably would have been had the cavalier
slipped a few dollars into the officer's hands. Aguilera might,
perhaps, in that case, have been spared the personal search which made
the wounded hidalgo colour both from a sense of violated dignity and
actual physical pain. But the thought, "O my Lord, this humiliation is
for Thy sake!" took all bitterness from the trial, and Alcala's only
care was to calm and reassure his terrified sister.
The search was continued for some time, and extended all over the
mansion. Even the apartment of the imbecile old lady was invaded, and
Donna Benita was thrown into hysterics by the strange sight of
alguazils throwing open her drawers and presses, and dragging forth
and flinging on the floor even her articles of dress, notwithstanding
the loud indignant remonstrances of Teresa. Every place was explored,
every corner searched for the forbidden Book, which, unsuspected by
the alguazils, lay under the folds of the mantle of the young
senorita.
Foiled in their search for Bibles, it now only remained for the
alguazils to bear off their prisoner. A close conveyance was waiting
at the entrance, surrounded by a little mob that had gathered to see
the officers of the law bring out their captive. Inez still clung to
her brother, helping to support his feeble steps, as, with guards
before and behind, Alcala traversed the long lofty corridor, and
entered the patio. The cavalier paused when he reached the fountain,
where he wished to bid his sister farewell. He would not expose Inez
to the view of the rabble, the sound of whose voices he now heard
without in the street.
"Allow me a moment, senor," he said, addressing the alcalde, who bowed
assent to the trifling delay. Then bending down, Alcala imprinted one
kiss on the marble-cold brow of his sister.
"Be of good courage, my Inez; all will be well," whispered Alcala.
"You know not the peace and joy that is given to those who suffer for
_Him_." There was no time to speak more, but with a smile which said
more than his words--for it was as the reflection of Heaven's sunshine
upon him--Alcala pressed the hand of Inez, and so they parted. A
prisoner for conscience' sake, the Spaniard quitted the home of his
fathers, and passed over the threshold which he was conscious that he
was not likely ever to cross again.
Inez was almost stunned at first by the suddenness of the blow which
had fallen upon her. She could hardly realize that she was not in a
horrible dream. Was it true--could it be true--that her brother, that
Don Alcala de Aguilera had been arrested as if he were a felon, and
marched off to endure, in his enfeebled state, the miseries of a
Spanish prison? Alcala's danger so entirely absorbed the mind of Inez
that it left no room for a thought of self; in her desolation and
poverty the Spanish girl did not even ask herself, "What will become
of me?"
Inez was roused from her state of half-stupefaction by Teresa, who,
beating her breast, and tearing her gray hair, came up to her young
mistress.
"Ah, Donna Inez! Donna Inez!" she exclaimed, "all this disgrace and
misery would never have befallen the house of Aguilera had you not
sold the hair of Santa Veronica!"
"Teresa, this is no time for reproaches," said Inez faintly; "we must
act, we must do all in our power to aid my brother. Oh that the
English senor were not absent at Madrid!"
Teresa ground her teeth at the mention of Lucius Lepine, whom she
regarded as the original author of all these calamities, the villain
who had corrupted the faith of her master.
"I can think of no friend to consult save Donna Maria," continued
Inez, after a pause for anxious reflection. "Her husband may have some
little influence with the Governor, Don Rivadeo; and she will at least
give sympathy and advice. Teresa, let us go to Donna Maria at once."
"We cannot both leave the house," said Teresa sharply. "There's Donna
Benita almost in fits. The wretches dared to enter the presence of a
lady of the house of Aguilera, and terrify her out of her senses."
"Hasten to my grandmother,--do not leave her!" cried Inez. "How could
I be so thoughtless as to forget her helpless state for a moment!" And
as Teresa turned away to seek the room of Benita, Inez murmured to
herself, "I will go alone to the friend of my mother."
CHAPTER XVIII.
TURNED AWAY.
