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The Heart's Secret; Or, the Fortunes of a Soldier: a Story of Love and the Low Latitudes.

by Maturin M. Ballou · English · Gutenberg #4957 · 332,105 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Heart's Secret; Or, the Fortunes of a Soldier: a Story of Love and the Low Latitudes.

Author: Maturin M. Ballou


        
Release date: January 1, 2004 [eBook #4957]
                Most recently updated: December 23, 2025

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4957

Credits: Charles Aldarondo


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HEART'S SECRET; OR, THE FORTUNES OF A SOLDIER: A STORY OF LOVE AND THE LOW LATITUDES. ***




THE HEART’S SECRET

Or, The Fortunes Of A Soldier.


By Lieutenant Murray Ballou




Boston

1852




PUBLISHER’S NOTE.—The following Novellette was originally published in the
PICTORIAL DRAWING-ROOM COMPANION, and is but a specimen of the many deeply
entertaining Tales, and gems of literary merit, which grace the columns of that
elegant and highly popular journal. The COMPANION embodies a corps of
contributors of rare literary excellence, and is regarded as the ne plus ultra,
by its scores of thousands of readers.




CONTENTS

 PREFACE
 THE HEART’S SECRET
 CHAPTER I.—THE ACCIDENT
 CHAPTER II.—THE BELLE AND THE SOLDIER
 CHAPTER III.—A SUDDEN INTRODUCTION
 CHAPTER IV.—CUBAN BANDITTI
 CHAPTER V.—THE WOUNDED SOLDIER
 CHAPTER VI.—THE CHALLENGE
 CHAPTER VII.—THE PRISONER
 CHAPTER VIII.—THE FAREWELL
 CHAPTER IX.—THE EXECUTION SCENE
 CHAPTER X.—THE BANISHMENT
 CHAPTER XI.—THE PROMOTION
 CHAPTER XII.—THE QUEEN AND THE SOLDIER
 CHAPTER XIII.—UNREQUITED LOVE
 CHAPTER XIV.—THE SURPRISE
 CHAPTER XV.—THE SERENAPE
 CHAPTER XVI.—A DISCOVERY
 CHAPTER XVII.—THE ASSASSIN
 CHAPTER XVIII.—THE DISGUISE
 CHAPTER XIX.—THE AVOWAL
 CHAPTER XX.—HAPPY FINALE




PREFACE.


The locale of the following story is that gem of the American
Archipelago; the Island of Cuba, whose lone star, now merged in the
sea, is destined yet to sparkle in liberty’s hemisphere, and radiate
the light of republicanism. Poetry cannot outdo the fairy-like
loveliness of this tropical clime, and only those who have partaken of
the aromatic sweetness of its fields and shores can fully realize the
delight that may be shared in these low latitudes. A brief residence
upon the island afforded the author the subject-matter for the
following pages, and he has been assiduous in his efforts to adhere
strictly to geographical facts and the truthful belongings of the
island. Trusting that this may prove equally popular with the author’s
other numerous tales and novelettes, he has the pleasure of signing
himself,

Very cordially,

THE PUBLIC’s HUMBLE SERVANT.

DEDICATED TO THE READERS OF GLEASON’S PICTORIAL DRAWING-ROOM COMPANION,
FOR WHICH JOURNAL THESE PAGES WERE ORIGINALLY WRITTEN, BY THEIR VERY
HUMBLE SERVANT, LIEUTENANT MURRAY.




THE HEART’S SECRET.




CHAPTER I.
THE ACCIDENT.


The soft twilight of the tropics, that loves to linger over the low
latitudes, after the departure of the long summer’s day, was breathing
in zephyrs of aromatic sweetness over the shores and plains of the
beautiful Queen of the Antilles. The noise and bustle of the day had
given place to the quiet and gentle influences of the hour; the slave
had laid by his implements of labor, and now stood at ease, while the
sunburnt overseers had put off the air of vigilance that they had worn
all day, and sat or lounged lazily with their cigars.

Here and there strolled a Montaro from the country, who, having
disposed of his load of fruit, of produce and fowls, was now preparing
to return once more inland, looking, with his long Toledo blade and
heavy spurs, more like a bandit than an honest husbandman. The evening
gun had long since boomed over the waters of the land-locked harbor
from the grim, walls of Moro Castle, the guard had been relieved at the
governor’s palace and the city walls, and now the steady martial tread
to the tap of the drum rang along the streets of Havana, as the guard
once more sought their barracks in the Plaza des Armes.

The pretty senoritas sat at their grated windows, nearly on a level
with the street, and chatted through the bars, not unlike prisoners, to
those gallants who paused to address them. And now a steady line of
pedestrians turned their way to the garden that fronts the governor’s
palace, where they might listen to the music of the band, nightly
poured forth here to rich and poor.

At this peculiar hour there was a small party walking in the broad and
very private walk that skirts the seaward side of the city, nearly
opposite the Moro, and known as the Plato. It is the only hour in which
a lady can appear outside the walls of her dwelling on foot in this
queer and picturesque capital, and then only in the Plaza, opposite to
the palace, or in some secluded and private walk like the Plato. Such
is Creole and Spanish etiquette.

The party referred to consisted of a fine looking old Spanish don, a
lady who seemed to be his daughter, a little boy of some twelve or
thirteen years, who might perhaps be the lady’s brother, and a couple
of gentlemen in undress military attire, yet bearing sufficient tokens
of rank to show them to be high in command. The party was a gay though
small one, and the lady seemed to be as lively and talkative as the two
gentlemen could desire, while they, on their part, appeared most
devoted to every syllable and gesture.

There was a slight air of hauteur in the lady’s bearing; she seemed to
half disdain the homage that was so freely tendered to her, and though
she laughed loud and clear, there was a careless, not to say heartless,
accent in her tones, that betrayed her indifference to the devoted
attentions of her companions. Apparently too much accustomed to this
treatment to be disheartened by it, the two gentlemen bore themselves
most courteously, and continued as devoted as ever to the fair creature
by their side.

The boy of whom we have spoken was a noble child, frank and manly in
his bearing, and evidently deeply interested in the maritime scene
before him. Now he paused to watch the throng of craft of every nation
that lay at anchor in the harbor, or which were moored; after the
fashion here, with their stems to the quay, and now his fine blue eye
wandered off over the swift running waters of the Gulf Stream, watching
for a moment the long, heavy swoop of some distant seafowl, or the
white sail of some clipper craft bound up the Gulf to New Orleans, or
down the narrow channel through the Caribbean Sea to some South
American port. The old don seemed in the meantime to regard the boy
with an earnest pride, and scarcely heeded at all the bright sallies of
wit that his daughter was so freely and merrily bestowing upon her two
assiduous admirers.

“Yonder brigantine must be a slaver,” said the boy, pointing to a
rakish craft that seemed to be struggling against the current to the
southward.

“Most like, most like; but what does she on this side? the southern
shore is her ground, and the Isle of Pines is a hundred leagues from
here,” said the old don.

“She has lost her reckoning, probably,” said the boy, “and made the
first land to the north. Lucky she didn’t fall in with those Florida
wreckers, for though the Americans don’t carry on the African trade
nowadays, they know what to do with a cargo if it gets once hard and
fast on the reefs.”

“What know you of these matters?” asked the old don, turning a curious
eye on the boy.

“O, I hear them talk of these things, and you know I saw a cargo ‘run’
on the south side only last month,” continued the boy. “There were
three hundred or more filed off from that felucca, two by two, to the
shore.”

“It is a slaver,” said one of the officers, “a little out of her
latitude, that’s all.”

“A beautiful craft,” said the lady, earnestly; “can it be a slaver, and
so beautiful.”

“They are clipper-built, all of them,” said the old don. “Launched in
Baltimore, United States.”

Senorita Gonzales was the daughter of the proud old don of the same
name, who was of the party on the Plato at the time we describe. The
father was one of the richest as well as noblest in rank of all the
residents of the island, being of the old Castilian stock, who had come
from Spain many years before, and after holding high office, both civil
and military, under the crown, had at last retired with a princely
fortune, and devoted himself to the education of his daughter and son,
both of whom we have already introduced to the reader.

The daughter, beautiful, intelligent, and witty to a most extraordinary
degree, had absolutely broken the hearts of half the men of rank on the
island; for though yet scarcely twenty years of age, Senorita Isabella
was a confirmed coquette. It was her passion to command and enjoy a
devotion, but as to ever having in the least degree cherished or known
what it was to love, the lady was entirely void of the charge; she had
never known the tenderness of reciprocal affection, nor did it seem to
those who knew her best, that the man was born who could win her
confidence.

Men’s hearts had been Isabella Gonzales’s toys and playthings ever
since the hour that she first had realized her power over them. And yet
she was far from being heartless in reality. She was most sensitive,
and at times thoughtful and serious; but this was in her closet, and
when alone. Those who thought that the sunshine of that face was never
clouded, were mistaken. She hardly received the respect that was due to
her better understanding and naturally strong points of character,
because she hid them mainly behind an exterior of captivating
mirthfulness and never ceasing smiles.

The cool refreshing sea breeze that swept in from the water was most
delicious, after the scorching heat of a summer’s day in the West
Indies, and the party paused as they breathed in of its freshness,
leaning upon the parapet of the walk, over which they looked down upon
the glancing waves of the bay far beneath them. The moon was stealing
slowly but steadily up from behind the lofty tower of Moro Castle,
casting a dash of silvery light athwart its dark batteries and grim
walls, and silvering a long wake across the now silent harbor, making
its rippling waters of golden and silver hues, and casting, where the
Moro tower was between it and the water, a long, deep shadow to
seaward.

Even the gay and apparently thoughtless Senorita Isabella was struck
with delight at the view now presented to her gaze, and for a moment
she paused in silence to drink in of the spirit-stirring beauty of the
scene.

“How beautiful it is,” whispered the boy, who was close by her side.

“Beautiful, very beautiful,” echoed Isabella, again becoming silent.

No one who has not breathed the soft air of the south at an hour such
as we have described, can well realize the tender influence that it
exercises upon a susceptible disposition. The whole party gazed for
some minutes in silence, apparently charmed by the scene. There was a
hallowing and chastening influence in the very air, and the gay
coquette was softened into the tender woman. A tear even glistened in
Ruez’s, her brother’s eyes; but he was a thoughtful and delicate-souled
child, and would be affected thus much more quickly than his sister.

The eldest of the two gentlemen who were in attendance upon Don
Gonzales and his family, was Count Anguera, lieutenant-governor of the
island; and his companion, a fine military figure, apparently some
years the count’s junior, was General Harero of the royal infantry,
quartered at the governor’s palace. Such was the party that promenaded
on the parapet of the Plato.

As we have intimated, the two gentlemen were evidently striving to
please Isabella, and to win from her some encouraging smile or other
token that might indicate a preference for their attentions. Admiration
even from the high source that now tendered it was no new thing to her,
and with just sufficient archness to puzzle them, she waived and
replied to their conversation with most provoking indifference,
lavishing a vast deal more kindness and attention upon a noble
wolf-hound that crouched close to her feet, his big clear eye bent ever
upon his mistress’s face with a degree of intelligence that would have
formed a theme for a painter. It was a noble creature, and no wonder
the lady evinced so much regard for the hound, who ever and anon walked
close to her.

“You love the hound?” suggested General Harero, stooping to smooth its
glossy coat.

“Yes.”

“He is to be envied, then, upon my soul, lady. How could he, with no
powers of utterance, have done that for himself, which we poor gallants
so fail in doing?”

“And what may that be?” asked Isabella, archly tossing her head.

“Win thy love,” half whispered the officer, drawing closer to her side.

The answer was lost, if indeed Isabella intended one, by the father’s
calling the attention of the party to some object on the Regla shore,
opposite the city, looming up in the dim light.

Ruez had mounted the parapet, and with his feet carelessly dangling on
the other side, sat gazing off upon the sea, now straining his eye to
make out the rig of some dark hull in the distance, and now following
back the moon’s glittering wake until it met the shore. At this moment
the hound, leaving his mistress’s side, put his fore paws upon the top
of the parapet and his nose into one of the boy’s hands, causing him to
turn round suddenly to see what it was that touched him; in doing which
he lost his balance, and with a faint cry fell from the parapet far
down to the water below. Each of the gentlemen at once sprang upon the
stone work and looked over where the boy had fallen, but it would have
been madness for any one, however good a swimmer; and as they realized
this and their helpless situation, they stood for a moment dumb with
consternation.

At that moment a plunge was heard in the water from the edge of the
quay far below the parapet, and a dark form was traced making its way
through the water with that strong bold stroke that shows the effort of
a confident and powerful swimmer.

“Thank God some one has seen his fall from below, and they will rescue
him,” said Don Gonzales, springing swiftly down the Plato steps,
followed by Isabella and the officers, and seeking the street that led
to the quay below.

“O hasten, father, hasten!” exclaimed Isabella, impatiently.

“Nay, Isabella, my old limbs totter with fear for dear Ruez,” was the
hasty reply of the old don, as he hurried forward with his daughter.

“Dear, dear Ruez,” exclaimed Isabella, hysterically.

Dashing by the guard stationed on the quay, who presented arms as his
superiors passed, they reached its end in time to see, through the now
dim twilight, the efforts of some one in the water supporting the half
insensible boy with one arm, while with the other he was struggling
with almost superhuman effort against the steady set of the tide to
seaward. Already were a couple of seamen lowering a quarter-boat from
an American barque, near by, but the rope had fouled in the blocks, and
they could not loose it. A couple of infantry soldiers had also come up
to the spot, and having secured a rope were about to attempt some
assistance to the swimmer.

“Heave the line,” shouted one of the seamen. “Give me the bight of it,
and I’ll swim out to him.”

“Stand by for it,” said the soldier, coiling it in his hand and then
throwing it towards the barque. But the coil fell short of the mark,
and another minute’s delay occurred.

In the meantime he who held the boy, though evidently a man of cool
judgment, powerful frame, and steady purpose, yet now breathed so
heavily in his earnest struggle with the swift tide, that his panting
might be distinctly heard on the quay. He was evidently conscious of
the efforts now making for his succor and that of the boy, but he
uttered no words, still bending every nerve and faculty towards the
stemming of the current tint sets into the harbor from the Gulf Stream.

The hound had been running back and forth on the top of the parapet,
half preparing every moment for a spring, and then deterred by the
immense distance which presented itself between the animal and the
water, it would run back and forth again with a most piteous howling
cry; but at this moment it came bounding down the street to the quay,
as though it at last realized the proper spot from which to make the
attempt, and with a leap that seemed to carry it nearly a rod into the
waters, it swam easily to the boy’s side.

An exclamation of joy escaped from both Don Gonzales and Isabella, for
they knew the hound to have saved a life before, and now prized his
sagacity highly.

As the hound swung round easily beside the struggling forms, the
swimmer placed the boy’s arm about the animal’s neck, while the noble
creature, with almost human reason, instead of struggling fiercely at
being thus entirely buried in the water, save the mere point of his
nose, worked as steadily and as calmly as though he was merely
following his young master on shore. The momentary relief was of the
utmost importance to the swimmer, who being thus partially relieved of
Ruez’s weight, once more struck out boldly for the quay. But the boy
had now lost all consciousness, and his arm slipped away from the
hound’s neck, and he rolled heavily over, carrying down the swimmer and
himself for a moment, below the surface of the water.

“Holy mother! they are both drowned!” almost screamed Isabella.

“Lost! lost!” groaned Don Gonzales, with uplifted hands and tottering
form.

“No! no!” exclaimed General Harero, “not yet, not yet.” He had jumped
on board the barque, and had cut the davit ropes with his sword, and
thus succeeded in launching the boat with himself and the two seamen in
it.

At this moment the swimmer rose once more slowly with his burthen to
the surface; but his efforts were so faintly made now, that he barely
floated, and yet with a nervous vigor he kept the boy still far above
himself. And now it was that the noble instinct of the hound stood his
young master in such importance, and led him to seize with his teeth
the boy’s clothes, while the swimmer once more fairly gained his
self-possession, and the boat with General Harero and the seamen came
alongside. In a moment more the boy with his preserver and the dog were
safe in the boat, which was rowed at once to the quay.

A shout of satisfaction rang out from twenty voices that had witnessed
the scene.

Isabella, the moment they were safely in the boat, fainted, while Count
Anguera ran for a volante for conveyance home. The swimmer soon
regained his strength, and when the boat reached the quay, he lifted
the boy from it himself. It was a most striking picture that presented
itself to the eye at that moment on the quay, in the dim twilight that
was so struggling with the moon’s brighter rays.

The father, embracing the reviving boy, looked the gratitude he could
not find words to express, while a calm, satisfied smile ornamented the
handsome features of the soldier who had saved Ruez’s life at such
imminent risk. The coat which he had hastily thrown upon the quay when
he leaped into the water, showed him to bear the rank of lieutenant of
infantry, and by the number, he belonged to General Harero’s own
division.

The child was placed with his sister and father in a volante, and borne
away from the spot with all speed, that the necessary care and
attention might be afforded to him which they could only expect in
their own home.

In the meantime a peculiar satisfaction mantled the brow and features
of the young officer who had thus signally served Don Gonzales and his
child. His fine military figure stood erect and commanding in style
while he gazed after the volante that contained the party named, nor
did he move for some moments, seeming to be exercised by some peculiar
spell; still gazing in the direction in which the volante had
disappeared, until General Harero, his superior, having at length
arranged his own attire, after the hasty efforts which he had made,
came by, and touching him lightly on the arm, said:

“Lieutenant, you seem to be dreaming; has the bath affected your
brain?”

“Not at all, general,” replied the young officer, hastening to put on
his coat once more; “I have indeed forgotten myself for a single
moment.”

“Know you the family whom you have thus served?” asked the general.

“I do; that is, I know their name, general, but nothing further.”

“He’s a clever man, and will remember your services,” said the general,
carelessly, as he walked up the quay and received the salute of the
sentinel on duty.

Some strange feeling appeared to be working in the breast of the young
officer who had just performed the gallant deed we have recorded, for
he seemed even now to be quite lost to all outward realization, and was
evidently engaged in most agreeable communion with himself mentally. He
too now walked up the quay, also, receiving the salute of the sentinel,
and not forgetting either, as did the superior officer, to touch his
cap in acknowledgement, a sign that an observant man would have marked
in the character of both; and one, too, which was not lost on the
humble private, whose duty it was to stand at his post until the middle
watch of the night. A long and weary duty is that of a sentinel on the
quay at night.




CHAPTER II.
THE BELLE AND THE SOLDIER.


Whoever has been in Havana, that strange and peculiar city, whose every
association and belonging seem to bring to mind the period of centuries
gone by, whose time-worn and moss-covered cathedrals appear to stand as
grim records of the past, whose noble palaces and residences of the
rich give token of the fact of its great wealth and extraordinary
resources—whoever, we say, has been in this capital of Cuba, has of
course visited its well-known and far-famed Tacon Paseo. It is here,
just outside the city walls, in a beautiful tract of land, laid out in
tempting walks, ornamented with the fragrant flowers of the tropics,
and with statues and fountains innumerable, that the beauty and fashion
of the town resort each afternoon to drive in their volantes, and to
meet and greet each other.

It was on the afternoon subsequent to that of the accident recorded in
the preceding chapter, that a young officer, off duty, might be seen
partially reclining upon one of the broad seats that here and there
line the foot-path of the circular drive in the Paseo. He possessed a
fine manly figure, and was perhaps of twenty-four or five years of age,
and clothed in the plain undress uniform of the Spanish army. His
features were of that national and handsome cast that is peculiar to
the full-blooded Castilian, and the pure olive of his complexion
contrasted finely with a moustache and imperial as black as the dark
flowing hair that fell from beneath his foraging cap. At the moment
when we introduce him he was playing with a small, light walking-stick,
with which he thrashed his boots most immoderately; but his thoughts
were busy enough in another quarter, as any one might conjecture even
at a single glance.