In an apartment of a dwelling far less spacious and picturesque in
appearance than the home of the Aguileras, but much better furnished
with modern comforts, sits Donna Maria de Rivas. She is engaged in
serious and interesting conversation with a priest, who, as Father
Bonifacio, is already known to the reader.
"I can hardly yet believe it, father!" exclaimed the lady, vibrating
her large black fan as she spoke. "Don Alcala de Aguilera, one of so
ancient and honourable a house, to be arrested, and on so pitiful a
charge! If the caballero had been tempted by need to rob the mail (he
is so desperately poor), or in a fit of passion had stabbed an enemy
to the heart, it would have been quite a different thing,--one could
have understood such acts; but to get himself locked up for holding a
meeting for reading the Bible, such a piece of folly cannot be
accounted for,--such madness exceeds all belief!"
"It is a madness, my daughter, I grieve to say it, that is by no means
confined to this unhappy apostate," observed the priest. "The disease
is infectious, the corruption is spreading. Unless strong and sharp
measures are speedily taken, this cancer of heresy will eat deep into
the very heart of society even in Seville."
"Impossible!" exclaimed Donna Maria. "I have heard, indeed, of
Matamoros, and other misguided fanatics, who have happily been
arrested by justice in their most wicked course; but surely the number
of these wretches is few, and their example is little likely to be
followed by those who see the punishment which it brings."
"Daughter, you little know the strength of this fanaticism, or the
subtilty with which the poison of heresy is diffused throughout the
length and breadth of our Catholic Spain!" exclaimed the ecclesiastic,
warming with his subject. "So long as the vile English heretics hold
Gibraltar,--would that its rock would fall and crush them!--so long
will there be an open door through which all that is evil can enter
our land! Secret agents of I know not how many societies distribute
blasphemous tracts against the worship of the blessed Virgin,
Purgatory, Intercession of Saints, and the reverence due by all the
world to our holy Father the Pope!"
Donna Maria crossed herself in pious horror; and Bonifacio, with
increasing vehemence, went on with his oration.
"Colporteurs hawk Bibles in the by-roads and lanes of Andalusia;
copies are smuggled into rural parishes; English travellers instil the
venom of their heretical doctrines even into the minds of unsuspecting
_cures_! The wild mountaineers of the Sierra Nevada and Morena are, in
their rude huts, poring over portions of the prohibited Book, and
drinking in heresy from every line in its pages!"[20]
"But Claret will not suffer such things to go on. Are not the
authorities on the watch?" asked Donna Maria.
"They are on the watch," said the vehement priest. "Have you not seen
the charge of the Lord Bishop of Cadiz? Does he not piously command
and exhort his clergy to exert vigilance, warning them that 'the
authors and propagators of evil doctrines aim at attacking religion
and society at one and the same time, making use of _books_ as their
artillery for battering down, if it were possible, both of these solid
edifices'? Has he not commanded the faithful to 'detest these bad
books, and collect them that they may be burned'? And does not the
Government of Her Catholic Majesty nobly second the efforts of bishops
and priests? Vessels are watched in our ports, lest Bibles should lie
smuggled in their cargoes; boxes and packages are searched on our
frontiers: but all in vain. If a Spaniard, merely bent on amusement,
visit Paris (the last place in the world, one would think, for
Protestant propagandism), he cannot so much as look round at the
wonders of art in the Great Exhibition, without seeing before him
copies of the Scriptures, in every language spoken under the sun, and
having a portion thrust into his hand, to carry back with him into
this country. The very air that we breathe is tainted with heresy. I
sometimes think," added the priest with a sigh, for he was not of a
cruel nature, "that nothing will clear it unless we could light again
those fires with which Torquemada, the stanch champion of our faith,
burnt out the evil for awhile, consuming bodies in the pious attempt
to rescue perishing souls."
"I should be sorry for such dreadful punishment to overtake poor
Aguilera," said Donna Maria. "He is young, and noble, and brave."