Suddenly his whole manner changed; he rose quickly to his feet, and
lifting his cap gracefully, he saluted and acknowledged the particular
notice of a lady who bent partially forward from a richly mounted
volante drawn by as richly it caparisoned horse, and driven by as
richly dressed a calesaro. The manner of the young officer from that
moment was the very antipodes of what it had been a few moments before.
A change seemed to have come over the spirit of his dream. His fine
military figure became erect and dignified, and a slight indication of
satisfied pride was just visible in the fine lines of his expressive
lips. As he passed on his way, after a momentary pause, he met General
Harero, who stiffly acknowledged his military salute, with anything but
kindness expressed in the stern lines of his forbidding countenance. He
even took some pains to scowl upon the young soldier as they passed
each other.

But what cared Lieutenant Bezan for his frowns? Had not the belle of
the city, the beautiful, the peerless, the famed Senorita Isabella
Gonzales just publicly saluted him?-that glorious being whose
transcendent beauty had been the theme of every tongue, and whose
loveliness had enslaved him from the first moment he had looked upon
her-just two years previous, when he first came from Spain. Had not
this high-born and proud lady publicly saluted him? Him, a poor
lieutenant of infantry, who had never dared to lift his eyes to meet
her own before, however deep and ardently he might have worshipped her
in secret. What cared the young officer that his commander had seen fit
thus to frown upon him? True, he realized the power of military
discipline, and particularly of the Spanish army; but he forgot all
else now, in the fact that Isabella Gonzales had publicly saluted him
in the paths of the Paseo.

Possessed of a highly chivalrous disposition, Lieutenant Bezan had few
confidants among his regiment, who, notwithstanding this, loved him as
well as brothers might love. He seemed decidedly to prefer solitude and
his books to the social gatherings, or the clubs formed by his brother
officers, or indeed to join them in any of their ordinary sports or
pastimes.

Of a very good family at home, he had the misfortune to have been born
a younger brother, and after being thoroughly educated at the best
schools of Madrid, he was frankly told by his father that he must seek
his fortune, and for the future rely solely upon himself. There was but
one field open to him, at least so it seemed to him, and that was the
army. Two years before the opening of our story he had enlisted as a
third lieutenant of infantry, and had been at once ordered to the West
Indies with his entire regiment. Here promotion for more than one
gallant act closely followed him, until at the time we introduce him to
the reader as first lieutenant. Being of a naturally cheerful and
exceedingly happy disposition, he took life like a philosopher, and
knew little of care or sorrow until the time when he first saw Senorita
Isabella Gonzales-an occasion that planted a hopeless passion in his
breast.

From the moment of their first meeting, though entirely unnoticed by
her, he felt that he loved her, deeply, tenderly loved her; and yet at
the same time he fully realized how immeasurably she was beyond his
sphere, and consequently hopes. He saw the first officials of the
island at her very feet, watching for one glance of encouragement or
kindness from those dark and lustrous eyes of jet; in short, he saw her
ever the centre of an admiring circle of the rich and proud. It is
perhaps strange, but nevertheless true, that with all these
discouraging and disheartening circumstances, Lieutenant Bezan did not
lose all hope. He loved her, lowly and obscure though he was, with all
his heart, and used to whisper to himself that love like his need not
despair, for he felt how truly and honestly his heart warmed and his
pulses beat for her.

Nearly two entire years had his devoted heart lived on thus, if not
once gratified by a glance from her eye, still hoping that devotion
like his would one day be rewarded. What prophets of the future are
youth and love! Distant as the star of his destiny appeared from him,
he yet still toiled on, hoped on, in his often weary round of duty,
sustained by the one sentiment of tender love and devotedness to one
who knew him not.

At the time of the fearful accident when Ruez Gonzales came so near
losing his life from the fall he suffered off the parapet of the Plato,
Lieutenant Bezan was officer of the night, his rounds having
fortunately brought him to the quay at the most opportune moment. He
knew not who it was that had fallen into the water, but guided by a
native spirit of daring and humanity, he had thrown off his coat and
cap and leaped in after him.

The feelings of pleasure and secret joy experienced by the young
officer, when after landing from the boat he learned by a single glance
who it was he had so fortunately saved, may be better imagined than
described, when his love for the boy’s sister is remembered. And when,
as we have related, the proud Senorita Isabella publicly saluted him
before a hundred eyes in the Paseo, he felt a joy of mind, a brightness
of heart, that words could not express.

His figure and face were such that once seen their manly beauty and
noble outline could not be easily forgotten; and there were few ladies
in the city, whose station and rank would permit them to associate with
one bearing only a lieutenant’s commission, who would not have been
proud of his notice and homage. He could not be ignorant of his
personal recommendations, and yet the young officer sought no female
society-his heart it knew but one idol, and he could bow to but one
throne of love.

Whether by accident or purposely, the lady herself only knew, but when
the volante, in the circular drive of the Paseo, again came opposite to
the spot where Lieutenant Bezan was, the Senorita Isabella dropped her
fan upon the carriage-road. As the young officer sprang to pick it up
and return it, she bade the calesaro to halt. Her father, Don Gonzales,
was by her side, and the lieutenant presented the fan in the most
respectful manner, being rewarded by a glance from the lady that
thrilled to his very soul. Don Gonzales exclaimed:

“By our lady, but this is the young officer, Isabella, who yesternight
so promptly and gallantly saved the life of our dear Ruez.”

“It is indeed he, father,” said the beauty, with much interest.

“Lieutenant Bezan, the general told us, I believe,” continued the
father.

“That was the name, father.”

“And is this Lieutenant Bezan?” asked Don Gonzales, addressing the
officer.

“At your service,” replied he, bowing respectfully.

“Senor,” continued the father, most earnestly, and extending at the
same time his hand to the blushing soldier, “permit me and my daughter
to thank you sincerely for the extraordinary service you rendered to us
and our dear Ruez last evening.”

“Senor, the pleasure of having served you richly compensated for any
personal inconvenience or risk I may have experienced,” answered
Lieutenant Bezan; saying which, he bowed low and looked once into the
lovely eyes of the beautiful Senorita Isabella, when at a word to the
calesaro, the volante again passed on in the circular drive.

But the young officer had not been unwatched during the brief moments
of conversation that had passed between him and the occupants of the
vehicle. Scarcely had he left the side of the volante, when he once
more met General Harero, who seemed this time to take some pains to
confront him, as he remarked:

“What business may Lieutenant Bezan have with Don Gonzales and his fair
daughter, that he stops their volante in the public walks of the
Paseo?”

“The lady dropped her fan, general, and I picked it up and returned it
to her,” was the gentlemanly and submissive reply of the young officer.

“Dropped her fan,” repeated the general, sneeringly, as he gazed at the
lieutenant.

“Yes, general, and I returned it.”

“Indeed,” said the commanding officers, with a decided emphasis.

“Could I have done less, general?” asked Lieutenant Bezan.

“It matters not, though you seem to be ever on hand to do the lady and
her father some service, sir. Perhaps you would relish another cold
bath,” he continued, with most cutting sarcasm. “Who introduced you,
sir, to these people?”

“No one, sir. It was chance that brought us together. You will remember
the scene on the quay.”

“I do.”

“Before that time I had never exchanged one word with them.”

“And on this you presume to establish an acquaintance?”

“By no means, sir. The lady recognized me, and I was proud to return
the polite salute with which she greeted me.”

“Doubtless.”

“Would you have me do otherwise, sir?”

“I would have you avoid this family of Gonzales altogether.”

“I trust, general, that I have not exceeded my duty either to the
father or daughter, though by the tone of your remarks I seem to have
incurred your disapprobation,” replied Lieutenant Bezan, firmly but
respectfully.

“It would be more becoming in an officer of your rank,” continued the
superior, “to be nearer his quarters, than to spend his hours off duty
in so conspicuous and public a place as the Tacon Paseo. I shall see
that such orders are issued for the future as shall keep those attached
to my division within the city walls.”

“Whatever duty is prescribed by my superiors I shall most cheerfully
and promptly respond to, General Harero,” replied the young officer, as
he respectfully saluted his general, and turning, he sought the city
gates on the way to his barracks.

“Stay, Lieutenant Bezan,” said the general, somewhat nervously.

“General,” repeated the officer, with the prompt military salute, as he
awaited orders.

“You may go, sir,” continued the superior, biting his lips with
vexation. “Another time will answer my purpose quite as well, perhaps
better. You may retire, I say.”

“Yes, general,” answered the soldier, respectfully, and once more
turned away.

Lieutenant Bezan was too well aware of General Harero’s intimacy at the
house of Don Gonzales, not to understand the meaning of the rebuke and
exhibition of bitterness on the part of his superior towards him. The
general, although he possessed a fine commanding figure, yet was
endowed with no such personal advantages to recommend him to a lady’s
eye as did the young officer who had thus provoked him, and he could
not relish the idea that one who had already rendered such signal
services to the Senorita Isabella and her father, even though he was so
very far below himself in rank, should become too intimate with the
family. It would be unfair towards Lieutenant Bezan to suppose that he
did not possess sufficient judgment of human nature and discernment to
see all this.

He could not but regret that he had incurred the ill will of his
general, though it was unjustly entertained, for he knew only too well
how rigorous was the service in which he was engaged, and that a
superior officer possessed almost absolute power over those placed in
his command, in the Spanish army, even unto the sentence of death. He
had too often been the unwilling spectator, and even at times the
innocent agent of scenes that were revolting to his better feelings,
which emanated solely from this arbitrary power vested in heartless and
incompetent individuals by means of their military rank. Musing thus
upon the singular state of his affairs, and the events of the last two
days, so important to his feelings, now recalling the bewitching
glances of the peerless Isabella Gonzales, and now ruminating upon the
ill will of General Harero, he strolled into the city, and reaching La
Dominica’s, he threw himself upon a lounge near the marble fountain,
and calling for a glass of agrass, he sipped the cool and grateful
beverage, and wiled away the hour until the evening parade.

Though Don Gonzales duly appreciated the great service that Lieutenant
Bezan had done him, at such imminent personal hazard, too, yet he would
no more have introduced him into his family on terms of a visiting
acquaintance in consequence thereof, than he would have boldly broken
down any other strict rule and principle of his aristocratic nature;
and yet he was not ungrateful; far from it, as Lieutenant Bezan had
reason to know, for he applied his great influence at once to the
governor-general in the young officer’s behalf. The favor he demanded
of Tacon, then governor and commander-in-chief, was the promotion to a
captaincy of him who had so vitally served the interests of his house.

Tacon was one of the wisest and best governors that Cuba ever had, as
ready to reward merit as he was to signally punish trickery or crime of
any sort, and when the case was fairly laid before him, by reference to
the rolls of his military secretary, he discovered that Lieutenant
Bezan had already been promoted twice for distinguished merit, and
replied to Don Gonzales that, as this was the case, and the young
soldier was found to be so deserving, he should cheerfully comply with
his request as it regarded his early promotion in his company. Thus it
was, that scarcely ten days subsequent to the meeting in the Paseo,
which we have described, Lieutenant Bezan was regularly gazetted as
captain of infantry, by honorable promotion and approval of the
governor-general.

The character of Tacon was one of a curious description. He was prompt,
candid, and business-like in all things, and the manner of his
promoting Lieutenant Bezan was a striking witness of these very
qualities. The young officer being summoned by an orderly to his
presence, was thus questioned:

“You are Lieutenant Lorenzo Bezan?”

“Yes, your excellency.”

“Of the sixth infantry?”

“Excellency, yes.”

“Of company eight?”

“Of company eight, excellency.”

“Your commander is General Harero?”

“Excellency, yes.”

“You were on the quay night before last, were you not?”

“Excellency, I was.”

“And leaped into the water to save a boy’s life who had fallen there?”

“I did, excellency.”

“You were successful.”

“Excellency, I was.”

“You were promoted eleven months since in compliment for duty.”

“Yes, excellency.”

“Captain Bezan, here is a new commission for you.”

“Excellency you are only too kind to an humble soldier.”

A calm, proud inclination of the head on the part of the
governor-general, indicated that the audience was over, and the young
officer returned, knowing well the character of the commander-in-chief.
Not a little elated, Lorenzo Bezan felt that he was richly repaid for
the risk he had run by this promotion alone; but there was a source of
gratification to him far beyond that of having changed his title to
captain. He had served and been noticed by Isabella Gonzales, and it is
doubtful if he could have met with any good fortune that would have
equalled this, in his eye; it was the scheme of his life-the
realization of his sleeping and waking dreams.

This good fortune, as pleasant to him as it was unexpected, was
attributed by the young officer to the right source, and was in reality
enhanced and valued from that very fact.

“A bumper,” exclaimed his brother officers, that day at the mess-table,
when all were met. “A bumper to Captain Lorenzo Bezan. May he never
draw his sword without cause; never sheathe it without honor!”

“But what’s the secret of Bezan’s good fortune?” asked one.

“His luck, to be sure-born under a lucky star.”

“Not exactly luck, alone, but his own intrepidity and manliness,”
replied a fellow-officer. “Haven’t you heard of his saving the life of
young Gonzales, who fell into the bay from the parapet of the Plato?”

“Not in detail. If you know about the affair, recite it,” said another.

Leaving the mess, as did Captain Bezan at this juncture, we will follow
the thread of our story in another chapter, and relating to other
scenes.




CHAPTER III.
A SUDDEN INTRODUCTION.


It was again night in the capital; the narrow streets were brilliantly
lighted from the store windows, but the crowd were no longer there. The
heat of the long summer day had wearied the endurance of master and
slave; and thousands had already sought that early repose which is so
essential to the dwellers in the tropics. Stillness reigned over the
drowsy city, save that the soft music which the governor-general’s hand
discourses nightly in the Plaza, stole sweetly over the scene, until
every air seemed heavy with its tender influence and melody. Now it
swelled forth in the martial tones of a military band, and now its
cadence was low and gentle as a fairy whisper, reverberating to the ear
from the opposite shore of Regla, and the frowning walls of the Cabanas
behind the Moro, and now swelling away inland among the coffee fields
and sugar plantations.

The long twilight was gone; but still the deep streak of golden
skirting in the western horizon lent a softened hue to the scene, not
so bright to the eye, and yet more golden far than moonlight: “Leaving
on craggy hills and running streams A softness like the atmosphere of
dreams.”

At this favorite hour the Senorita Isabella Gonzales and her young
brother, Ruez, attended only by the wolf hound, who seemed to be almost
their inseparable companion, were once again strolling in the cool and
retired walk of the Plato. The lady moved with all the peculiar grace
so natural to the Spanish women, and yet through all, a keen observer
might have seen the lurking effects of pride and power, a consciousness
of her own extraordinary beauty, and the control it gave her over the
hearts of those of the other sex with whom she associated. Alas! that
such a trait should have become a second nature to one with so heavenly
a form and face. Perhaps it was owing to the want of the judicious
management of a mother, of timely and kindly advice, that Isabella had
grown up thus; certainly it seemed hard, very hard, to attribute it to
her heart, her natural promptings, for at times she evinced such traits
of womanly delicacy and tenderness, that those who knew her best forgot
her coquetry.

Her brother was a gentle and beautiful boy. A tender spirit of
melancholy seemed ever uppermost in his heart and face, and it had been
thus with him since he had known his first early grief-the loss of his
mother-some four or five years before the present period of our story.
Isabella, though she was not wanting in natural tenderness and
affection, had yet outgrown the loss of her parent; but the more
sensitive spirit of the boy had not yet recovered from the shock it had
thus received. The father even feared that he never would regain his
happy buoyancy, as he looked upon his pale and almost transparent
features, while the boy mused thoughtfully to himself sometimes for the
hour together, if left alone and undisturbed.

“Ruez, dear, we’ve not been on the Plato since that fearful night,”
said Senorita Isabella, as she rested her hand gently upon the boy’s
shoulder.

“It was a fearful night, sister,” said the boy recalling the
associations with a shudder.

“And yet how clear and beautiful it seemed just before that terrible
accident.”

“I remember,” said the boy.

“And the slaver in the distance, with her soft white sails and
treacherous business.”

“And the sparkling moon upon the bay.”

“It was very beautiful; and we have a night now almost its equal.”

“Did you notice how stoutly that Lieutenant Bezan swam with me?”

“Yes, brother. You forget, though, that he is Captain Bezan now,” she
added.

“Father told me so,” said the boy. “How fearfully the tide ran, and the
current set against us! He held me way up above the water, while he was
quite under it himself,” continued Ruez. “I was sure he would drown;
didn’t it seem so to you, sister?”

“It did, it did; the deed was most gallantly done,” said Isabella, as
she stooped down and kissed her brother; “and you will never be so
careless again, Ruez?”

“No, sister. I shall be more. careful, but I should like to see that
Captain Bezan again. I have never seen him since that night, and his
barracks are within pistol shot from here.”

“Hark! what was that?” asked Isabella, starting at some unusual noise.

“I heard nothing,” said the boy.

“There it is again,” she continued, nervously, looking around.

“Down, Carlo, down,” said the boy, sharply to the hound, as it sprang
at the same time from a crouching posture, and uttered a deep, angry
growl, peculiar to its species.

But the animal seemed too much aroused to be so easily pacified with
words, and with heavy bounds sprang towards the seaward end of the
Plato, over the parapet of which, where it joined a lofty stone wall
that made a portion of the stone barracks of the army, a man leaped to
the ground. The hound suddenly crouched, the moment it fairly reached
the figure of the new coiner, and instead of the hostile attitude, it
had so lately he assumed, now placed its fore paws upon the breast of
the person, and wagged its tail with evident tokens of pleasure at the
meeting.

“That is a very strange way to enter the Plato,” said Isabella, to her
brother, drawing nearer to his side as she spoke. “I wonder who it can
be?”

“Some friend of Carlo’s, for he never behaves in that way to
strangers,” said the boy.

“So it would seem; but here he comes, be he whom he may.”

“By our lady!” said the boy, earnestly, with a flash of spirit and
color across his usually quiet and pale face. “Sister, it is Captain
Bezan!”

“Captain Bezan, I believe,” said Isabella, courtesying coolly to his
respectful bow.

“The same, lady.”

“You have chosen a singular mode of introduction, sir,” said the
Senorita Isabella Gonzales, somewhat severely, as she drew herself up
with an air of cold reserve.

“It is true, lady, I have done a seemingly rash action; but if you will
please to pause for one moment, you will at once realize that it was
the only mode of introduction of which a poor soldier like myself could
have availed himself.”

“Our hall doors are always open,” replied Isabella Gonzales.

“To the high born and proud, I grant you, lady, but not to such as I
am.”

“Then, sir,” continued the lady, quickly, “if custom and propriety
forbid you to meet me through the ordinary channels of society, do you
not see the impropriety of such an attempt to see me as that which you
have but just now made?”

“Lady, I can see nothing, hear nothing but my unconquerable love!”

“Love, sir!” repeated the lady, with a curl of her proud but beautiful
lip.

“Ay, love, Isabella Gonzales. For years I have loved you in secret. Too
humble to become known to you, or to attract your eye, even, I have yet
nursed that love, like the better angel of my nature; have dreamed of
it nightly; have prayed for the object of it nightly; have watched the
starry heavens, and begged for some noble inspiration that would make
me more worthy of thy affection; I have read nothing that I did not
couple in some tender way with thee; have nursed no hope of ambition or
fame that was not the nearer to raise me to thee, and over the midnight
lamp have bent in earnestness year after year, that I might gain those
jewels of the mind that in intelligence, at least, would place me by
thy side. At last fortune befriended me, and I was able by a mischance
to him, thy brother, to serve thee. Perhaps even then it might have
ended, and my respect would still have curbed the promptings of my
passion, had you not so kindly noticed me on the Paseo. O, how wildly
did my heart beat at that gentle, kind and thoughtful recognition of
the poor soldier, and no less quickly beats that heart, when you listen
thus to me, and hear me tell how deeply I love.”

“Audacity!” said Isabella Gonzales, really not a little aroused at the
plainness of his speech. “How dare you, sir, to address such language
to me?”

“Love dares do anything but dishonor the being that it loves. A year,
lady, a month ago, how hopeless was my love-how far off in the blue
ether was the star I worshipped. Little did I then think that I should
now stand so near to you-should thus pour out of the fullness of my
enslaved and devoted heart, ay, thus look into those glorious eyes.”

“Sir, you are impertinent!” said Isabella, shrinking from the ardor of
his expression.

“Nay, lady,” said the young officer, profoundly humble, “it is
impossible for such love as mine to lead to impertinence to one whom I
little less than worship.”

“Leave me, sir!”

“Yes, Isabella Gonzales, if you will repeat those words calmly; if you
will deliberately bid me, who have so often prayed for, so hoped for
such a moment as this, to go, I will go.”

“But, sir, you will compromise me by this protracted conversation.”

“Heaven forbid. But for you I would risk all things-life, reputation,
all that is valuable to me in life; yet perhaps I am forgetful, perhaps
a thoughtless.”

“What strange power and music there is in his voice,” whispered
Isabella, to herself.

Completely puzzled by his deep respect, his gallant and noble bearing,
the memory of his late noble conduct in saving Ruez’s life, Isabella
hardly knew what to say, and she stood thus half confused, trotting her
pretty foot upon the path of the Plato with a vexed air. At last, as if
struggling to break the spell that seemed to be hanging over them, she
said:

“How could one like you, sir, ever dare to entertain such feelings
towards me? the audaciousness of your language almost strikes me dumb.”

“Lady,” said the young soldier, respectfully, “the sincerity of my
passion has been its only self-sustaining power. I felt that love like
mine could not be in vain. I was sure that such affection was never
planted in my breast to bloom and blossom simply for disappointment. I
could not think that this was so.”

“I am out of all patience with his impertinence,” said Isabella
Gonzales, to herself, pettishly. “I don’t know what to say to him.”

“Sir, you must leave this place at once,” she said, at last, after a
brief pause.

“I shall do so, lady, at your bidding; but only to pray and hope for
the next meeting between us, when you may perhaps better know the poor
soldier’s heart.”

“Farewell, sir,” said Isabella.

“Farewell, Isabella Gonzales.”

“Are you going so soon?” asked Ruez, now approaching them from a short
distance in the rear, where he had been playing with the hound.

“Yes, Ruez,” said the soldier, kindly. “You are quite recovered, I
trust, from the effects of that cold bath taken off the parapet
yonder.”

“O yes, I am quite recovered now.”

“It was a high leap for one of your age.”

“It was indeed,” said the boy, with a shudder at the remembrance.

“And, O, sir, I have not thanked you for that gallant deed,” said
Isabella Gonzales, extending her hand incontinently to Captain Bezan,
in the enthusiasm of the moment, influenced by the sincerity of her
feelings, his noble and manly bearing, and the kind and touching words
he had uttered to Ruez.

It would be difficult for us to describe her as she appeared at that
moment in the soldier’s eye. How lovely she seemed to him, when
dropping all reserve for the moment, not only her tongue, but her
eloquent eyes spoke from the tenderness of her woman’s heart. A sacred
vision would have impressed him no more than did the loveliness of her
presence at that moment.

Bending instinctively at this demonstration of gentle courtesy on her
part, he pressed her hand most respectfully to his lips, and, as if
feeling that he had gone almost too far, with a gallant wave of the
hand he suddenly disappeared from whence he had so lately come, over
the seaward side of the parapet towards the army barracks.

Isabella gazed after him with a puzzled look for a while, then said
half to herself and in a pettish and vexed tone of voice:

“I did not mean that he should kiss my hand. I’m sure I did not; and
why did I give it to him? How thoughtless. I declare I have never met
so monstrously impudent a person in the entire course of my life. Very
strange. Here’s General Harero, Don Romonez, and Felix Gavardo, have
been paying me court this half year and more, and either of them would
give half his fortune for a kiss of this hand, and yet neither has
dared to even tell me that they love me, though I know it so well. But
here is this young soldier, this new captain of infantry, why he sees
me but half a minute before he declares himself, and so boldly, too! I
protest it was a real insult. I’ll tell Don Gonzales, and I’ll have the
fellow dishonored and his commission taken from him, I will. I’m half
ready to cry with vexation. Yes, I’ll have Captain Bezan cashiered, and
that directly, I will.”

“No you wont, sister,” said Ruez, looking up calmly into her face as he
spoke.

“Yes I will, brother.”

“Still I say no,” continued the boy, gently, and caressing her hand the
while.

“And why not, Ruez?” asked Isabella, stooping and kissing his handsome
forehead, as the boy looked up so lovingly in her face.

“Because he saved my life, sister,” replied Ruez, smiling.

“True, he did save your life, Ruez,” murmured the beautiful girl,
thoughtfully; an act that we can never repay; but it was most presuming
for him to enter the Plato thus, and to—to—”

“Kiss your hand, sister,” suggested the boy, smiling in a knowing way.

“Yes, it was quite shocking for him to be so familiar, Ruez.”

“But, sister, I can hardly ever help kissing you when you look kind to
me, and I am sure you looked very kind at Captain Bezan.”

“Did I!” half mused Isabella, biting the handle of her Creole fan.

“Yes; and how handsome this Captain Bezan is, sister,” continued the
boy, pretending to be engaged with the hound, whom he patted while he
looked sideways at Isabella.

“Do you think him so handsome?” still half mused Isabella, in reply to
her brother’s remarks, while her eye rested upon the ground.

“I know it,” said the boy, with spirit. “Don Miguel, General Harero, or
the lieutenant-general, are none of them half so good looking,” he
continued, referring to some of her suitors.

“Well, he is handsome, brother, that’s true enough, and brave I know,
or he would never have leaped into the water to save your life. But
I’ll never forgive him, I’m sure of that, Ruez,” she said, in a most
decided tone of voice.

“Yes you will, sister.”

“No, I will not, and you will vex me if you say so again,” she added,
pettishly.

“Come, Carlo, come,” said Ruez, calling to the hound, as he followed
close upon his sister’s footsteps towards the entrance of Don
Gonzales’s house on the Plato.

The truth was, Isabella Gonzales, the proud beauty, was pleased;
perhaps her vanity was partly enlisted also, while she remembered the
frankness of the humble soldier who had poured out his devotions at her
feet in such simple yet earnest strains as to carry conviction with
every word to the lady’s heart. Image, even from the most lowly, is not
without its charm to beauty, and the proud girl mused over the late
scene thoughtfully, ay, far more thoughtfully than she had ever done
before, on the offer of the richest and proudest cavalier.

She had never loved; she knew not what the passion meant, as applied to
the opposite sex. Universal homage had been her share ever since she
could remember; and if Isabella Gonzales was not a confirmed coquette,
she was certainly very near being one. The light in which she regarded
the advances of Captain Bezan, even puzzled herself; the phase of his
case and the manner of his avowal were so far without precedent, that
its novelty engaged her. She still felt vexed at the young soldier’s
assurance, but yet all unconsciously found herself endeavoring to
invent any number of excuses for the conduct he had exhibited!

“It is true, as he said,” she remarked, half aloud to herself, “that it
was the only way in which he could meet me on terms of sufficient
equality for conversation. Perhaps I should have done the same, if I
were a high-spirited youth, and really loved!”

As for Lorenzo Bezan, he quietly sought his quarters, as happy as a
king. Had he not been successful beyond any reasonable hope? Had he not
told his love? ay, had he not kissed the hand of her he loved, at last,
almost by her own consent? Had not the clouds in the horizon of his
love greatly thinned in numbers? He was no moody lover. Not one to die
for love, but to live for it rather, and to pursue the object of his
affection and regard with such untiring and devoted service as to
deserve, if not to win, success. At least this was his resolve. Now and
then the great difference between their relative stations would lead
him to pause and consider the subject; but then with some pleasant
sally to himself he would walk on again, firmly resolved in his own
mind to overcome all things for her whom he loved, or at least to
strive to do so.

This was all very well in thought, but in practice the young soldier
will not perhaps find this so easy a matter. Patience and perseverance
are excellent qualities, but they are not certain criteria of success.
Lorenzo Bezan had aimed his arrow high, but it was that little blind
fellow, Cupid, that shot the bow. He was not to blame for it-of course
not.

“Ha! Bezan, whence come you with so bright a face?” asked a brother
officer, as he entered his quarters in the barracks of the Plaza des
Armes.

“From wooing a fair and most beautiful maid,” said the soldier, most
honestly; though perhaps he told the truth as being the thing least
likely to be believed by the other.

“Fie, fie, Bezan. You in love, man? A soldier to marry? By our lady,
what folly! Don’t you remember the proverb? ‘Men dream in courtship,
but in wedlock wake.’”

“May I wake in that state with her I love ere a twelvemonth,” said
Lorenzo Bezan, smiling at his comrade’s sally and earnestness.

“Are you serious, captain?” asked the other, now trying to half believe
him.

“Never more so in my life, I assure you,” was the reply.

“And who is the lady, pray? Come, relieve your conscience, and
confess.”

“Ah, there I am silent; her name is not for vulgar ears,” said the
young soldier, smiling, and with really too much respect to refer
lightly to Isabella Gonzales.




CHAPTER IV.
CUBAN BANDITTI.


It was one of those beautiful but almost oppressively hot afternoons
that so ripen the fruits, and so try the patience of the inhabitants of
the tropics, that we would have the patient reader follow us on the
main road between Alquezar and Guiness. It is as level as a parlor
floor, and the tall foliage, mostly composed of the lofty palm, renders
the route shaded and agreeable. Every vegetable and plant are so
peculiarly significant of the low latitudes, that we must pause for a
moment to notice them.

The tall, stately palm, the king of the tropical forest, with its
tufted head, like a bunch of ostrich feathers, bending its majestic
form here and there over the verdant and luxuriant undergrowth, the
mahogany tree, the stout lignumvit‘, the banana, the fragrant and
beautiful orange and lemon, and the long, impregnable hedge of the
dagger aloe, all go to show us that we are in the sunny clime of the
tropics.

The fragrance, too, of the atmosphere! How soft to the senses! This
gentle zephyr that only ruffles the white blossoms of the lime hedges,
is off yonder coffee plantation that lies now like a field of clear
snow, in its fragrant milk-white blossoms; and what a bewitching
mingling of heliotrope and wild honeysuckle is combined in the air! how
the gaudy plumed parrot pauses on his perch beneath the branches of the
plantain tree, to inhale the sweets of the hour; while the chirps of
the pedoreva and indigo birds are mingled in vocal praise that fortune
has cast their lot in so lovely a clime. O, believe us, you should see
and feel the belongings of this beautiful isle, to appreciate how
nearly it approaches to your early ideas of fairy land.

But, alas! how often do man’s coarser disposition and baser nature
belie the soft and beautiful characteristics of nature about him; how
often, how very often, is the still, heavenly influence that reigns in
fragrant flowers and bubbling streams, marred and desecrated by the
harshness and violence engendered by human passions!

In the midst of such a scene as we have described, at the moment to
which we refer, there was a fearful struggle being enacted between a
small party of Montaros, or inland robbers, and the occupants and
outriders of a volante, which had just been attacked on the road. The
traces that attached the horse to the vehicle had been cut, and the
postilion lay senseless upon the ground from a sword wound in their
head, while the four outriders were contending with thrice their number
of robbers, who were armed with pistols and Toledo blades. It was a
sharp hand to hand fight, and their steel rang to the quick strokes.

In the volante was the person of a lady, but so closely enshrouded by a
voluminous rebosa, or Spanish shawl, as hardly to leave any of her
figure exposed, her face being hid from fright at the scene being
enacted about her. At her side stood the figure of a tall, stately man,
whose hat had been knocked over his head in the struggle, and whose
white hairs gave token of his age. Two of the robbers, who had received
the contents of his two pistols, lay dead by the side of the volante,
and having now only his sword left, he stood thus, as if determined to
protect her by his side, even at the cost of his life.

The robbers had at last quite overmatched the four outriders, and
having bound the only one of them that had sufficient life left to make
him dangerous to them, they turned their steps once more towards the
volante. There were in all some thirteen of them, but three already lay
dead in the road, and the other ten, who had some sharp wounds
distributed among them, now standing together, seemed to be querying
whether they should not revenge the death of their comrades by killing
both the occupants of the volante, or whether they should pursue their
first purpose of only robbing them of what valuables they possessed.

Fierce oaths were reiterated, and angry words exchanged between one and
another of the robbers, as to the matter they were hastily discussing,
while the old gentleman remained firm, grasping the hilt of his
well-tempered sword, and showing to his enemies, by the stern, deep
resolve they read in his eye, that they had not yet conquered him.
Fortunately their pistols had all been discharged, or they might have
shot the brave old man without coming to closer quarters, but now they
looked with some dread upon the glittering blade he held so firmly!

That which has required some time and space for us to describe, was,
however, the work of but a very few moments of time, and the robbers,
having evidently made up their minds to take the lives of the two
persons now in the vehicle, divided themselves into two parties and
approached the volante at the same moment on opposite sides.

“Come on, ye fiends in human shape,” said the old man, flourishing his
sword with a skill and strength that showed he was no stranger to its
use, and that there was danger in him. “Come on, ye shall find that a
good blade in an old man’s hands is no plaything!”

They listened for a moment: yes, that half-score of villains held back
in dismay at the noble appearance of the old man, and the flashing fire
of his eye.

“Ha! do you falter, ye villains? do you fear a good sword with right to
back it?”

But hark! what sound is that which startles the Montaros in the midst
of their villany, and makes them look into each other’s faces with such
consternation and fear? It is a very unfrequented spot-who can be near?
Scarcely had the sound fallen on their ears, before three horsemen in
the undress uniform of the Spanish infantry, dashed up to the spot at
full speed, while one of them, who seemed to be the leader of the
party, leaped from his horse, and before the others could follow his
example, was engaged in a desperate hand to hand conflict with the
robbers. Twice he discharged his pistols with fatal effect, and now he
was fighting sword and sword with a stout, burly Montaro, who was
approaching that side of the volante where the lady sat, still half
concealed by the ample folds of her rebosa, though the approach of
assistance had led her to venture so far as to partially uncover her
face, and to observe the scene about her.

The headlong attack, so opportunely made by the fresh horsemen, was too
much for treble their number to withstand, more especially as the
leader of them had met with such signal success at the outset-having
shot two, and mortally wounded a third. In this critical state of
affairs, the remaining banditti concluded that discretion was the
better part of valor, and made the best of their time and remaining
strength to beat a hasty retreat, leaving the old gentleman and his
companion with their three deliverers, quite safe in the middle of the
road.

“By our lady, sir, ’twas a gallant act. There were ten of those
rascals, and but three of you,” said the old gentleman, stepping out of
the volante and arranging his ruffled dress.

“Ten, senor? a soldier would make nothing of a score of such
scapegraces as those,” replied the officer (for such it was now
apparent he was), as he wiped the gore from his reeking blade with a
broad, green leaf from the roadside, and placed it in the scabbard.

One of the soldiers who had accompanied the officer had now cut the
thongs that bound the surviving outrider, who was one of the family
attaches of the old gentleman, and who now busied himself about the
vehicle, at one moment attending to the lady’s wants, and now to
harnessing the horse once more.

Removing his cap, and wiping the reeking perspiration from his brow,
the young officer now approached the volante and said to the lady:

“I trust, madame, that you have received no further injury by this
unfortunate encounter than must needs occur to you from fright.”

As he spoke thus, the lady turned quickly from looking towards the old
gentleman, who was now on the other side of the vehicle, and after a
moment exclaimed:

“Is it possible, Captain Bezan, that we are indebted to you for this
most opportune deliverance from what seemed to be certain destruction?”

“Isabella Gonzales!” exclaimed the young officer, with unfeigned
surprise.

“You did not know us, then?” she asked, quickly, in reply.

“Not I, indeed, or else I should sooner have spoken to you.”

“You thus risked your life, then, for strangers?” she continued.

“You were the weakest party, were attacked by robbers; it only required
a glance to realize that, and to attack them and release you was the
next most natural thing in the world,” replied the soldier, still
wiping the perspiration from his forehead and temples.

“Father!” exclaimed Isabella, with undisguised pleasure, “this is
Captain Bezan!”

“Captain Bezan?” repeated the old don, as surprised as his daughter had
been.

“At your service,” replied the soldier, bowing respectfully to Don
Gonzales.

“Why, sir,” said the old man, “what possible chance could have brought
you so fortunately to our rescue here, a dozen leagues from the city?”

“I was returning with these two companions of my company from a
business trip to the south side of the island, where we had been sent
with despatches from Tacon to the governor of the department.”

“No, matter, what chance has brought you here, at all events we owe our
lives to you, sir,” said Don Gonzales, extending his hand cordially to
the young officer.

After some necessary delay, under the peculiar circumstances, the
horses were finally arranged so as to permit of proceeding forward on
the road. The bodies of the servants were disposed of, and all was
ready for a start, when Isabella Gonzales turned to her father and
pressing his arm said:

“Father, how pale he looks!”

“Who, my child!”

“There, see how very pale!” said Isabella, rising up from her seat.

“Who do you speak of, Isabella?”

“Captain Bezan, father; see, there he stands beside his horse.”

“He does look fatigued; he has worked hard with those villains,” said
the old man.

“Why don’t he mount? The rest have done so, and we are ready,”
continued the old man, anxiously.

At that moment one of the horsemen, better understanding the case than
either Isabella Gonzales or her father, left his well-trained animal in
the road, and hastened to his officer’s side. It required but a glance
for him to see that his captain was too weak to mount.

Directing the outrider, who had now mounted one of the horses attached
to the volante, and acted as postilion, to drive towards him whom his
companion was partially supporting, Don Gonzales asked most anxiously:

“Captain Bezan, you are ill, I fear; are you much hurt?”

“A mere trifle, Don Gonzales; drive on, sir, and I will follow you in a
moment.”

“He is bleeding from his left arm and side, father,” said Isabella,
anxiously.

“You are wounded-I fear severely, Captain Bezan,” said the father.

“A mere scratch, sir, in the arm, from one of the unlucky thrusts of
those Montaros,” he replied, assuming an indifference that his pale
face belied.

“Ah! father, what can be done for him?” said Isabella, quickly.

“I am unharmed,” said the grateful old man, “and can sit a horse all
day long, if need be. Here, captain, take my seat in the volante, and
Isabella, whom you have served at such heavy cost to yourself, shall
act the nurse for you until we get to town again.”

Perhaps nothing, save such a proposition as this, could possibly have
aroused and sustained the wounded officer; but after gently refusing
for a while to rob Don Gonzales of his seat in the volante, he was
forced to accept it even by the earnest request of Isabella herself,
who seemed to tremble lest he was mortally wounded in their behalf.

Little did Don Gonzales know, at that time, what a flame he was feeding
in the young officer’s breast. He was too intently engaged in his own
mind with the startling scenes through which he had just passed, and
was exercised with too much gratitude towards Captain Bezan for his
deliverance, to observe or realize any peculiarity of appearance in any
other respect, or to question the propriety of placing him so
intimately by the side of his lovely child. Isabella had never told her
father, or indeed any one, of the circumstance of her having met
Captain Bezan on the Plato. But the reader, who is aware of the scene
referred to, can easily imagine with what feelings the soldier took his
seat by her side, and secretly watched the anxious and assiduous
glances that she gave his wounded arm and side, as well as the kind
looks she bestowed upon his pallid face.