"And therefore the more dangerous, senora," observed the stern
ecclesiastic. "I pity the misguided young man from the bottom of my
heart. I pity both him and his sister. I have known Aguilera from his
youth: I knew his father before him. But were the cavalier my own
brother, I would give him up without a scruple, though not without a
sigh, to the utmost rigour of justice."
A servant now entered the apartment, and announced to his mistress
that Donna Inez de Aguilera was waiting without, and desired to see
the senora.
Donna Maria glanced at her confessor before making any reply. The
priest frowned significantly, and shook slightly his shaven head.
"Tell Donna Inez that I am sorry that I cannot see her to-day; say
that I am particularly engaged," said the lady.
The servant appeared unwilling to bear the ungracious message. "The
senorita seems in trouble," said the kind-hearted Spaniard; "she has
come on foot; she has no attendant with her," he added, in a
hesitating tone.
"On foot--without an attendant! to think of a daughter of the house of
Aguilera sinking so low!" exclaimed Donna Maria, much shocked; and
again she glanced almost appealingly at her confessor.
The sterner frown and more decidedly negative gesture of the head were
the priest's only reply. Donna Maria reluctantly repeated her orders
to the servant, who left the room to obey them.
"May I not even see the poor child?" said the lady, as soon as the man
had departed.
"Better not, far better not, my daughter. You know not into what
difficulties, what errors, nay, into what dangers you might be drawn
by intercourse with any member of the family of the apostate De
Aguilera."
The servant soon returned, his looks expressing compassion.
"The senorita entreats to be admitted to enter; she says that her
business is most urgent, and cannot be delayed."
Donna Maria coloured, bit her lip, and looked down at her open fan, as
if she were counting the spangles upon it.
"I cannot see Donna Inez de Aguilera," she replied, with a decision of
manner which cost her an effort. The senora was a selfish, worldly
woman; but she must have been utterly destitute of natural feeling if
she could have unconcernedly driven from her door the friendless,
destitute orphan girl, who, as the senora well knew, had come to plead
the cause of a brother, and seek a friend's counsel and help in the
hour of her deepest distress.
FOOTNOTES:
[20] _Vide_ "Daybreak in Spain."
CHAPTER XIX.
WANDERING ALONE.
"My mother's friend then deserts me, all earthly help fails me,"
thought Inez, as she turned away from the house of Donna Maria de
Rivas. "And yet I am not forsaken." Inez glanced upwards where the
deep blue sky of Andalusia spread its sapphire dome above the white
glaring buildings around her. Inez marvelled at her own calmness under
circumstances so trying. She had been wandering alone through the
streets of Seville, protected from the stare of passers-by only by the
thick folds of the veil which the maiden drew closely around both form
and face. Inez was painfully aware that she was committing a breach of
Spanish etiquette, amounting almost to impropriety. In her country it
is deemed unseemly, even for a girl of the humble classes, to walk
abroad unaccompanied by a matron; the young sister of De Aguilera
knew, therefore, that she was but too likely to meet with insult; and
her modest, sensitive nature rendered such an ordeal to her peculiarly
distressing. Inez could more boldly have made her way through a
thicket, where the wolf might lurk or the adder coil, than down those
bright, busy streets. But not even the rude Spanish _gamins_ had
uttered a jest as the lady glided timidly along; the beggars, wrapped
in their mantles of rags, had not held out their hats to solicit alms.
Idle cigaretto-smoking loungers had courteously moved aside to let the
maiden go by. It almost appeared to Inez as if she were guarded by
invisible spirits, borne up by a strength not her own.