“I fear I annoy you,” said the soldier, realizing his proximity to her
on the seat.

“No, no, by no means. I pray you rest your arm here,” said Isabella
Gonzales, as she offered her rebosa supported in part by her own
person!

“You are too kind-far too kind to me,” said the wounded officer,
faintly; for he was now really very weak from loss of blood and the
pain of his wounds.

“Speak not, I beseech of you, but strive to keep your courage up till
we can gain the aid of some experienced surgeon,” she said, supporting
him tenderly.

Thus the party drove on towards the city, by easy stages, where they
arrived in safety, and left Captain Bezan to pursue his way to his
barracks, which he did, not, however, until he had, like a faithful
courier, reported to the governor-general the safe result of his
mission to the south of the island.

The story of the gallant rescue was the theme of the hour for a period
in Havana, but attacks from robbers on the road, under Tacon’s
governorship, were too common an occurrence to create any great wonder
or curiosity among the inhabitants of the city. But Captain Bezan had
got wounds that would make him remember the encounter for life, and now
lay in a raging fever at his quarters in the infantry barracks of the
Plaza des Armes.




CHAPTER V.
THE WOUNDED SOLDIER.


The fervor and heat of the mid-day atmosphere had been intense, but a
most delightfully refreshing sea breeze had sprung up at last, and
after fanning its way across the Gulf Stream, was dallying now with the
palms and orange trees that so gracefully surrounded the marble statue
of Ferdinand, in the midst of the Plaza, and ruffling the marble basin
of water that bubbles forth from the graceful basin at its base. Light
puffs of it, too, found their way into the invitingly open windows of
the governor’s palace, into an apartment which was improved by General
Harero. Often pausing at the window to breathe in of the delightful
atmosphere for a moment, he would again resume his irregular walk and
seemingly absorbed in a dreamy frame of mind, quite unconscious of the
outward world about him. At last he spoke, though only communing with
himself, yet quite aloud:

“Strange, very strange, that this Captain Bezan should seem to stand so
much in my way. Curse his luck, the old don and his daughter feel under
infinite obligations to him already, and well they may, as to the
matter of that. If it was not for the girl’s extraordinary stock of
pride, we should have her falling in love with this young gallant
directly, and there would be an end to all my hopes and fancies. He’s
low enough, now, however, so my valet just told me, and ten to one, if
his physician knows his case, as he pretends, he’ll make a die of it.
He is a gallant fellow, that’s a fact, and brave as he is gallant. I
may as well own the fact that’s what makes me hate him so! But he
should not have crossed my path, and served to blight my hopes, there’s
the rub. I like the man well enough as a soldier, hang it. I’d like
half the army to be just like him-they’d be invincible; but he has
crossed my interest, ay, my love; and if he does get up again and
crosses me with Isabella Gonzales, why then-well, no matter, there are
ways enough to remove the obstacle from my path.

“By the way,” he continued, after crossing and re-crossing the room a
few times, “what a riddle this Isabella Gonzales is; I wonder if she
has got any heart at all. Here am I, who have gone scathless through
the courts of beauty these many years, actually caught-surprised at
last; for I do love the girl; and yet how archly she teazes me!
Sometimes I think within myself that I am about to win the goal, when
drop goes the curtain, and she’s as far away as ever. How queenly she
looks, nevertheless. I had much rather be refused by such a woman, to
my own mortification, than to succeed with almost any other, if only
for the pleasure of looking into those eyes, and reading in silent
language her poetical and ethereal beauty-I might be happy but for this
fellow, this Captain Bezan; he troubles me. Though there’s no danger of
her loving him, yet he seems to stand in my way, and to divert her
fancy. Thank Heaven, she’s too proud to love one so humble.”

Thus musing and talking aloud to himself, General Harero walked back
and forth, and back and forth again in his apartment, until his orderly
brought him the evening report of his division. A far different scene
was presented on the other side of the great square, in the centre of
which stands the shrubbery and fountain of the Plaza. Let the reader
follow us now inside the massive stone walls of the Spanish barracks,
to a dimly lighted room, where lay a wounded soldier upon his bed. The
apartment gave token in its furniture of a very peculiar combination of
literary and military taste. There were foils, long and short swords,
pistols, hand pikes, flags, military boots and spurs; but there were
also Shakspeare, Milton, the illustrated edition of Cervantes’s Don
Quixote, and a voluminous history of Spain, with various other prose
and poetic volumes, in different languages. A guitar also lay
carelessly in one corner, and a rich but faded bouquet of flowers
filled a porcelain vase.

At the foot of the bed where the wounded soldier lay, stood a boy with
a quivering lip and swimming eye, as he heard the sick man moan in his
uneasy sleep. Close by the head of the bed sat an assistant-surgeon of
the regiment, watching what evidently seemed to be the turning point as
to the sufferer’s chance for life or death. As the boy and the surgeon
watched him thus, gradually the opiate just administered began to
affect him, and he seemed at last to fall into the deep and quiet sleep
that is generally indicated by a low, regular and uninterrupted
respiration.

The boy had not only watched the wounded man, but had seemed also to
half read the surgeon’s thoughts, from time to time, and now marked the
gleam of satisfaction upon his face as the medicine produced the
desired effect upon the system of his patient.

“How do you think Captain Bezan is, to-day?” whispered the boy,
anxiously, as the surgeon’s followed him noiselessly from the sick-room
to the corridor without.

“Very low, master Ruez, very low indeed; it is the most critical period
of his sickness; but he has gone finely into that last nap, thanks to
the medicine, and if he will but continue under its influence thus for
a few hours, we may look for an abatement of this burning thirst and
fever, and then—”

“What, sir?” said the boy, eagerly, “what then?”

“Why, he may get over those wounds, but it’s a severe case, and would
be little less than a miracle. I’ve seen sicker men live, and I’ve seen
those who seemed less sick die.”

“Alas! then there is no way yet of deciding upon his case,” said the
boy.

“None, Master Ruez; but we’ll hope for the best; that is all that can
be done.”

Ruez Gonzales walked out of the barracks and by the guard with a sad
countenance, and whistling for Carlo, who had crouched by the parapet
until his young master should come out, he turned his steps up the
Calla de Mercaderes to his home. Ruez sought his sister’s apartment,
and throwing himself upon a lounge, seemed moody and unhappy. As he
reclined thus, Isabella regarded him intently, as though she would read
his thoughts without asking for them. There seemed to be some reason
why she did not speak to him sooner, but at last she asked:

“Well, Ruez, how is Captain Bezan, to-day? have you been to the
barracks to inquire?” She said this in an assumed tone of indifference,
but it was only assumed.

“How is he?” repeated Ruez, after turning a quick glance of his soft
blue eyes upon his sister’s face, as though he would read her very
soul. Isabella felt his keen glance, and almost blushed.

“Yes, brother, pray, how is Captain Bezan, to-day? do you not know?”

“His life hangs by a mere thread,” continued the boy, sadly, resuming
again his former position. “The surgeon told me that his recovery was
very doubtful.”

“Did he tell you that, Ruez?”

“Not those words, sister, but that which was equivalent to it,
however.”

“He is worse, then, much worse?” she continued, in a hasty tone of
voice.

“Not worse, sister,” replied Ruez. “I did not say that he was worse,
but the fever rages still, and unless that abates within a few hours,
death must follow.”

Isabella Gonzales sat herself down at an open balcony and looked off on
the distant country in silence, so long, that Ruez and the hound both
fell asleep, and knew not that she at last left her seat. The warmth
and enervating influence of the atmosphere almost requires one to
indulge in a siesta daily, in these low latitudes and sunny regions of
the earth.

“He is dying, then,” said Isabella Gonzales, to herself, after having
sought the silence and solitude of her own chamber, “dying and alone,
far from any kindred voice or hand, or even friend, save those among
his brothers in arms. And yet how much do we owe to him! He has saved
all our lives-Ruez’s first, and then both father’s and mine; and in
this last act of daring gallantry and bravery, he received his death
wound. Alas! how fearful it seems to me, this strange picture. Would I
could see and thank him once more-take from him any little commission
that he might desire in his last moments to transmit to his distant
home-for a sister, mother, or brother. Would that I could smooth his
pillow and bathe his fevered brow; I know he loves me, and these
attentions would be so grateful to him-so delightful to me. But alas!
it would be considered a disgrace for me to visit him.”

Let the reader distinctly understand the feelings that actuated the
heart of the lovely girl. The idea of loving the wounded soldier had
never entered the proud but now humbled Isabella’s thoughts. Could such
a thought have been by any means suggested to her, she would have
spurned it at once; but it was the woman’s sympathy that she felt for
one who would have doubtless sacrificed his life for her and hers; it
was a simple act of justice she would have performed; and the pearly
tear that now wet her cheek, was that of sympathy, and of sympathy
alone. Beautiful trait, how glorious thou art in all; but how doubly
glorious in woman; because in her nature thou art most natural, and
there thou findest the congenial associations necessary for thy full
conception.

General Harero had judged Isabella Gonzales well when he said that
there was no danger of her loving Lorenzo Bezan-she had too much pride!

But let us look once more into the sick room we so lately left, where
the wounded soldier lies suffering from his wounds. A volante has just
stopped at the barracks’ doors, and a girl, whose dress betokens her to
be a servant, steps out, and telling her errand to the corporal of the
guard, is permitted to pass the sentinel, and is conducted to the sick
man’s room. She brings some cooling draughts for his parched lips, and
fragrant waters with which to battle his fevered temples and burning
forehead.

“Who sends these welcome gifts to Captain Bezan?” asked the
assistant-surgeon.

“My lady, sir.”

“And who is your lady, my good girl, if you please?” he asked.

“The Senorita Isabella Gonzales, sir,” was the modest reply of the
maid.

“Ah, yes; her brother has been here this afternoon, I remember,” said
the surgeon; “the sick man fell asleep then, and has not since
awakened.”

“Heaven grant the sleep may refresh him and restore his strength,” said
the girl.

“Amen, say I to that,” continued the surgeon, “and amen says every man
in the regiment.”

“Is he so popular as that?” asked the girl, innocently.

“Popular, why he’s the pet of the entire division. He’s the best
swordsman, best scholar, best-in short we could better lose half the
other officers than Captain Bezan.”

“Do you think him any better than he was this morning?”

“The sleep is favorable, highly favorable,” replied the surgeon,
approaching the bedside; “but in my judgment of the case, it must
entirely depend upon the state in which he wakes.”

“Is there fear of waking him, do you think?” asked the girl, in a
whisper, as she drew nearer to the bed, and looked upon the high, pale
forehead and remarkably handsome features of the young soldier. Though
the few days of confinement which he had suffered, and the acute pain
he had endured by them, had hollowed his checks, yet he was handsome
still.

“No,” replied the surgeon, to her question; “he will sleep quite long
enough from the opiate, quite as long as I wish; and if he should wake
even now, it would not be too soon.”

“How very slightly he breathes,” continued the girl, observantly.

“Very; but it is a relief to see him breathe in that way,” replied the
surgeon.

“Stay, did he not murmur something, then?” asked the maid.

“Possibly,” replied the surgeon. “He has talked constantly during his
delirium. Pray, my good girl, does he know your mistress very well?”

“I think not,” was the reply. “But why do you ask that?”

“Because he seems constantly to dream and talk about her night and day.
Indeed she is all he has spoken of since the height of his fever was
upon him.”

“Indeed!” said the girl, musing at the surgeon’s words abstractedly.

“Have you not heard your mistress speak of him at all?”

“Yes, that is, he once did the family some important service. Do you
say that he talked of Senorita Isabella in the hours of his delirium?”

“Yes, and in looking into his dressing-case, a few days since, to find
some lint for his wounds, I discovered this,” said tire surgeon,
showing the girl a miniature, painted on ivory with great skill and
beauty. “I think it must be a likeness of the Senorita Isabella,”
continued the surgeon, “though I have never seen her to know her but
once.”

“It is indeed meant for her,” said the girl, eagerly scanning the soft
and delicate picture, which represented the Senorita Isabella Gonzales
as sitting at an open window and gazing forth on the soft, dreamy
atmosphere of a tropical sunset.

“You think it is like her?”

“O, very.”

“Well, I was sure that it was meant for the lady when I first saw it.”

“May I bathe his temples with this Florida water?” asked the girl, as
she observed the sick man to move slightly and to moan.

“Yes, it will have a tendency to rouse him gently, and it is now time
for him to wake.”

The girl smoothed back the dark locks from the soldier’s brow, and with
her hands bathed his marble-like forehead and temples as gently as she
might have done had he been an infant. The stimulating influence of the
delicate spirits she was using was most delightful to the senses of the
sick man, and a soft smile for a moment breathed his lips, as half
awake and half dreaming, he returned thanks for the kindness, mingled
with Isabella’s name.

The girl bent over his couch to hear the words, and the surgeon saw a
tear drop upon the sick man’s hand from the girl’s eyes as she stood
there! In a moment more the soldier seemed to arouse, and uttered a
long deep sigh, as though relieved from some heavy weight that had long
been oppressing him, both mentally and physically. He soon opened his
eyes, and looked languidly about him, as if striving to recall his
situation, and what had prostrated him thus.

The girl stepped immediately back from the bedside, as she observed
these tokens, and droping the rebosa that had been heretofore confined,
veil-like to the crown of her head, and partially screened her
features, but she showed most unmistakable signs of delight, as she
read in the soldier’s eyes that reason had once more returned to her
throne, and that Lorenzo Bezan was once more rational.

“How beautiful!” uttered the surgeon, half aloud, as he stood gazing at
the girl. “If the mistress be as lovely as the maid, no wonder Captain
Bezan has talked of her in his delirium!”

“Step hither, step hither, he is awake!” whispered the girl to the
surgeon.

“And his reason too has returned,” said the professional man, as soon
as his eyes rested on the wounded soldier’s face. “There is hope now!”

“Thank Heaven for its infinite mercy!” said the girl, with an earnest
though tremulous voice, as she gathered her rebosa about her face and
prepared to depart.

“He will recover now?” she asked, once more, as she turned towards the
surgeon.

“With care and good nursing we may hope so,” was the reply of the
attendant, who still looked earnestly into the face of the inquirer as
he spoke.

“My lady knew not the pecuniary condition of Captain Bezan at this
time, and desired that this purse might be devoted to his convenience
and comfort; but she also desires that this may not be known to him.
May I trust to you, sir, in this little matter?”

“It will give me great pleasure to keep the secret, and to improve the
purse solely for the sick man’s individual benefit,” was the reply.

“Thank you, sir; I see you are indeed his friend,” she answered, as she
bowed low and withdrew.

Scarcely had the door closed after the visitor, before the surgeon,
turning hastily once more to the miniature he had shown, examined it in
various lights, now carefully within a part shaded by the hand, and now
as a whole, and now near to, and then at a distance.

“I more than suspected it,” he exclaimed, with emphasis; “and now I
know it; that lady was Senorita Isabella Gonzales, the belle of
Havana!”

And so indeed it was. Unable longer to restrain her desire to see him
who had so infinitely served the interests of herself and her father’s
house, the proud girl had smothered every adverse prompting in her
bosom, and donning her dressing-maid’s attire, had thus dressed in
humble costume, stepped into a volante, and ordering the calesaro to
drive to the infantry barracks, where she knew the sick man was, had
entered as we have seen, under pretext of bringing necessities from her
pretended mistress to the wounded soldier. Her scheme had succeeded
infinitely well, nor would she have betrayed herself to even the
surgeon’s observant eye, had it not been for that single tear!

“What angel was that?” whispered the sick man, to his attendant, who
now approached his bedside to administer some cooling draught to his
parched lips.

“You have been dreaming, my dear fellow,” said the discreet surgeon,
cautiously, “and are already much better; keep as quiet as possible,
and we will soon have you out again. Here, captain, drink of this fruit
water, it will refresh you.”

Too weak to argue or even to talk at all, the sick man drank as he was
desired, and half closed his eyes again, as if he thought by thus doing
he might once more bring back the sweet vision which had just gladdened
his feeble senses.

Like a true-hearted fellow as he was, the surgeon resolved not to
reveal the lady’s secret to any one-not even to his patient; for he saw
that this was her earnest desire, and she had confided in part to him
her errand there. But those who saw the surgeon in the after part of
that day, marked that he bore a depressed and thoughtful countenance.

Isabella Gonzales had filled his vision, and very nearly his heart,
also, by her exquisite loveliness and beauty!




CHAPTER VI.
THE CHALLENGE.


The Tacon Theatre is one of the largest in the world, and is situated
in the Paseo, just outside the city walls. You enter the parquet and
first row of boxes from the level of the street, and above this are
four ranges of boxes, besides seats in the parquet for six hundred
persons. The gildings are elaborate and beautiful, and the frescoes are
done by the first Italian artists; the whole being brilliantly lighted
by an immense chandelier in the centre, and lesser ones pendant from
the half moon of boxes, and supplied with gas. It is a superb
establishment, and when it is filled with the beauty and fashion of the
city, it is a brilliant sight indeed.

It is nearly a month subsequent to the scene that closed the last
chapter of our story, that we would carry the reader with us within the
brilliantly lighted walls of the Tacon Theatre. How lively and gay is
the prospect that presents itself to the eye-the glittering jewelry and
diamonds of the fair senor’s and senoritas, casting back the brilliant
light, and rivalled in lustre by the sparkle of a thousand eyes of jet.
The gilded and jewelled fans rustle audibly (what would a Spanish or
Creole lady do without a fan?)-the orchestra dashes off in a gay and
thrilling overture, intermingled by the voices, here and there, of
merry groups of the audience, while the stately figures of the soldiers
on duty are seen, with their many-colored dresses and caps, amid the
throng and at the rear of the boxes.

In a centre box of the first tier sits Senorita Isabella Gonzales, with
her father, brother, General Harero, and a party of friends. All eyes
are turned towards the peerless beauty-those of the ladies with envy at
her extraordinary charms of person, and those of the young cavaliers
and gentlemen with undisguised admiration at the picture of loveliness
which met their eyes. Isabella herself sat with an easy and graceful
air of unconsciousness, bowing low to the meaningless compliments and
remarks of General Harero, and now smiling at some pleasantry of Ruez
who was close to her side, and now again regarding for a moment the
tall, manly figure of an officer near the proscenium box, who was on
duty there, and evidently the officer of the evening. This may sound
odd to a republican, but no assembly, no matter how unimportant, is
permitted, except under the immediate eye and supervision of the
military.

“There is Captain Bezan,” said Ruez, with undisguised pleasure,
pointing towards the proscenium box where the young officer stood.

“Yes, I see him, Ruez,” replied Isabella, “and it is the first time he
has been out on duty, I think, since his dangerous and protracted
illness.”

“I know it is the first time,” said the boy, “and I don’t think he’s
hardly able to be out now. How very pale he is looking, Isabella.”

“Do you think he’s very pale, Ruez?” she asked, turning towards the
soldier, whose arm and sword were now outstretched, indicating some
movement to a file of soldiers on the other side.

“He’s too ill, I should think, to be out in the night air.”

“One would certainly think so,” answered Isabella.

“His company was ordered out to-night,” said Ruez, “and though the
surgeon told him to remain in, he said he must be with his command.”

“You seem to know his business almost as well as himself, Master Ruez,”
said General Harero, who had overheard the remarks relating to Captain
Bezan.

“The captain and I are great friends, famous friends,” replied Ruez,
instantly. “He’s a noble fellow, and just my idea of what a soldier
should be. Don’t you think him a fine soldier, General Harero?” asked
the boy, most frankly.