The maiden was indeed supported by comfort derived from a heavenly
source. Inez, before starting on her walk, had opened the Book which
was so dear to her brother, and which had so happily escaped the
search of the police. The first words which she saw in it were enough
for Inez; she closed the volume, kissed and replaced it in her bosom,
repeating over and over to herself the promise, "_I will never leave
nor forsake thee_." Inez uttered no prayer to Virgin or to saint: had
not Alcala told her that all such prayers were useless? Alcala trusted
in God alone, and so should his sister trust. Inez went forth,
feeding, as it were, on the strong, sustaining nourishment afforded
to her soul by a few sweet words from the Holy Scriptures. She was not
so wretched, not nearly so wretched, as she had been when Alcala had
ridden to the Plaza de Toros. Though Inez had, as yet, only a glimmer
of gospel light, she had a comforting persuasion that Alcala was now
suffering in a cause in which it was an honour to suffer: no selfish
pride, no mere spirit of romance, had brought him to his present
condition of peril. His Lord would be with Alcala, even in his prison,
as with holy martyrs of old. Desolate as she was, as regarded human
help, well might Inez look up to heaven and say, "I am not forsaken."
But where was the maiden now to turn her steps? Must she return to her
home without making any further effort to find some protector for
Aguilera? An almost unconscious prayer for guidance burst from the
pallid lips of Inez. Then came the suggestion to her mind, "Wherefore
should I not seek help from Antonia, the governor's daughter? Her
father is all-powerful in Seville, and she--oh! if she be not harder
than this pavement that I tread on, surely Antonia must interest
herself in the fate of Alcala!"
If there were one being in the world who was an object of aversion to
the gentle Inez, that being was the wealthy beauty of Seville, whose
pride had so nearly cost the life of Aguilera. It had been a subject
of no small thankfulness to Inez, that her brother, since receiving
his wound, had never once mentioned Antonia's name. There was no
misfortune more dreaded by Inez than that of having to embrace as a
sister the heartless Antonia. But when Alcala lay ill of his wound,
inquiries had been made regarding his state by a messenger wearing the
governor's livery. Inez could scarcely believe it possible that
Antonia could reflect without grief and remorse on the pain which she
had caused to one whom, in the judgment of his young sister, no one
could know and not love.
Inez had herself but slight personal acquaintance with Donna Antonia;
they had met at the house of Donna Maria, and had there exchanged a
few words. This slight acquaintance had by no means inclined Inez to
wish for closer intimacy with the governor's daughter. Don Lopez de
Rivadeo was himself a proud insolent upstart, who owed his place to
his relationship to Claret, the confessor of Queen Isabella. No man in
Seville was more unpopular than Don Lopez. The governor only used his
power to fill his coffers. His was the hand to close on the bribe; he
sold offices to the highest bidder; he oppressed the poor, he fleeced
the rich; he was ready at all times, and in all ways, to do the
bidding of one of the most unscrupulous governments that had ever
afflicted even unhappy Spain. It was not willingly that Inez de
Aguilera would ever have sought either mercy or justice from such a
man as Lopez de Rivadeo; she had not the power, even had she the will,
to work on his cupidity; she could only hope to influence him through
the medium of Donna Antonia. The governor's only child was the pride
of her father's heart, as well as the heiress of all his fortune; and
gossip had whispered that the easiest way to climb to the great man's
favour was by a chain of gold or rope of pearl round the neck of his
beautiful daughter.
On, therefore, towards the governor's house went Inez, treading with
weary feet over rough stones, sun-baked pavements, across glaring
plazas. Thankful was the poor wanderer when trees bordering some paseo
(promenade) afforded her temporary shade. Full as was the maiden's
mind of anxiety and sorrow, nature at last would make its wants felt.
Inez had had no refreshment that day since partaking of an early and
slender breakfast, and it was now many hours past noon. Inez had had
much to exhaust a frame not naturally strong, and had never before
walked so far in the heat of the day. The poor girl's mouth was
parched and dry with feverish thirst; weariness oppressed her; she
felt that she could scarcely go further unless she slaked that thirst.
Happily, Seville offers her sparkling fountains to weary wayfarers
like Inez. The maiden, however, shrank from approaching any of the
larger fountains which ornamented the plazas, fearful of being
noticed, perhaps recognized, by some of the gay idlers who congregated
around them. There was a fountain in a more quiet corner of a street,
where a tiny rill of water trickled from the mouth of a stone dolphin
into a basin below. Towards this place Inez now moved her languid
feet.
A man in a high-coned Andalusian hat, and wearing the long cloak which
Spaniards think a needful article of dress even in the warmth of
September, was filling for himself a little tin vessel attached to the
fountain. Very near him squatted on the ground a vendor of fruit, the
large basket before him piled with tempting oranges, citrons, melons,
and figs, and bunches of grapes from Malaga vines. The fruit-seller
was conversing with a third person--a peasant--who was making a simple
meal off roasted chestnuts, while he chatted with his companion. Inez
stood a few paces distant from the group, waiting till the man in the
high hat should have quenched his thirst, that she might satisfy her
own. The maiden thus could not avoid hearing some of the conversation
passing between the three.
"But what was the caballero's crime, eh?" were the first words, spoken
by the peasant, which arrested the attention of Inez.
"White Judaism, folk say," was the reply uttered by the vendor of
fruit.
"White Judaism! what may that be?"
The question was apparently more easily asked than answered, for it
was not till after sundry shrugs, expressive of perplexity, that the
fruit-seller replied: "As far as I can make out, it's plotting to burn
all the churches, knock down the convents, and hang all the friars."
"You've not hit the right mark, my friend," said the man in the
high-peaked hat who was filling the tin. "I should know all about the
matter, for I've travelled as courier to English caballeros; and White
Judaism is their religion, when they've any at all. It's saying that
the holy apostles were Jews, every one of the twelve, and the blessed
Virgin herself only a Jewess!"
The peasant uttered an exclamation of surprise, the fruit-man crossed
himself devoutly. "_Misericordia!_" he cried; "I never knew that White
Judaism was half so bad as that comes to."
"You thought it mere burning and hanging," laughed he in the
Andalusian hat: there was irony in his laughter.
"One don't see many in this Catholic land as hold such notions,"
observed the peasant.
"You don't see the seeds in yon melon; but they are there for all
that," was the significant rejoinder.
"Ay, it only needs the sharp knife to cut open the melon, and there
are the seeds sure enough," said the peasant.
"The governor is ready enough with the knife, and he whets it sharp
enough," gloomily observed the vendor of fruit. "To think of his
ordering off to prison a caballero like Don Alcala de Aguilera!"
"Was it not he who was nearly killed by the bull?" inquired the man
who had just emptied the tin in Spanish fashion--not touching the
vessel with his lips, but throwing back his head, and pouring the
contents into his mouth. The place at the fountain was now left free
for Inez, but she had forgotten her thirst.
"Ay, ay; it's pity for him, I take it, that the bull did not kill him
outright," said the fruit-man.
"Why, what will they do with him, if he is found guilty of Judaism,
black or white?" asked the peasant.
The man who had just left the fountain took on himself to answer the
question, while he made his bargain with the vendor of fruit.
"I'll tell you, friend, what they'll do. (What do you ask now for
those figs?) The judge will find the caballero guilty, of course--for
the folk at the court want such as he out of the way; then he'll be
shipped off to Cuba to work on the plantations. (You may give me a
bunch of those grapes.) At Cuba they chain each Spaniard to a
woolly-headed nigger, two and two; (that's refreshing in weather like
this!) and if the poor convict lag in his work, down comes the whip of
the driver, who lays it smartly on his bare back, till perhaps the
poor wretch drops down dead where he stands!"
The Andalusian went on, enjoying his luscious fruit, quite unconscious
of the keen pang which his idle words had inflicted on a youthful and
tender heart.
CHAPTER XX.
AN IDOL ON ITS PEDESTAL.