“Humph!” ejaculated the general, “why, yes, he’s good enough for aught
I know, professionally. Not quite rough and tough enough for a thorough
bred one, I think,” was the reply of his superior, who was plainly
watching Isabella Gonzales’s eyes while he spoke to the boy, and who
was anything but pleased to see how often she glanced at Captain Bezan.

“I don’t know what you may mean by rough and tough, general,” said
Ruez, with evident feeling evinced in his voice; “but I know, very
well, that Captain Bezan is as brave as a lion, and I don’t believe
there is a man in your service who can swim with such weight as he can
do.”

“May be not,” replied the general, with assumed indifference.

“Then why say that he’s not rough and tough? that means something,”
continued the boy, with not a little pertinacity in defence of his new
friend.

“There’s some difference, let me tell you, Master Ruez, between facing
an enemy with blazing gunpowder before your eyes, and merely swimming a
while in cold water.”

“The very wounds that came so near proving fatal to Captain Bezan,
prove that he can fight, general, as well as swim,” said Ruez, rather
smartly, in reply, while Isabella Gonzales glanced at her brother with
evident tokens of satisfaction in her face.

“You are enthusiastic in your friend’s behalf,” said General Harero,
coldly.

“And well I may be, since I not only owe him my own life, but that of
my dear sister and father,” continued Ruez, quite equal to the
general’s remark in any instance.

“Certainly, you are right, Master Ruez,” said General Harero, biting
his lips, as he saw that Isabella was regarding him with more than
ordinary attention.

In the meantime Lorenzo Bezan remained, as in duty bound, at his post,
while many an admiring eye was resting upon his fine figure and martial
bearing. He was quite unconscious of being the subject of such
particular remark and criticism within the bearing of her he so nearly
worshipped-the beautiful Isabella Gonzales. Though his heart was with
her every moment, and his thoughts were never off the box, even where
she sat, yet it was only now and then that he permitted himself to turn
his eyes, as though by accident, towards Don Gonzales and his daughter.
He seemed to feel that General Harero was particularly regarding him,
and he strove to be less thoughtful of Isabella, and if possible, more
observant of his regular duty. It is the duty of the officer of the
night for the occasion, to fill the post during the performance, where
the young officer now stood, as it commanded a view of the entire
house, and was the point, where, by an order from him, he could at once
summon a much larger force under arms than that which under ordinary
circumstances was required. Each division of the guard was set from
this point, therefore Captain Bezan, as was his custom, remained here
during the performance.

“It must be very tedious to stay thus standing just there,” remarked
Ruez, pointing to Captain Bezan, and speaking to Isabella.

“I should think so,” was the reply of his sister, who had often turned
that way, to the no small annoyance of the observant General Harero.

“A soldier’s duty,” replied the general, “should content him with his
post.”

It was nearly the middle of the evening’s entertainment, when turning
his eyes towards the box occupied by Don Gonzales and his party,
Captain Bezan caught the eye of Isabella Gonzales, and at the same time
observed distinctly the peculiar wave of the fan, with which a Spanish
lady invites in a friendly manner the approach of a friend of the
opposite sex. He could not be mistaken, and yet was it possible that
the belle of all that proud assemblage deigned openly to notice and
compliment him thus in public? Impelled by the ardor of his love, and
the hope that he had rightly construed the signal, he approached the
box from the rear, and stepping to its back, gave some indication to
one of his orderlies sufficiently loud in tone to cause Isabella and
her father to turn their heads, as they at once recognized the voice of
the young officer.

“Ah! Captain Bezan,” said Don Gonzales, heartily, as he caught the
young officer’s eye, “glad to see you once more with epaulets on-upon
my soul I am.”

“Thank you, sir,” said the soldier, first saluting in due form his
superior, and then bowing low and gracefully to Isabella Gonzales, who
honored him with a gracious smile.

“You are looking comparatively well, captain,” said Don Gonzales,
kindly.

“O yes, sir, I am as well as ever, now,” replied the officer,
cheerfully.

Ruez Gonzales loved Lorenzo Bezan like a brother; first, because he had
so materially served him at imminent peril of his own life, and
secondly, because he saw in him just such traits of character as
attracted his young heart, and aroused it to a spirit of emulation.
With the privilege of boyhood, therefore, he sprang over the seats,
half upsetting General Harero to get at the young officer’s side,
which, having accomplished, he seized his hand familiarly. General
Harero frowned at this familiarity, and his face grew doubly dark and
frowning, as he saw now how closely Isabella was observing the young
officer all the while.

“I trust you find yourself quite recovered, captain, from your severe
illness,” said Isabella, reaching by her father, as she addressed
Lorenzo Bezan kindly.

“I am quite recovered, lady; better, if possible, than before,” he
replied, respectfully. “Master Ruez has been a constant nurse to me,
thoughtful and kind,” he continued, as he looked down upon the boy’s
handsome features with real affection lighting up his own pale face.

Ruez only drew the closer to his side at these words, while his father,
Don Gonzales, watched both the soldier and his boy with much interest
for a moment, then turning to General Harero, he made some earnest and
complimentary remark, evidently referring to Captain Bezan, though
uttered in a low tone of voice, which seemed to increase the cloud on
the general’s brow.

But the young soldier was too much interested in gazing upon the lovely
features of Isabella, to notice this; he seemed almost entranced by the
tender vision of beauty that was before him. At the same moment some
slight disturbance occurred in a distant part of the extensive
building, which afforded a chance for General Harero to turn quickly to
the young soldier, and in a sharp tone say:

“Your duty calls you hence, sir!”

For it moment the blood mantled to the officer’s face at the tone of
this remark, but suppressing his feelings, whatever they might be, with
a respectful acknowledgement of the order, Lorenzo Bezan hastened to
the quarter from whence the noise had come, and by at simple direction
obviated their trouble immediately. But he remembered the bitter and
insulting air of his superior, and it cut him to the quick, the more
keenly too as having been given in the presence of Isabella Gonzales.

As he returned from this trifling duty, he necessarily again passed the
box where were Don Gonzales, amid his party, and seeing Ruez standing
there awaiting his return, he again paused for a moment to exchange at
word with the boy, and once more received a pleasant greeting from
Isabella and her father. At this but reasonable conduct, General Harero
seemed nettled and angry beyond all control, and turning once more
towards Lorenzo Bezan, with a face black with suppressed rage, said:

“It strikes me, sir, that Captain Bezan would consult his own interest,
and be best performing his ordinary duty by maintaining his post at the
proscenium!”

“I proposed to return there immediately, General Harero, and stopped
here but for one moment,” said the young officer, with a burning cheek,
at the intended insult.

“Shall I put my words in the form of an order?” continued General
Harero, seeing that Bezan paused to assist Ruez once more over the
seats to his position in the box.

“It is not necessary, general,” replied the officer, biting his lips
with vexation.

“I declare, general,” said Isabella, unable longer to remain quiet at
his repeated insults to the young officer, “you soldiers are so very
peremptory, that you half disconcert me.”

“It is sometimes necessary,” was the quick and stern reply, “to be
prompt with young and headstrong officers who do not well understand
their duty, or rather, I may say, who knowing their duty, fail to
perform it,” emphasizing the last part of the sentence.

This was intended not only for the lady’s ear, but also for that of
Lorenzo Bezan, who barely succeeded in commanding his feelings for the
moment, so far as to turn silently away to return to his post of
observation. The effect of the scene was not lost upon the
high-spirited beauty. Isabella had marked well the words and tone of
voice with which General Harero spoke, and she saw, too, the effect of
his words upon the free, manly spirit of the young soldier, and from
that moment, either intentionally, or by accident, she paid no further
attention during the whole evening to General Harero, neither turning
towards him, nor even speaking to him at all.

The general, of course, observed this particularly, desiring as he did
to stand in the best possible light as it regarded Isabella’s favor,
and imputing her conduct to the presence of Captain Bezan, and the
conversation that had taken place relative to his duty between Captain
Bezan and himself; he hated the young officer more than ever, as being
in some degree the cause of preventing the consummation of his hopes as
it regarded the favor of the lady. He had long cherished a regard for
the beautiful daughter of Don Gonzales, for her personal charms, as
well as the rich coffers which her father could boast. As the reader
has already surmised, he had been a constant and ardent, though
unsuccessful suitor, for no inconsiderable period. It will not,
therefore, be wondered at, that he should have felt very sensitive upon
this point. As he passed Lorenzo Bezan, therefore, at the close of the
performance, in going out of the theatre that night, while still in the
most immediate proximity to Isabella Gonzales, her father, and the
party with them, he took occasion to speak very loud, and in the most
peremptory manner to him, saying:

“I find you exceedingly lax, Captain Bezan, as it regards the exercise
of your duty and command. You will report yourself to me, after morning
parade, for such orders as shall be deemed proper for you under the
circumstances, as a public reproof for dereliction from duty.”

“Yes, general,” replied the young officer, with the usual salute to his
superior.

Still curbing his feelings, the young officer contented himself with a
kind glance from Isabella Gonzales, who had overheard the last act of
petty tyranny on the general’s part, and for that very reason redoubled
her passing notice and smiles upon Captain Bezan. The officer marched
his company to their barracks, and then sought the silence and quiet of
his own room, to think over the events of the past evening.

His temples burned still with the angry flush that the insult of his
superior officer had produced there, and throwing himself into a chair,
he recalled the whole scene at the theatre, from his answering
Isabella’s friendly signal, until the time when General Harero passed
him at the entrance, and for the last time reproved him.

He weighed the cause of these repeated attacks upon him by his
superior, and could at once divine the cause of them. That was obvious
to his mind at the first glance. He could not but perceive the strong
preference that General Harero evinced for Isabella Gonzales, nor could
he disguise the fact to his own heart that she cared not a farthing for
him. It required but a very simple capacity to understand this; any
party, not interested in the general’s favor, could easily discern it.
But the general counted upon his high rank, and also upon the fact that
his family was a good one, though his purse was not very long.

Lorenzo Bezan remembered not alone the annoyance of that evening. He
had not yet forgotten the insult from the general in the Paseo, and
coupling that with other events, he saw very well that his commanding
officer was decidedly jealous of him. He saw, too, that there was not
any chance of matters growing any better, but that on the contrary they
must continue to grow worse and worse, since be had determined, come
what might, he should pursue his love with the fair lady Isabella.

Could he bear to be insulted thus at every turn by such a man as
General Harero? No! He felt himself, in courage, intellectual
endowments, birth, ay, everything but the rank of a soldier, to be more
than his equal. His heart beat quickly when he recollected that the
latter taunt and threat had been given in the presence of Don Gonzales
and his daughter. The malignity, the unfairness of this attack upon him
at this time, was shameful, and deserved to be punished. Brooding upon
these things alone and at a late hour of the night, he at last wrought
himself up to such a point, perhaps in some degree aggravated by his
late wounds, which were hardly yet healed, that he determined he would
challenge General Harero to martial and mortal conflict.

True this was preposterous in one of his rank, as contending against
another so vastly his superior in position and influence; but his
feelings had begun to assume an uncontrollable character; he could not
bear to think that he had been thus insulted before Isabella Gonzales.
It seemed to him that she would think less of him if he did not resent
and punish such an insult. In the heat of his resentment, therefore, he
sat down and wrote to his superior as follows:

“GENERAL HARERO: Sir-Having received, at different periods and under
peculiar circumstances, insults from you that neither become me as a
gentleman tamely to submit to, nor you as a soldier to give, I do
hereby demand satisfaction. It would be worse than folly in me to
pretend that I do not understand the incentive that governs you-the
actuating motive that has led to these attacks upon me. In my duty as
an officer I have never failed in the least; this you know very well,
and have even allowed before now, to my very face. Your attacks upon me
are, therefore, plainly traceable to a spirit of jealousy as to my
better success with the Senorita Gonzales than yourself. Unless I
greatly mistake, the lady herself has discovered this spirit within
your breast.

“Now, sir, the object of this note is to demand of you to lay aside the
station you hold, and to forget our relative ranks as officers in the
Spanish army, and to meet me on the platform of our individual
characters as gentlemen, and render me that satisfaction for the insult
which you have placed upon me, which I have a right to demand. A line
from you and a friend can easily settle this business. LORENZO BEZAN.”

This note was carefully sealed and addressed, and so despatched as to
reach its destination early on the following morning. It was a most
unfortunate epistle for Captain Bezan, and could the young officer have
calmly considered the subject, he would never have been so imprudent as
to send it to his superior. So long as he bore the petty annoyances of
General Harero without murmuring he was strong, that the step he had
now taken greatly weakened his cause and position. Perhaps he partly
realized this as he sent the note away on the subsequent morning; but
he felt too much pride to relent, and so only braced himself to meet
the result.

The note gave General Harero what he wanted, and placed Captain Bezan
completely at his mercy. It gave him the opportunity to do that which
he most desired, viz., to arrest and imprison the young officer.
Consulting with the governor general, merely by way of strengthening
himself, he took his opinion upon the subject before he made any open
movement in the premises. This was a wary step, and served in some
degree to rob the case of any appearance of personality that it might
otherwise have worn to Tacon’s eye.

As it was, the wary old soldier felt some degree of suspicion in the
matter, as was evident by his remarks to the general, who brought the
charge. It did not seem very natural that one who had just experienced
such favor and promotion should so early be guilty of at breach of
discipline. He was accustomed to judge of men and matters with care,
and judiciously, and for this reason he now rested his head upon his
hand for a moment, upon the table by his side, and after a pause of
some minutes thus passed in silence, during which he had considered the
verbal charge brought against Lorenzo Bezan by his commanding officer,
he once more cast a searching glance upon General Harero. He had never
detected him in any small or unfair business, but he had suspected him
of being capable of such things.

“Is this not the young man whom I have lately promoted for gallantry?”
asked the governor-general.

“Excellency, yes.”

“It is strange that he should be guilty of such insubordination.”

“Very strange, excellency.”

“You know not the reason that has induced this conduct?”

“No—that is—” continued General Harero, as he saw Tacon’s piercing eye
bent upon him, “I can easily presume.”

“Have you the letter of challenge that Captain Bezan sent?”

“Excellency, yes.”

“I will see it.”

“Excellency, at your pleasure,” said the general, hoping not to have
been obliged to show this document.

“Now, if you please, general.”

“At once, excellency.”

General Harero produced the letter, and handed it with something very
like a blush tinging his sunburnt check, to his commander-in-chief.
Tacon read it slowly, pausing now and then to re-read a line, and then,
remarked, as he slowly folded it up once more:

“A love affair.”

“Why, your excellency will easily understand that the young officer has
dared to lift his eyes to one above his rank, and she cares nothing for
him. His causes for complaint are all imaginary.”

“Well, be this as it may, in that I shall not interfere. He has been
guilty of a serious breach of discipline and must suffer for it. You
may take the necessary steps at once in the matter, general.”

“Excellency, yes,” said General Harero, hastening away with secret
delight, and at once taking such measures as should carry out his own
wishes and purposes.

The result of the matter was, that before ten o’clock that morning the
note conveying the challenge was answered by an aid-de-camp and a file
of soldiers, who arrested Captain Bezan for insubordination, and
quietly conducted him to the damp underground cells of the military
prison, where he was left to consider the new position in which he
found himself, solitary and alone, with a straw bed, and no convenience
or comfort about him. And it is not surprising that such a situation
should have been particularly suggestive to a mind so active as that of
Lorenzo Bezan.




CHAPTER VII.
THE PRISONER.


To know and fully realize the bitter severity exercised in the Spanish
prisons, both at Madrid and in Havana, one must have witnessed it.
Cold, dark and dreary cells, fit only to act as supports to the upper
and better lighted portions of the dismal structure, are filled by
those persons who have incurred in any way the displeasure of the
military board of commission. Here, in one of the dampest and most
dreary cells, immured with lizards, tarantulas, and other vile and
unwholesome reptiles, Captain Bezan, but so very recently-risen from a
sick bed, and yet smarting under his wounds, found himself. He could
now easily see the great mistake he had made in thus addressing General
Harero as he had done, and also, as he knew very well the rigor of the
service to which he was attached when he considered for a moment, he
had not the least possible doubt that his sentence would be death.

As a soldier he feared not death; his profession and experience, which
had already made him familiar with the fell destroyer in every possible
form and shape, had taught him a fearlessness in this matter; but to
leave the air that Isabella Gonzales breathed, to be thus torn away
from the bright hopes that she had given rise to in his breast, was
indeed agony of soul to him now. In the horizon of his love, for the
first time since his heart had known the passion, the sun had risen,
and the genial rays of hope, like young spring, had commended to warm
and vivify his soul.

Until within a very short time she whom he loved was to him as some
distant star, that might be worshipped in silence, but not approached;
but now, by a series of circumstances that looked like providential
interference in his behalf, immense barriers had been removed. Thinking
over these matters, he doubly realized the misstep he had taken, and
the heart of the lone prisoner was sad in the depths of his dreary
dungeon.

Many days passed on, and Lorenzo Bezan counted each hour as one less
that he should have to live upon the earth. At first all intercourse
was strictly denied him with any person outside the prison walls, but
one afternoon he was delighted as the door of his cell was thrown open,
and in the next moment Ruez sprang into his arms.

“My dear, dear friend!” said the boy, with big tears starting from his
eyes, and his voice trembling with mingled emotions of pleasure and of
grief.

“Why, Ruez,” said the prisoner, no less delighted than was the boy,
“how was it possible for you to gain admittance to me? You are the
first person I have seen, except the turnkey, in my prison.”

“Everybody refused me; General Harero refused father, who desired that
I might come and see if he could not in some way serve you. At last I
went to Tacon himself. O, I do love that man! Well, I told him General
Harero would not admit me, and when I told him all—”

“All of what, Ruez?”

“Why, about you and me, and sister and father. He said, ‘Boy, you are
worthy of confidence and love; here, take this, it will pass you to the
prison, and to Captain Bezan’s cell;’ and he wrote me this on a card,
and said I could come and see you by presenting it to the guard, when I
pleased.”

“Tacon is just, always just,” said Lorenzo Bezan, “and you, Ruez, are a
dear and true friend.” As the soldier said this, he turned to dash away
a tear-confinement and late sickness had rendered him still weak.

“Captain?”

“Master Ruez.”

“I hate General Harero.”

“Why so?”

“Because sister says it is by his influence that you are here.”

“Did Isabella say that?”

“Yes.”

“Well, tell me of your father and sister, Ruez. You know I am a hermit
here.”

Lorenzo Bezan had already been in prison for more than ten days, when
Ruez thus visited him, and the boy had much to tell him: how General
Harero had called repeatedly at the house, and Isabella had totally
refused to see him; and how his father had tried to reason with General
Harero about Captain Bezan, and how the general had declared that
nothing but blood could wash out the stain of insubordination.

With the pass that the governor-general had given him, Ruez Gonzales
came often to visit the imprisoned soldier, but as the day appointed
for the trial drew near, Ruez grew more and more sad and thoughtful at
each visit, for, boy though he was, he felt certain of Lorenzo Bezan’s
fate. He was not himself unfamiliar with military examinations, for he
was born and brought up within earshot of the spot where these scenes
were so often enacted by order of the military commission, and he
trembled for his dearly loved friend.

At length the trial came; trial! we might with more propriety call it a
farce, such being the actual character of an examination before the
military commission of Havana, where but one side is heard, and
condemnation is sure to follow, as was the case so lately with one of
our own countrymen (Mr. Thrasher), and before him the murder by this
same tribunal of fifty Americans in cold blood! Trial, indeed! Spanish
courts do not try people; they condemn them to suffer—that is their
business.

But let us confine ourselves to our own case; and suffice it to say,
that Captain Bezan was found guilty, and at once condemned to die. His
offence was rank insubordination, or mutiny, as it was designated in
the charge; but in consideration of former services, and his undoubted
gallantry and bravery, the sentence read to the effect, as a matter of
extraordinary leniency to him, that it should be permitted for him to
choose the mode of his own death-that is, between the garote and being
shot by his comrades.

“Let me die like a soldier,” replied the young officer, as the question
was thus put to him, before the open court, as to the mode of death
which he chose.

“You are condemned, then, Lorenzo Bezan,” said the advocate of the
court, “to be shot by the first file of your own company, upon the
execution field.”

This sentence was received with a murmur of disapprobation from the few
spectators in the court, for the condemned was one of the most beloved
men in the service. But the young officer bowed his head calmly to the
sentence, though at close observer might have seen a slight quiver of
his handsome lips, as he struggled for an instant with a single inward
thought. What that thought was, the reader can easily guess,—it was the
last link that bound him to happiness.

Lorenzo Bezan had no fear of death, and perhaps estimated his life
quite as lightly as any other person who made a soldier’s calling his
profession; but since his heart had known the tender promptings of
love, life had discovered new charms for him; he lived and breathed in
a new atmosphere. Before he had received the kind considerations of the
peerless daughter of Don Gonzales, he could have parted the thread of
his existence with little regret. But now, alas! it was very different;
life was most sweet to him, because it was so fully imbued with love
and hope in the future.

Wild as the idea might have seemed to any one else, the young officer
had promised his own heart, that with ordinary success, and provided no
extraordinary difficulty should present itself in his path, to win the
heart and love of the proud and beautiful Isabella Gonzales. He had
made her character and disposition his constant study, was more
familiar, perhaps, with her strong and her weak points than was she
herself, and believed that he knew how best to approach her before whom
so many, vastly higher than himself, had knelt in vain, and truth to
say, fortune seemed to have seconded his hopes.

It was the death of all these hopes, the dashing to earth of the fairy
future he had dreamed of, that caused his proud lip to tremble for a
moment. It was no fear of bodily ill.

General Harero had accomplished his object, and had triumphed over the
young officer, whose impetuosity had placed him within his power. The
sentence of death cancelled his animosity to Lorenzo Bezan, and he now
thought that a prominent cause of disagreement and want of success
between the Senorita Isabella Gonzales and himself was removed. Thus
reasoning upon the subject, and thus influenced, he called at the house
of Don Gonzales on the evening following that of Captain Bezan’s
sentence, expecting to be greeted with the usual courtesy that had been
extended to him. Ruez was the first one whom he met of the household,
on being ushered to the drawing-room by a slave.

“Ah! Master Ruez, how do you do?” said the general, pleasantly.

“Not well at all!” replied the boy, sharply, and with undisguised
dislike.

“I’m sorry to learn that. I trust nothing serious has affected you.”

“But there has, though,” said the boy, with spirit; “it is the
rascality of human nature;” at the same moment he turned his back
coldly on the general and left the room.

“Well, that’s most extraordinary,” mused the general, to himself; “the
boy meant to hit me, beyond a doubt.”

“Ah, Don Gonzales,” he said to the father, who entered the room a
moment after, “glad to see you; have had some unpleasant business on my
hands that has kept me away, you see.”

“Yes, very unpleasant,” said the old gentleman, briefly and coldly.

“Well, it’s all settled now, Don Gonzales, and I trust we shall be as
good friends as ever.”

Receiving no reply whatever to this remark, and being left to himself,
General Harero looked after Don Gonzales, who had retired to a balcony
in another part of the room, for a moment, and then summoning a slave,
sent his card to Senorita Isabella, and received as an answer that she
was engaged. Repulsed in every quarter, he found himself most awkwardly
situated, and thought it about time to beat a retreat.

As General Harero rose and took his leave in the most formal manner, he
saw that his pathway towards the Senorita Isabella’s graces was by no
means one of sunshine alone, but at that moment it presented to his
view a most cloudy horizon. The unfortunate connection of himself with
the sentence of Captain Bezan, now assumed its true bearing in his eye.
Before, he had only thought of revenge, and the object also of getting
rid of his rival. Now he fully realized that it had placed him in a
most unpleasant situation, as it regarded the lady herself. Indeed he
felt that had not the matter gone so far, he would gladly have
compromised the affair by a public reprimand to the young officer, such
as should sufficiently disgrace him publicly to satisfy the general’s
pride. But it was too late to regret now, too late for him to turn
back-the young soldier must die!

In the meantime Lorenzo Bezan was remanded to his dismal prison and
cell, and was told to prepare for the death that would soon await him.
One week only was allowed him to arrange such matters as he desired,
and then he was informed that he would be shot by his comrades in the
execution field, at the rear of the city barracks. It was a sad and
melancholy fate for so young and brave an officer; but the law was
imperative, and there was no reprieve for him.

The cold and distant reception that General Harero had received at Don
Gonzales’s house since the sentence had been publicly pronounced
against Captain Lorenzo Bezan, had afforded unmistakable evidence to
him that if his victim perished on account of the charge he had brought
against him, his welcome with Isabella and her father was at an end.
But what was to be done? As we have said, he had gone too far to
retrace his steps in the matter. Now if it were but possible to get out
of the affair in some way, he said to himself, he would give half his
fortune. Puzzling over this matter, the disappointed general paced back
and forth in his room until past midnight, and at last having tired
himself completely, both mentally and physically, he carelessly threw
off his clothes, and summoning his orderly, gave some unimportant
order, and prepared to retire for the night.

But scarcely had he locked his door and drawn the curtains of his
windows, when a gentle knock at the door caused him once more to open
it, when an orderly led in a person who was closely wrapped up in a
cloak, and after saluting respectfully left the new comer alone with
his superior.

“Well, sir, did you obtain me those keys?” asked General Harero.

“I did, and have them here, general,” was the reply.

“You say there is no need of my entering at the main postern.”

“None. This first key opens the concealed gate in the rear of the guard
house, and this the door that leads to the under range of the prison.
You will require no guide after what I have already shown you. But you
have promised me the fifty ounces.”

“I have.”

“And will hold me harmless?”

“At all hazards.”

“Then here are the keys.”

“Stay; it would be as well for you to be about at the time specified,
to avert any suspicions or immediate trouble.”

“I will be on the alert, general. You may rely upon me in this
business, since you pay for my services so liberally.”

“Good night, sir.”

“Good night, general.”

And gathering his cloak about him, the stranger vanished stealthily
through the door, which General Harero closed and locked after him.
Having consummated the preliminaries to some piece of rascality or
secret business that he did not care to make public.

More than half of the time allotted to the prisoner for preparation in
closing up his connection with life, had already transpired since his
sentence had been pronounced, and he had now but three days left him to
live. Ruez Gonzales, improving the governor-general’s pass, had visited
the young officer daily, bringing with him such luxuries and
necessities to the condemned as were not prohibited by the rules of the
prison, and which were most grateful to him. More so, because, though
this was never intimated to him, or, indeed, appeared absolutely
obvious, he thought that oftentimes Isabella had selected these gifts,
if indeed she had not prepared them with her own hands. A certain
delicacy of feeling prevented him from saying as much to her brother,
or of even questioning him upon any point, however trivial, as to any
matter of a peculiar nature concerning Isabella. Sometimes he longed to
ask the boy about the subject, but he could not bring himself to do so;
he felt that it would be indelicate and unpleasant to Isabella, and
therefore he limited himself to careful inquiries concerning her health
and such simple matters as he might touch upon, without risk of her
displeasure.

Lorenzo Bezan took the announcement of his fate calmly. He felt it his
duty to pray for strength, and he did so, and sought in the holy
silence and confidence of prayer for that abiding and inward assurance
that may carry us through the darkness and the valley of death. Ruez,
poor boy, was almost distracted at the realization of the young
soldier’s fate. Boy though he was, he had yet the feelings, in many
respects, of manhood, and though before Lorenzo Bezan he said nothing
of his coming fate, and indeed struggled to appear cheerful, and to
impart a pleasant influence to the prisoner, yet when once out of his
presence, he would cry for the hour together, and Isabella even feared
for the child’s reason, unless some change should take place ere long.

When his mother was taken from him, and their home made desolate by the
hand of death, Ruez, in the gentleness and tenderness of his heart, had
been brought so low by grief, that it was almost miraculous that he had
survived. The influence of that sorrow, as we have before observed, had
never left him. His father’s assiduous care and kindness, and
Isabella’s gentle and sisterly love for him, had in part healed the
wound, when now his young and susceptible heart was caused thus to
bleed anew. He loved Lorenzo Bezan with a strange intensity of feeling.
There was an affinity in their natures that seemed to draw them
together, and it was strange that strength of consolation and happiness
that weak and gentle boy imparted to the stern soldier!

In his association of late with Ruez, the condemned officer felt
purified and carried back to childhood and his mother’s knee; the long
vista of eventful years was blotted out from his heart, the stern
battles he had fought in, the blood he had seen flow like water, his
own deep scars and many wounds, the pride and ambition of his military
career, all were forgotten, and by Ruez’s side he was perhaps more of a
child at heart than the boy himself. How strange are our natures; how
susceptible to outward influence; how attunable to harshness or to
plaintive notes! We are but as the ’olian harp, and the winds of heaven
play upon us what times they will!

It was midnight in the prison of Havana; nought could be heard by the
listening ear save the steady pace of the sentinels stationed at the
various angles of the walls and entrances of the courtyard that
surrounded the gloomy structure. It was a calm, tropical light, and the
moon shone so brightly as to light up the grim walls and heavy arches
of the building, almost as bright as if it were day. Now and then a
sentinel would pause, and resting upon his musket, look off upon the
silvery sea, and perhaps dream of his distant Castilian home, then
starting again, he would rouse himself, shoulder the weapon, and pace
his round with measured stride. Lorenzo Bezan, the condemned, had knelt
down and offered up a prayer, silent but sincere, for Heaven’s
protection in the fearful emergency that beset him; he prayed that he
might die like a brave man, yet with a right feeling and reconciled
conscience with all mankind. Then throwing himself upon his coarse
straw bed, that barely served to separate him from the damp earthen
floor, he had fallen asleep-a calm, deep, quiet sleep, so silent and
childlike as almost to resemble death itself.

He had not slept there for many minutes, before there was heard a most
curious noise under the floor of his prison. At first it did not awaken
him, but partially doing so, caused him to move slightly, and in at
half conscious, half dreamy state, to suggest some cause for the
unusual phenomenon. It evidently worked upon his brain and nervous
system, and he dreamed that the executioner had come for him, that his
time for life had already expired, and the noise he heard was that of
the officers and men, come to execute the sentence that had been
pronounced upon him by the military commission.

By degrees the noise gradually increased, and heavy bolts and bars
seemed to be removed, and a gleam of light to stream across the cell,
while the tall form of a man, wrapped in a military cloak, came up
through the floor where a stone slab gave way to the pressure applied
to it from below.

Having gained a footing, the new comer now turned the light of a dark
lantern in the direction of the corner where the prisoner was sleeping.
The figure approached the sleeping soldier, and bending over him,
muttered to himself, half aloud:

“Sleeping, by Heaven! he sleeps as quietly as though he was in his
camp-bedstead, and not even under arrest.”

As the officer thus spoke-for his cloak now falling from one shoulder,
partially exposed his person and discovered his rank-the strong light
of the lantern fell full upon the sleeper’s face, and caused him
suddenly to awake, and partially rising from the floor, he said:

“So soon! has my time already come? I thought that it was not yet.
Well, I am ready, and trust to die like a soldier!”

“Awake, Captain Bezan, awake!” said the new comer. “I have news for
you!”

“News!”

“Yes.”

“What possible news can there be that I can feel interested in?”

“Rise, and I will tell you,” replied the other, while he shaded the
lantern with his hand.

“Speak on, I am listening,” replied Lorenzo Bezan, rising to his feet.

“I would speak of your liberty.”

“My liberty? I am condemned to die, and do you come to mock me?”

“Be patient; the way is open, and you may yet escape from death.”

“And what should interest you, General Harero, in my fate? Your purpose
is gained; I am removed from your path; why do you visit me thus at
this still hour of the night, and in so extraordinary a manner by a
secret entrance to my cell?”

“All this matters nothing. I came not here to answer questions. On one
condition you are free. I have the means of your escape at hand.”

“Name the condition,” said the prisoner, though without exhibiting the
least interest.

“There is a vessel which will sail for America with the morning tide;
swear if I liberate you that you will take passage in her, and never
return to this island.”

“Never!” said the soldier, firmly. “I will never leave those I love so
dearly.”

“You refuse these terms?” continued the general, in a hoarse tone of
voice.

“I do, most unhesitatingly. Life would be nothing to me if robbed of
its brightest hope.”

“You will not consider this for a moment? it is your only chance.”

“I am resolved,” said Lorenzo Bezan; “for more than one reason I am
determined.”

“Then die for your obstinacy,” said General Harero, hoarse with rage
and disappointment.

Thus saying, General Harero descended into the secret passage from
whence he had just emerged, and replacing the stone above his head, the
prisoner heard the grating of the rusty bolts and bars as they were
closed after him. They grated, too, most harshly upon his heart, as
well as upon their own hinges, for they seemed to say, “thus perishes
your last hope of reprieve-your last possibility of escape from the
fate that awaits you.”

“No matter,” said he, to himself, at last, “life would be of little
value to me now if deprived of the presence of Isabella, and that dear
boy, Ruez, and therefore I decided none too quickly as I did. Besides,
in honor, I could hardly accept my life at his hands on any terms-he
whom I have to thank for all my misfortunes. No, no; let them do their
worst, I know my fate is sealed; but I fear it not. I will show them
that I can die as I have lived, like a soldier; they shall not triumph
in my weakness so long as the blood flows through my veins.”

With this reflection and similar thoughts upon his mind, he once more
threw himself upon the hard damp floor, and after thinking long and
tenderly of Isabella Gonzales and her brother, he once more dropped to
sleep, but not until the morning gun had relieved the sentinels, and
the drum had beat the reveille.




CHAPTER VIII.
THE FAREWELL.


The apartment in Don Gonzales’s house appropriated as Ruez’s sleeping
room, led out of the main reception hall, and adjoined that of his
sister Isabella. Both rooms looked out upon the Plato, and over the
Gulf Stream and outer portions of the harbor, where the grim Moro tower
and its cannon frown over the narrow entrance of the inner bay. One
vessel could hardly work its way in ship shape through the channel, but
a thousand might lay safely at anchor inside this remarkably
land-locked harbor. At the moment when we would introduce the reader to
the house of the rich old Don Gonzales, Isabella had thrown herself
carelessly upon a couch in her room, and half sighing, half dreaming
while awake, was gazing out upon the waters that make up from the
Caribbean Sea, at the southward, and now and then following with her
eyes the trading crafts that skimmed the sparkling waters to the north.

As she gazed thus, she suddenly raised herself to a sitting position,
as she heard the suppressed and most grievous sobs of some one near the
room where she was, and rising, she approached the window to discover
the cause of this singular sound. The noise that had excited her
curiosity came from the next chamber, evidently, and that was her
brother’s. Stealing softly round to the entrance of his chamber, she
went quietly in and surprised Ruez as lay grieving upon a couch with
eyes filled with tears.

“Why, Ruez, what does this mean? Art sick, brother, that you are so
depressed?” asked the beautiful girl, seating herself down by his side.

“Ay, sister, sick at heart,” said the boy, with a deep drawn sigh.

“And why, Ruez?” she continued, gently parting the hair from his
forehead.

“How can you ask such a question, sister? do you not know already?” he
asked, turning his deep blue eyes full upon her.

“Perhaps not, brother,” replied Isabella, struggling to suppress a
sigh, while she turned her face away from her brother’s searching
glance.

“Do you not know, sister, that to-morrow Captain Bezan is sentenced to
die?”

“True,” said Isabella Gonzales, with an involuntary shudder, “I do know
it, Ruez.”

“And further, sister,” continued the boy, sagely, “do you not know that
we have been the indirect cause of this fearful sacrifice?”

“I do not see that, brother,” said Isabella, quickly, as she turned her
beautiful face fully upon her brother, inquiringly.

Ruez Gonzales looked like one actuated by some extraordinary
inspiration; his eyes were wonderfully bright, his expression that of
years beyond his actual age, and his beautiful sister, while she gazed
thus upon him at that moment, felt the keen and searching glance that
he bestowed upon her. She felt like one in the presence of a superior
mind; she could not realize her own sensations. The boy seemed to read
her very soul, as she stood thus before him. It was more than a minute
before he spoke, and seemed to break the spell; but at last-and it
seemed an age to Isabella Gonzales-he did so, and said:

“Sister?”

“Well, Ruez?”

“Captain Bezan loves you.”

“Perhaps so.”

“I say he does love you.”

“It is possible.”

“I say he loves you,” continued the boy, almost sternly.

“Well, brother, what of that?” she asked, with assumed indifference.

“It is that, sister, which has led General Harero to persecute him as
he has done, and it is that which has led him like a noble spirit to
turn to bay.”

A moment’s pause ensued.

“Is it not so, sister?” he asked, still looking keenly at her. “Have
you not yourself intimated that Captain Bezan was to suffer owing to
his interest and services for us?”

“You do indeed speak truly, brother,” said the lovely girl, breathing
more quickly, and half amazed at Ruez’s penetration and prophetic
manner of speech.

“Alas!” said the boy, once more relapsing into his former mood, “that
he might be saved!”

“Has our father seen the governor-general, Ruez?” asked his sister,
earnestly.

“Yes.”

“And to no effect?”

“None. Tacon, you know, is most strict in his administration of
justice, and he says that if he were to pardon one such breach of
military discipline as Captain Bezan as been guilty of, the whole army
would at once be impregnated with insubordination.”

“Would that I could see Captain Bezan, if only for one single moment,”
murmured Isabella Gonzales, half aloud, yet only to herself.

“Do you mean so, sister?” asked Ruez, catching quickly at his sister’s
words, and with an undisguised expression of delight written upon his
handsome countenance.

“Yes, no, brother, that is to say, if I could see him with propriety,
you know, Ruez; that is what I meant to say.”

“Nothing easier, than for you to do so, if you desire it,” said the
boy.

“Do you think so, Ruez?” said his sister, somewhat eagerly.

“Certainly, Isabella, my pass will serve for you with a trifling
disguise.”

“But our difference in size; besides, you know that my voice—”

“Will not be noticed by those stiff sentries, or the turnkey,”
interrupted the boy. “They do not know me at all, and would not suspect
you.”

“Ah! but I can see many impediments in the way of one of my sex,” added
Isabella Gonzales, with a deep sigh.

Captain Lorenzo Bezan awoke on the day previous to that appointed for
his execution, with cheerful spirit. He found no guilt in his heart, he
felt that he had committed no crime, that his soul was free and
untrammelled. His coarse breakfast of rude cassava root and water was
brought to him at a late hour, and having partaken of sufficient of
this miserable food to prevent the gnawings of hunger, he now sat
musing over his past life, and thinking seriously of that morrow which
was to end his career upon earth forever. A strange reverie for a man
to be engaged in a most critical period-the winding up of his earthly
career.

“I wonder,” said he to himself, somewhat curiously, “why Ruez does not
come to-day? it is his hour-ay, must be even past the time, and the boy
loves me too well to neglect me now, when I am so near my end. Hark! is
that his step? No; and yet it must be; it is too light for the guard or
turnkey. O yes, that is my door, certainly, and here he is, sure
enough. I knew he would come.”

As the prisoner said this, the door slowly opened on its rusty and
creaking hinges, and the turnkey immediately closed it after the new
comer, who was somewhat closely wrapped in the profuse folds of a long
Spanish cloak.

Well, Ruez,” said Captain Bezan, quite leisurely, and without turning
his head towards the door, “I had begun to fear that you would not come
to-day. You know you are the only being I see, except the turnkey, and
I’m quite sensitive about your visits, my dear boy. However, you are
here, at last; sit down.”