In the spacious garden attached to the governor's house were gathered
together some of the gayest and most fashionable of those who moved in
the higher circles of Seville. A party had been invited to celebrate
with dance, song, and feasting, the birthday of the governor's only
daughter. The garden was a little paradise, in which nature and art
seemed to outvie each other in offering attractions to eye, ear, and
taste. Lopez, who, with his daughter, had visited the Great Exhibition
in Paris, had brought back ideas of French magnificence to add new
adornments to a place which, for beauty and elegance, had before been
unrivalled in Seville. Exotics from various countries blended with the
splendid plants indigenous to Andalusia, making the parterres one
flush of brilliant hues. Italian statues adorned gilded fountains that
threw up scented waters to sparkle in the sun. Here, under the shade
of orange-trees, ladies listened to the strains of some manly voice,
accompanied by the tinkling guitar. There the fandango was danced on
the velvet turf, while clattering castanets kept time. Servants in
gorgeous liveries carried about ices shaped into the forms of fruits,
or costly luxuries brought from the most distant parts of the world.
Others followed with wines such as were to be found in no cellars in
Seville save those of the wealthy governor, who was as lavish in
expending his money as he was unscrupulous in acquiring it.
The centre of the brilliant circle, the observed of all observers, the
magnet which drew to itself the admiration of every cavalier
present--Donna Antonia stood like the queen of beauty, surrounded by
satellites that only shone in the light of her smile. Antonia
concentrated in herself the charms for which the women of Andalusia
are famed. Hers were the lustrous almond-shaped eyes, the luxuriant
hair, the exquisite form whose every movement is the perfection of
grace. Perhaps to the eye of an artist Antonia would have appeared
more to advantage in the picturesque long white robe and lace veil of
the Spanish costume, than in the dress of the newest Parisian fashion
with which she had chosen to replace them. But let her wear what she
might, Antonia in any garb must have been acknowledged to be the most
beautiful woman in Seville; and no one was more aware of the fact than
herself. No expense had been spared in showing off her beauty; the
arms and neck of the governor's daughter were loaded with splendid
jewels, and a circlet of brilliants sparkled round her brow.
It was to be expected that such a subject of interest as the arrest of
Don Alcala de Aguilera should afford a topic for gossip amongst
members of fashionable circles, as well as amongst the poorer
inhabitants of Seville. Even the cavalier's late adventure in the
bull-ring had scarcely been a more exciting, and therefore delightful,
theme. There was not a group in the gay garden of Lopez de Rivadeo
where Alcala's imprisonment did not form a thread in the web of light
converse, a thread variously coloured, according to the temper of the
speakers, by disapproval, contempt, or pity. The appearance, at least,
of the noble hidalgo was familiar to all the guests of Antonia, and
every one, more or less, took some interest in his fate.
"I always declared my conviction that De Aguilera would sink lower and
lower after he degraded himself by stooping to serve an English
mechanic," observed a stiff-backed don, who had himself not been above
begging a place in the customs and enforcing his plea by a bribe.
"I'd have blown out my brains before I'd have done that!" exclaimed a
young Spanish officer, twirling the end of his slender mustache.
"De Aguilera took almost as short a method of cutting the life-knot
when he rode spear in hand into the Plaza de Toros," observed a
stately duenna.
"I admired his daring," lisped her pretty young charge. "One likes to
see the knightly spirit flash forth; and if Don Alcala had been slain
in the arena, one could only have said that it was a pity that so
brave and handsome a caballero should come to such an untimely end.
But only think of a Spanish hidalgo being carried off to a common
prison on such a charge as might be preferred against some
book-hawking pedlar!"
"Or a wretched heretic, whom Torquemada--rest his soul!--would have
sent to the stake," joined in her stern-faced duenna.
"Heresy must be put down," observed the don who had first spoken, with
a frown which might have beseemed the Grand Inquisitor himself. This
Spanish gentleman, who so strongly condemned what he termed heresy,
had himself no faith in any religion whatever.
"One pities Don Alcala's sister," said the younger lady. "I rather
liked her looks, though she never carried herself with the dignity of
an Aguilera; and as for her dress, she, for one, seemed to think that
Spanish ladies were born in the frightful mantilla, veil, and high
comb worn by their mothers, and must carry them, as birds do their
feathers, to the end of their lives!" It need scarcely be mentioned
that the fair speaker, like Antonia, had adopte
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