“Captain Bezan, it appears to me that you do not welcome me very
cordially,” said Isabella Gonzales, in reply, and a little archly.

“Lady!” said the prisoner, springing to his feet as though he had been
struck by an electric shock, “Senorita Isabella Gonzales, is it
possible that you have remembered me at such a time-me, who am so soon
to die?”

Isabella Gonzales had now thrown back the ample folds of the cloak she
wore, and lifting her brother’s cap from her head, her beautiful hair
fell into its accustomed place, and with a slight blush tinging either
cheek, she stood before the young soldier in his cell, an object of
ineffable interest and beauty.

“Heaven bless you, lady,” said the prisoner, kneeling at her feet.

“Nay. I pray you, sir, Captain Bezan, do not kneel at such a time.”

“Ah! lady, how can I thank you in feeble words for this sweet ray of
sunshine that you have cast athwart my dark and dreary path? I no
longer remember that I am to die-that my former comrades are to pierce
my heart with bullets. I cannot remember my fate, lady, since you have
rendered me so happy. You have shown me that I did not mistake the
throne at which I have secretly worshipped-that, all good and pure as
you are, you would not forget Lorenzo Bezan, the poor, the lonely
soldier who had dared to tell you how dearly he loved you.”

As he spoke, Isabella Gonzales seemed for one moment to forget herself
in the realizations of the scene. She listened to his thrice eloquent
words with eyes bent upon the ground at first, and then gazing tenderly
upon him, and now that he had ceased to speak, they sought once more
the floor of the room in silence. He could not but construe these
delicate demonstrations in his favor, and drawing close to her side, he
pressed her hand tenderly to his lips. The touch seemed to act like
magic, and aroused her to present consciousness, while she started as
if in amazement. All the pride of her disposition was instantly
aroused; she felt that for a single moment she had forgotten herself,
and to retrieve the apparent acquiescence that she had seemed to show
to the condemned soldier’s words and tale of love, she now appeared to
think that she must assume all the hauteur of character that usually
governed her in her intercourse with his sex and the world generally.
It was but a simple struggle, and all her self-possession was rallied
again to her service and absolute control.

“Captain Bezan,” she said, with assumed dignity, and drawing herself up
in all her beauty of to person to its full height, “I came not hither
to hear such talk as this from you, nor to submit to such familiarity,
and I trust, sir, that you will henceforth remember your station, and
respect mine.”

The breast of the prisoner heaved with inward emotion, in the struggle
to suppress its outward show, and he bit his lips until the blood
nearly flowed. His face instantly became the picture of despair; for
her words had planted that grief and sorrow in his heart which the fear
of death could not arouse there. Even Isabella Gonzales seemed for a
moment struck with the effect of her repulse; but her own proud heart
would not permit her to recall one word she had uttered.

“I would not leave you, Captain Bezan,” said she, at length, as she
gathered the ample folds of the cloak about her, “without once more
tendering to you my most earnest thanks for your great services to our
family. You know to what I refer. I need not tell you,” she continued,
with a quivering lip, “that my father has done all in his power to have
your sentence remitted, but, alas! to no effect. Tacon seems to be
resolved, and unchangeable.”

As she spoke thus, spite of all her assumed pride and self-control, a
tear trembled in her eye, and her respiration came quickly-almost in
sobs!

The young soldier looked at her silently for a moment; at first he
seemed puzzled; he was weighing in his own mind the meaning of all this
as contrasted with the repulse he had just received, and with the
estimate he had before formed of her; at last, seeming to read the
spirit that had possessed her, he said:

“Ah, lady, I bless you a thousand times for that tear!”

“Nay, sir, I do not understand you,” she said, quickly.

“Not your own heart either, lady, else you disguise its truth. Ah! why
should all this be so? why should hearts be thus masked?”

“Sir, this is positive impertinence,” said Isabella Gonzales,
struggling once more to summon her pride to sustain her.

“Impertinence, lady?” repeated the prisoner, sadly.

“That was my word, sir,” answered the proud girl, with assumed
harshness.

“No, it would be impossible for me, on the very brink of the grave, to
say aught but the truth; and I love you too deeply, too fervently, to
be impertinent. You do not know me, lady. In my heart I have reared an
altar to worship at, and that shrine for three years has been thy
dearly loved form. How dearly and passionately I have loved-what a
chastening influence it has produced upon my life, my comrades, who
know not yet the cause, could tell you. To-morrow I must die. While I
hoped one day to win your love, life was most dear to me, and I was
happy. I could then have clung to life with as much tenacity as any
one. But, lady, I find that I have been mistaken; my whole dream of
fancy, of love, is gone, and life is no better to me than a burden. I
speak not in haste, nor in passion. You must bear me witness that I am
calm and collected; and I assure you that the bullets which end my
existence will be but swift-winged messengers of peace to my already
broken heart!”

“Captain Bezan,” said Isabella, hesitating, and hardly speaking
distinctly.

“Well, lady?”

“How could you have so deceived yourself? How could you possibly
suppose that one in your sphere of life could hope to be united to one
in mine?” asked Isabella Gonzales, with a half averted face and a
trembling voice, as she spoke. “It was foolhardy, sir; it was more than
that; it was preposterous!”

“Lady, you are severe.”

“I speak but truth, Captain Bezan, and your own good sense will sustain
it.”

“I forgot your birth and rank, your wealth-everything. I acknowledge
this, in the love I bore you; and, lady, I still feel, that had not my
career been thus summarily checked, I might yet have won your love.
Nay, lady, do not frown; true love never despairs-never is
disheartened—never relinquishes the object that it loves, while there
is one ray of light yet left to guide it on. It did seem to me now,
when we are parting so surely forever, that it might have been, on your
part, more kindly, and that you would, by a smile, or even a tear-drop,
for my sake, have thus blessed me, and lightened my heavy steps to the
field of execution and of trial.”

Isabella Gonzales, as she listened to his words, could no longer
suppress her feelings, but covering her face with her hands, she wept
for a moment like a child. Pride was of no avail; the heart had
asserted its supremacy, and would not be controlled.

“You take advantage of my woman’s heart, sir,” she said, at last. “I
cannot bear the idea that any one should suffer, and more particularly
one who has endeared himself to me and mine by such important service
as you have done. Do not think that tears argue aught for the wild tale
you have uttered, sir. I would not have you deceive yourself so much;
but I am a woman, and cannot view violence or grief unmoved!”

“Say, rather, lady,” added the soldier, most earnestly, “that you are
pure, beautiful, and good at heart, but that pride, that only alloy of
thy most lovely character, chokes its growth in your bosom.”

“Sir!”

“Well, Senorita Isabella.”

“Enough of this,” she said, hastily and much excited. “I must leave you
now, captain. It is neither fitting that I should hear, nor that you
should utter such words as these to Isabella Gonzales. Farewell!”

“Lady, farewell,” replied the prisoner, more by instinct than by any
comprehension that she was actually about to leave him.

“I pray you, Captain Bezan, do not think that I cherish any unkind
thoughts towards you,” she said, turning when at the door; “on the
contrary, I am by no means unmindful of my indebtedness to you; but far
be it from me to sanction a construction of my feelings or actions
which my heart will not second.”

“Lady, your word is law to me,” replied the submissive prisoner.

When she had gone, and the rough grating of the turnkey’s instruments
had done sounding in his ear, Captain Bezan remained a moment looking
upon the slot where she had stood, with apparent amazement. He could
not realize that she had been there at all; and hardest of all, that
she had left him so abruptly. But her “farewell” still rang in his
ears, and throwing himself upon his rude seat, with his face buried in
his hands, he exclaimed:

“Welcome, welcome death! I would that thou wert here already!”

After a few moments thus passed, as it were, in the very depths of
despair, he rose and walked his dreary cell in a sad and silent
reverie, a reviewal of all these matters.

“How I have mistaken that beautiful creature, how idolized, how loved
her! I knew that there was much, ay, very much, of pride in her heart.
I knew the barriers that rose between her and me; but, alas, I thought
them not so very at high, so very impregnable. I would not, could not,
have believed that she would have left me thus. It was our last
farewell. She might have been more kind; might, without much risk of
loss of pride have permitted me such a parting as should have rendered
my last hours happy! Alas! alas! what toys of fortune we are; what
straws for every breeze to shake-for every wind to shatter!

“We set our hearts upon an object, and blinded by our warm desires,
believe, like children, that which we hope for. I have never paused to
think in this matter of my love, I have been led ont too precipitately
by the brilliancy of the star that I followed; its light blinded me to
all other influences; and, too truly, I feel it, blinded me to reason
also. Isabella Gonzales, the belle of this brilliant city, the courted,
beloved, rich, proud Isabella Gonzales; what else might I have
expected, had one moment been permitted to me for reason, for cool
reflection. I was mad in my fond and passionate love; I was blind in my
folly, to ever dream of success. But the end will soon be here, and I
shall be relieved from this agonizing fever at my heart, this woeful
pain of disappointed love, of broken-heartedness.”

He folded his arms, and permitting his head to sink upon his breast,
sat down, the very picture of despair.




CHAPTER IX.
THE EXECUTION SCENE.


The morning was bright and beautiful that ushered in the day which was
appointed for the execution of Captain Lorenzo Bezan, in accordance
with the sentence passed upon him. The birds carolled gaily in the
little grove that is formed about the fountain which fronts the
governor-general’s palace and the main barracks of the army, while the
fresh, soft air from inland came loaded with delicious flavors and
sweet aroma. Nature could hardly have assumed a more captivating mood
than she wore at that time.

The soldiers, who sauntered about the Plaza, and hung around the doors
of the guard house, wore an air quite different from that which the
bright and beautiful tropical morning might be supposed to induce. They
knew only too well of the tragedy that was that day to enacted; such
occasions-the spilling of the tide of life, in cold blood-suited not
their chivalrous notions at any time, much less so now, for they loved
the officer who was to lose his life-a victim to Harero-whom, again,
few men respected, either as a soldier or a man-his character was
repulsive to nearly all.

“So the captain is to be shot to-day,” remarked one of Captain Bezan’s
own company, to a comrade whom he had just met in the Plaza.

“Yes, I had rather it had been—”

“Hush, Alonzo,” said his companion, observing General Harero walking
across the street.

“That is he, and he is the only man I ever saw,” continued the officer,
“that I would like to see shot in cold blood. Poor Bezan, he’s
sacrificed to the general!”

“I wonder what gave the trouble between them.”

“Don’t know; some say there’s a lady in the case.”

“I hadn’t heard of that.”

“Yes, you know he challenged the general?”

“Yes,”

“Well, that was about a lady, in some way; I heard one of the officers
say so.”

“The first file do the business.”

“Yes, and thankful am I, Alonzo, that you and I are in the fourth
section.”

The hour appointed for the execution of the sentence had nearly
arrived, and the steady roll of the drum beat the regiment to which
Captain Bezan’s company belonged, to the line. His own immediate
company was formed on the side of the Plaza at right angles with the
rest of the line, in all some thousand rank and file. This company
“stood at ease,” and the men hung their heads, as if ashamed of the
business they were about to perform. In the rest of the line the men
exchanged a few words with each other, now and then, quietly, but the
company referred to, spoke not a word. to each other. Their officers
stood in a little knot by themselves, and evidently felt sad at heart
when they remembered the business before them, for their comrade
condemned to die had been a universal favorite with them.

But a few moments transpired, after the forming of the line, before an
aid-de-camp approached and transmitted an order to the
first-lieutenant, now commanding the company, and the first file of
twelve men were marched away to the rear of the barracks, while the
rest of the company were sent to the prison to do guard duty in
escorting the prisoner to the ground. It seemed to them as though this
additional insult might have been spared to the prisoner-that of being
guarded by his late command, in place of any other portion of the
regiment being detailed for this service. But this was General Harero’s
management, who seemed to gloat in his own diabolical purposes.

In the meantime the prisoner had risen that morning from his damp, rude
couch, and had completed his simple toilet with more than usual
neatness. After offering up a sincere prayer, and listening to the
words of the priest who had been sent to prepare him for the last hour,
he declared calmly that he was ready to die. He had looked for Ruez
Gonzales, and wondered not a little that the boy had not come to bid
him farewell that morning-a last, long farewell.

“Perhaps his young heart was too full for him to do so,” said the
doomed soldier; “and yet I should have felt happier to see him again.
It is strange how much his purity and gentleness of character have
caused me to love him. Next to Isabella Gonzales, surely that boy is
nearest to my heart. Poor Ruez will miss me, for the boy loves me
much.”

As he mused thus to himself, the steady and regular tread of armed men
was heard approaching his prison door, and the young soldier knew full
well for what purpose they came. In a few moments after, he who had
formerly been his second in command entered the cell and saluted the
prisoner respectfully.

“Captain Bezan,” said the lieutenant, “I need not explain in detail to
you the very unpleasant business upon which I have been at this time
sent, nor add,” continued the officer, in a lower tone of voice, “how
much I regret the fate that awaits you.”

“Nay, Ferdinand,” answered Captain Bezan, calmly, “say nothing of the
matter, but give me your hand, my friend, and do your duty.”

“Would to God I could in any way avoid it, Lorenzo,” said his brother
officer, who had long been associated with him, and who had loved him
well.

“Regrets are useless, Ferdinand. You know we all have our allotted
time, and mine has come. You shall see that I will die like a soldier.”

“Ay, Lorenzo; but in such a way; so heartlessly, so needlessly, so in
cold blood; alas! why were you so imprudent? I am no woman, comrade.
You have fought in the same field, and slept in the same tent with me
oftentimes, and you know that I have laid the sod upon my companion’s
breast without a murmur, without a complaint; but this business is too
much for me!”

“Fie, fie, man,” said the prisoner, with assumed indifference; “look
upon it as a simple duty; you but fulfil an order, and there’s the end
of it.”

“I can’t, for the life of me, I can’t!”

“Why, my good fellow, come to think of it, you should not complain, of
all others, since it gives you promotion and the command of our brave
boys.”

A look of deep reproach was the only answer he received to this remark.

“Forgive me, Ferdinand, forgive me, I did but jest,” he continued,
quickly, as he again grasped the hand of his comrade between his own.

“Say no more, Lorenzo. Is there aught I can do for you before we
march?”

“Nothing.”

“No little boon-no service you would like to trust to a friend and
comrade?”

“My papers are all arranged and addressed to you, with directions how I
should like to have them disposed of. There is nothing else,
Ferdinand.”

“It will be my melancholy pleasure to follow your wishes implicitly,”
was the reply.

“Thank you, Ferdinand.”

“Is that all?”

“All.”

“Then we must at once away.”

“One moment-stay, Ferdinand; tell my poor boys who act the
executioners, those of the first file, to fire low-at my heart,
Ferdinand! You will remember?”

“Alas! yes,” said his comrade, turning suddenly away from the prisoner.

“And tell them, Ferdinand, that I most heartily and sincerely forgive
them for the part they are called upon to play in this day’s drama.”

“I will-I will.”

“That is all. I have no other request, and am prepared now to follow
you,” he added, with a calm and resigned expression of countenance.

The drum beat-the file opened-the prisoner took his position, and the
detachment of men whom he had so often commanded amid the carnage of
battle and the roar of cannon, now guarded him towards the place of his
execution.

Lorenzo Bezan had but a little way to march; but still a blush suffused
his face as he passed, thus humiliated, through the public Plaza, where
he had so often paraded his company before. All eyes were low bent upon
him, from the humblest to the highest, for he was well known, and his
fate had created much remark among all. He was marched quietly to the
rear of the barracks, and as the company filed by the guard house, to
the long open space on the city side, just opposite Moro Castle, he
distinctly heard a voice from one of the windows say:

“God bless and help you, Captain Bezan!”

He turned partially round to see the speaker, but no one was visible.
He was sure it was Ruez’s voice, and wondering why he did not come
forward to meet his eye, he marched on to the plain where the entire
division of General Harero’s command was drawn up to witness the scene.
It is difficult to conceive, and much more so to describe, such an
impressive sight as presented itself at this moment to the spectator.
There was so much mockery in the brilliant uniforms, flaunting plumes
and gilded accoutrements of the soldiery, when contrasted with the
purpose of the scene, that one could hardly contemplate the sight even
for a moment with ordinary composure.

The prisoner, attended by a private and two officers, was led to his
position, where, divested of his coat, he stood simply in his linen and
nether garments, and quietly submitted to have his hands bound behind
him, while he exchanged a few pleasant words with those who were about
him. At a signal from the provost marshal, one of the officers essayed
to bind a handkerchief before his eyes, but at an earnest request to
the contrary by the prisoner, he desisted, and in a moment after he
stood alone beside the open grave that had been dug to receive his
remains!

Behind him rolled the ocean, mingling with the waters of the Gulf
Stream; on either side were ranged the long line of infantry that
formed his division, while in front was ranged his own company, and
some ten yards in front of them stood the file of thirteen men who were
to be his executioners. They had just been supplied with their muskets
by an officer, and were told that one was without ball, that each one
might hope his was not the hand to slay his former comrade in arms.
Another signal from the provost, and the lieutenant commanding Captain
Bezan’s company advanced from the rear to the side of the first file to
his regular position, at the same time saying in a low voice:

“Fire low, my men, as you love our former comrade-aim at his heart!”

A glance, and a sad one of intelligence, was all he could receive from
the men. Two or three successive orders brought the file to the proper
position for firing.

At that moment Lorenzo Bezan, with a slight exertion of the great
physical strength which he possessed, easily broke the cords asunder
that bound his wrists behind him, and dashing the dark hair from his
high and manly forehead, he calmly folded his arms upon his breast, and
awaited the fire that was to end his existence. The fearful word was
given by the officer, and so still was every one, so breathless the
whole scene, that the order was distinctly heard through the entire
length of the lines.

The morning sun shone like living fire along the polished barrels of
the guns, as the muzzles all ranged in point towards the heart of the
condemned. In spite of the effort not to do so, the officer paused
between the order to aim, and that to fire. The word appeared to stick
in his throat, and he opened his mouth twice before he could utter the
order; but at last he did so, distinctly, though with a powerful
effort.

The, sharp, quick report of the muskets that followed this order,
seemed to jar upon every heart among that military throng, except,
indeed, of him who sat upon a large dapple gray horse, at the right of
the line, and whose insignia bespoke him to be the commanding officer,
General Harero. He sat upon his horse like a statue, with a calm but
determined expression upon his features, while a stern smile might be
observed to wreathe his lips for an instant at the report of the guns
fired by the executing file.

But see, as the smoke steadily sweeps to seaward, for a moment it
completely covers the spot where the victim stood, and now it sweeps
swiftly off over the water. But what means that singular murmur so
audible along the line-that movement of surprise and astonishment
observed in all directions?

Behold, there stood erect the unharmed form of Lorenzo Bezan! Not a
hair of his head was injured; not a line of his noble countenance was
in the least distorted. As calm as though nought had happened, he stood
there unmoved. He had so braced himself to the effort, that nothing
human could have unnerved him. Hastily directing an aid-de-camp to the
spot with some new order, General Harero issued another to his officers
for the lines to be kept firm, and preparations were instantly set
about for another and more certain attempt upon the life of the
condemned, who seemed to the spectators to have escaped by some divine
interposition, little less than a miracle.

At that instant there dashed into the area a mounted aid-de-camp,
bearing the uniform of the governor-general’s suite, and riding
directly up to General Harero, he handed him a paper. It was done
before the whole line of military and the spectators, all of whom
seemed to know as well its purport, as did the general after reading
it.

“A reprieve! A reprieve!” ran from mouth to mouth along the whole
length of the line, until at last it broke out in one wild huzza,
defying all discipline.

Those nearest to General Harero heard him utter a curse, deep but
suppressed, for the surmise of the multitude was correct. Captain Bezan
had been reprieved; and, probably, in fear of this very thing, the
general of the division had taken upon himself to set the time of
execution one hour earlier than had been announced to Tacon-a piece of
villany that had nearly cut off the young soldier from the clemency
that the governor had resolved to extend to him at the very last
moment, when the impressiveness of the scene should have had its
effect.

Issuing one or two hasty orders, General Harero put spurs to his horse
and dashed off the grounds with chagrin but too plainly written in his
face not to betray itself. He could even detect a hiss now and then
from the crowd, as he passed; and one or two, bolder than the rest,
cast epithets at him in vile language, but he paused not to listen. He
was no favorite with citizens or soldiers, and hastily dismounting at
the door of the palace, he sought his own room with deep feelings of
suppressed rage and bitterness.

But what was the meaning of those twelve musketeers all missing their
aim? So vexed was General Harero at this, that his first order was for
their united arrest; but that had been countermanded now, since the
governor had reprieved the prisoner; for the general saw that he stood
in a false position, in having changed the hour for execution, and did
not care to provoke a controversy that might lead to his exposure
before the stern justice of Tacon, and he did well to avoid it.

It was very plain to officers and men that there had been foul play
somewhere, and so excited had the division become by this time, that
the officers began to look seriously at each other, fearing an
immediate outbreak and disregard of discipline. It was a time to try
the troops, if one had ever occurred. They would have stood firm and
have received an enemy’s fire without wavering; but there seemed some
cold-blooded rascality here, in the arriving of the reprieve after the
twelve men had fired, even though they did so ineffectually.

Quick, stern orders were quickly passed from line to line, the division
was wheeled into column, the drums beat a quick march, and the whole
column passed up the Calle del Iganasio towards the front of the main
barracks, where, lest the symptoms, already referred to, should ripen
into something more serious still, orders were issued to keep the
division still under arms. In the meantime, Captain Lorenzo Bezan,
still as calm as though nought had occurred, was marched back to his
cell in the prison, to hear the conditions upon which the reprieve, as
dictated by Tacon, was granted. As he passed the guard house again, on
his return, he heard his name called as he had heard it when he marched
with the guard:

“God bless you, Captain Bezan!”

“Strange,” thought the prisoner-he knew it for Ruez Gonzales’s voice at
once; “where can that boy be secreted?” He mused for a second of time.
This was the portion of the guard room where the officer on duty had
loaded the guns for his execution, and from here they had been taken
and passed into the hands of the men. It did not require much
penetration on the part of the reprieved soldier to understand now the
reason why these twelve men had missed their aim!

Had they exercised the skill of Kentucky sharp-shooters they could have
done no harm; blank cartridges don’t kill. But how unexpected, how
miraculous it appeared, how strange the sensations of the young
officer, after that loud sounding discharge, to find himself standing
thus unharmed,—no wound, no bullet whistling by his ears, the dead,
sluggish smoke alone enveloping his person for a moment, and then, as
it swept away seaward, the shout of the astonished division rang upon
his senses. He felt that all eyes were upon him, and adamant itself
could not have remained firmer than did he. Few men would have
possessed sufficient self-control to bear themselves thus; but he was a
soldier, and had often dared the bullet of the enemy. He was familiar
with the whistling of bullets, and other sounds that carry on their
wings the swift-borne messengers of death. Besides this, there was an
indifference as to life, existing in his bosom at that moment, that led
him to experience a degree of apathy that it would be difficult for us
to describe, or for the reader to realize. He felt as he did when he
exclaimed, in his lonely cell in prison, as he was left for the last
time by her he so loved—“Welcome, welcome, death! I would that thou
wert here already!”

How it was accomplished, of course he knew not; nor could he hardly
surmise in his own mind, so very strictly is the care of such matters
attended to under all like circumstances; but one thing he felt
perfectly sure of, and indeed he was right in his conjecture—Ruez had
drawn the bullets from the guns!




CHAPTER X.
THE BANISHMENT.


Lorenzo Bezan had hardly reached his place of confinement, once more,
before he was waited upon by the secretary of the governor-general, who
explained to him the terms on which his reprieve was granted, viz.,
that he should leave the territory and soil of Cuba by the next
homeward bound packet to Spain, to remain there, unless otherwise
ordered by special direction of the government. His rank as captain of
infantry was secured to him, and the usual exhortation in such cases
was detailed, as to the hope that the present example might not be lost
upon him, as to the matter of a more strict adherence to the subject of
military discipline.

Repugnant as was the proposition to leave the island while life was
his, Lorenzo Bezan had no alternative but to do so; and, moreover, when
he considered the attraction that held him on the spot, how the
Senorita Isabella Gonzales had treated him, when she had every reason
to believe that it was his last meeting with her, and nearly the last
hour of his life, he saw that if she would treat him thus at such a
moment, then, when he had not the excuse of remarkable exigency and the
prospect of certain death before him, she would be no kinder. It was
while exercised by such thoughts as these that he answered the
secretary:

“Bear my thanks, with much respect, to the governor-general, and tell
him that I accept from him his noble clemency and justice, the boon of
my life, on his own terms.”

The secretary bowed low and departed.

We might tell the reader how Lorenzo Bezan threw himself upon his bed
of straw, and wept like a child-how he shed there the first tears he
had shed since his arrest, freely and without a check. His heart seemed
to bleed more at the idea of leaving the spot where Isabella lived, and
yet to live on himself, elsewhere, than his spirit had faltered at the
idea of certain death. Her last cruel words, and the proud spirit she
exhibited towards him, were constantly before his eyes.

“O,” said he, half aloud, “how I have worshipped, how adored that
fairest of God’s creatures!”

At moments he had thought that he saw through Isabella’s character-at
moments had truly believed that he might by assiduity, perhaps, if
favored by fortune, win her love, and, may be, her hand in marriage. At
any rate, with his light and buoyant heart, there was sunshine and hope
enough in the future to irradiate his soul with joy, until the last
scene in his drama of life, added to that of her last cold farewell!

He was soon informed that the vessel which was to take him to Spain
would sail on the following morning, and that no further time would be
permitted to him on the island. He resolved to write one last letter of
farewell to Isabella Gonzales, and then to depart; and calling upon the
turnkey for writing materials, which were now supplied to him, he wrote
as follows:”

“DEAR LADY: Strange circumstances, with which you are doubtless well
acquainted by this time, have changed my punishment from death to
banishment. Under ordinary circumstances it would hardly be called
banishment for any person to be sent from a foreign clime to the place
of his nativity; nor would it appear to be such to me, were it not that
I leave behind me the only being I have ever really loved-the idol
angel of my heart-she who has been to me life, soul, everything, until
now, when I am wretched beyond description; because without hope, all
things would be as darkness to the human heart.

“I need not review our brief acquaintanceship, or reiterate to you the
feelings I have already expressed. If you can judge between true love
and gallantry, you know whether I am sincere or otherwise. I could not
offer you wealth, Isabella Gonzales. I could not offer you rank. I have
no fame to share with you; but O, if it be the will of Heaven that
another should call you wife, I pray that he may love you as I have
done. I am not so selfish but that I can utter this prayer with all my
heart, and in the utmost sincerity.

“The object of this hasty scrawl is once more to say to you farewell;
for it is sweet to me even to address you. May God bless your dear
brother, who has done much to sustain me, bowed down as I have been
with misfortune, and broken in spirit; and may the especial blessing of
Heaven rest ever on and around you.

“This will ever be the nightly prayer of LORENZO BEZAN.”

When Isabella Gonzales received this note on the following day, its
author was nearly a dozen leagues at sea, bound for the port of Cadiz,
Spain! She hastily perused its contents again and again. looked off
upon the open sea, as though she might be able to recall him, threw
herself upon her couch, and wept bitter, scalding tears, until weary
nature caused her to sleep.

At last Ruez stole into her room quietly, and finding her asleep, and a
tear-drop glistening still upon her cheek, he kissed away the pearly
dew and awoke her once more to consciousness. He, too, had learned of
Captain Bezan’s sudden departure; and by the open letter in his
sister’s hand, to which he saw appended his dearly loved friend’s name,
he judged that her weeping had been caused by the knowledge that he had
left them-probably forever.

Lorenzo Bezan should have seen her then, in her almost transcendent
beauty, too proud, far too proud, to own even to herself that she loved
the poor soldier; yet her heart would thus unbidden and spontaneously
betray itself, in spite of all her proud calmness, and strong efforts
at self-control. The boy looked at her earnestly; twice he essayed to
speak, and then, as if some after thought had changed his purpose, he
kissed her again, and was silent.

“Well, brother, it seems that Captain Bezan has been liberated and
pardoned, after all,” said Isabella, with a voice of assumed
indifference.

“Yes, sister, but at a sad cost; for he has been banished to Spain.”

“How strange he was not shot, when so many fired at him.”

“Sister?”

“Well.”

“Can you keep a secret?”

“I think so, Ruez,” said Isabella, half smiling at the question of her
brother.

“Well, it’s not so very wonderful, since I drew the bullets from the
guns!”

And Ruez explained to her that he had secreted himself in the house,
with the hope that something might turn up to save his friend even yet,
and there he had found a chance to draw the bullets from the twelve
muskets. After he had told her, she threw her arms about his neck, and
said:

“You are a dear, good brother.”

“And for what, sister?”

“For saving Captain Bezan’s life; for otherwise he had been shot.”

“But why do you care so much about it, sister?” asked the boy,
seriously.

“O, nothing, only-that is, you know, Ruez, we owe Captain Bezan so much
ourselves for having hazarded his life for us all.”

Ruez turned away from his sister with an expression in his face that
made her start; for he began to read his sister’s heart, young as he
was, better than she knew it herself. He loved Lorenzo Bezan so dearly
himself-had learned to think so constantly of him, and to regard him
with such friendly consideration, that no influence of pride could in
the least affect him; and though he had sufficient penetration to
pierce through the subject so far as to realize that his dearly loved
friend regarded his sister with a most ardent and absorbing love, he
could not exactly understand the proud heart of Isabella, which, save
for its pride, would so freely return the condemned soldier’s
affection.

Well, time passed on in its ever-varying round. Lorenzo Bezan was on
his way to Spain, and Isabella and her brother filling nearly the same
round of occupation, either of amusement or self-imposed duty.
Occasionally General Harero called; but this was put a stop to, at
last, by Ruez’s pertinently asking him one evening how he came to order
the execution of Lorenzo Bezan to take place a full hour before the
period announced in the regular sentence signed by the
governor-general!

Ruez was not the first person who had put this question to him, and he
felt sore about it, for even Tacon himself had reprimanded him for the
deed. Thus realizing that his true character was known to Don Gonzales
and his family, he gave up the hope of winning Isabella Gonzales, or
rather the hope of sharing her father’s rich coffers, and quietly
withdrew himself from a field of action where he had gained nothing,
but had lost much, both as it regarded this family, and, owing to his
persecution of Captain Bezan, that of the army.

Isabella Gonzales became thoughtful and melancholy without exactly
knowing why. She avoided company, and often incurred her father’s
decided displeasure by absenting herself from the drawing-room when
there were visitors of importance. She seemed to be constantly in a
dreamy and moody state, and avoided all her former haunts and
companions. A skilful observer might have told her the cause of all
this, and yet, strange to say, so blind did her pride render her, that
she could not see, or at least never acknowledged even to herself, that
the absent soldier had aught to do with it.

Had not Isabella Gonzales treated Lorenzo Bezan as she did at their
last meeting, he would never have accepted the governor-general’s
pardon on the terms offered, nor life itself, if it separated him from
her he loved. But as it was, he seemed to feel that life had lost its
charm, ambition its incentive for him, and he cast himself forth upon
the troubled waters without compass or rudder. And it was precisely in
this spirit that he found himself upon the deck of the vessel, whose
white wings were wafting him now across the ocean.

He, too, was misanthropic and unhappy; he tried to reason with himself
that Isabella Gonzales was not worthy to render him thus miserable;
that she was a coquette-an unfeeling, though beautiful girl; that even
had he succeeded, and fortune favored him in his love, she would not
have loved him its his heart craved to be loved. But all this sophistry
was overthrown in a moment by the memory of one dear glance, when
Isabella, off her guard, and her usual hauteur of manner for the
instant, had looked through her eyes the whole truthfulness of her
soul; in short, when her heart, not her head, had spoken!

Alas! how few of us feel as we do; how few do as we feel!

Perhaps there is no better spot than on shipboard for a dreamer to be;
he has then plenty of time, plenty of space, plenty of theme, and every
surrounding, to turn his thoughts inward upon himself. Lorenzo Bezan
found this so. At times he looked down into the still depths of the
blue water, and longed for the repose that seemed to look up to him
from below the waves. He had thought, perhaps, too long upon this
subject one soft, calm evening, and had indeed forgotten himself, as it
were, and another moment would have seen the working of what seemed a
sort of irresistible charm to him, and he would have cast himself into
that deep, inviting oblivion!

Then a voice seemed to whisper Isabella’s name in his ear! He started,
looked about him, and awoke from the fearful charm that held him. It
was his good angel that breathed that name to him then, and saved him
from the curse of the suicide!

From that hour a strange feeling seemed to possess the young soldier.
Like him in Shakspeare’s “Seven Ages,” he passed from love to ambition.
A new charm seemed to awake to him in the future, not to the desertion
of his love, nor yet exactly to its promotion. An indefinite idea
seemed to move him that he must win fame, glory and renown; and yet he
hardly paused to think what the end of these would be; whether they
would ultimately bring him nearer to the proud girl of his hopes and
his love. Fame rang in his ears; the word seemed to fire his veins; he
was humble-he must be honored; he was poor-he must be rich; he was
unknown-he must be renowned! With such thoughts as these, his pulses
beat quicker, his eye flashed, and his check became flushed, and then
one tender thought of Isabella would change every current, and almost
moisten those bloodshot eyes with tears. Would to God that Lorenzo
Bezan could now but shed a tear-what gentle yet substantial relief it
would have afforded him.

Thus was the exiled soldier influenced; while Isabella Gonzales was, as
we have seen, still living on under the veil of her pride; unable,
apparently, for one single moment to draw the curtain, and look with
naked eye upon the real picture of her feelings, actions, and honest
affections. She felt, plain enough, that she was miserable; indeed the
flood of tears she daily shed betrayed this to her. But her proud
Castilian blood was the phase through which alone she saw, or could
see. It was impossible for her to banish Lorenzo Bezan from her mind;
but yet she stoutly refused to admit, even to herself, that she
regarded him with affection-he, a lowly soldier, a child of the camp, a
myrmidon of fortune-he a fit object for the love of Isabella Gonzales,
the belle of Havana, to whom princes had bowed? Preposterous!

Her brother, whose society she seemed to crave more than ever, said
nothing; he did not even mention the name of the absent one, but he
secretly moaned for him, until the pale color that had slightly tinged
his check began to fade, and Don Gonzales trembled for the boy’s life.
It was his second bereavement. His mother’s loss, scarcely yet
outgrown, had tried his gentle heart to its utmost tension; this new
bereavement to his sensitive mind, seemed really too much for him. A
strange sympathy existed between Isabella and the boy, who, though
Lorenzo Bezan’s name was never mentioned, yet seemed to know what each
other was thinking of.

But in the meantime, while these feelings were actuating Isabella and
her brother at Havana, Lorenzo Bezan had reached Cadiz, and was on his
way to the capital of Spain, Madrid.




CHAPTER XI.
THE PROMOTION.


We have already given the reader a sufficient idea of Lorenzo Bezan,
for him to understand that he was a person possessed of more than
ordinary manliness and personal beauty. A distinguished and chivalric
bearing was one of his main characteristics, and you could hardly have
passed him in a crowd, without noting his fine manly physical
appearance, and strikingly intelligent features. Fired with the new
ambition which we have referred to in the closing of the last chapter,
Lorenzo Bezan arrived in the capital of his native land, ready and
eager to engage in any enterprise that called for bravery and daring,
and which in return promised honor and preferment.

Tacon, governor-general of Cuba, had marked his qualities well, and
therefore wrote by the same conveyance that took the young soldier to
Spain, to the head of the war department, and told them of what stuff
he was composed, and hinted at the possibility of at once placing him
in the line of his rank, and of giving him, if possible, active service
to perform. Tacon’s opinion and wishes were highly respected at Madrid,
and Lorenzo Bezan found himself at once placed in the very position he
would have desired-the command of as fine a company, of the regular
service as the army could boast, and his rank and position thoroughly
restored.

There was just at that period a revolt of the southern and western
provinces of Spain, which, owing to inactivity on the part of
government, had actually ripened into a regularly organized rebellion
against the throne. News at last reached the queen that regular bodies
of troops had been raised and enlisted, under well known leaders, and
that unless instant efforts were made to suppress the rising, the whole
country would be shortly involved in civil war. In this emergency the
troops, such its could be spared, were at once detached from the
capital and sent to various points in the disaffected region to quell
the outbreak. Among the rest was the company of Lorenzo Bezan and two
others of the same regiment, and being the senior officer, young as he
was, he was placed in command of the battalion, and the post to which
he was to march at once, into the very heart of the disaffected
district.

Having arrived in the neighborhood of the spot to which his orders had
directed him, he threw his whole force, some less than three hundred
men, into one of the old Moorish fortifications, still extant, and with
the provisions and ammunition he had brought with him, entrenched
himself, and prepared to scour and examine the surrounding country. His
spies soon brought him intelligence of the defeat of two similar
commands to his own, sent out at the same time to meet the insurgents;
and, also, that their partial success had very naturally elated them in
the highest degree. That they were regularly organized into regiments,
with their stands of colors, and proper officers, and that one regiment
had been sent to take the fort where he was, and would shortly be in
the neighborhood.

Lorenzo Bezan was a thorough soldier; he looked to the details of all
the plans and orders he issued, so that when the enemy appeared in
sight, they found him ready to receive them. They were fully thrice his
number, but they had a bad cause and poor leaders, and he feared not
for the result. On they came, in the fullness of confidence, after
having already participated in two victories over the regular troops;
but they had, though a younger, yet a far better and more courageous
officer to deal with in Captain Bezan. The fight was long and bloody,
but ere night came on the insurgents were compelled to retire, after
having lost nearly one third of their number in the contest.

The camp of the insurgents was pitched some half mile from the old fort
occupied by Captain Bezan and his followers, just beneath the brow of a
sheltering undulation of ground. Night overshadowed the field, and it
was still as death over the battle field, when Captain Bezan, summoning
his followers, told them that the enemy lay yonder in sleep; they could
not anticipate a sally, and from a confidential spy he had ascertained
that they had not even set a sentinel.

“I shall lead you out this night to attack them; take only your
weapons. If we are defeated, we shall want nothing more; if victorious,
we shall return to our post and our munitions.”

He had lost scarcely two score of his men in the fight, protected as
they were by the walls of the fortress, while the besiegers were
entirely exposed to the fire of musketry, and the two small cannon they
had brought with them, and so they entered into the daring plan of
their commander with the utmost zeal. They were instructed as to the
plan more fully, and at midnight, as the last rays of the moon sank
below the horizon, they quietly filed forth from the fortress and
turned towards the insurgents’ camp. Slowly and silently they stole
across the plain, without note of drum or fife, and headed by their
young commander, until they reached the brow of the little elevation,
beyond which the enemy lay sleeping, some in tents, some on the open
field, and all unguarded.

The signal was given, and the small band of disciplined men fell upon
the camp. Lorenzo Bezan with some fifty picked followers sought the
head quarters of the camp, and having fought their way thither,
possessed themselves of the standards, and made prisoner of the leader
of the body of insurgents, and ere the morning sun had risen, the camp
was deserted, the enemy, totally defeated, had fled, or been taken
prisoners and bound, and the victorious little band of the queen’s
troops were again housed within the walls of the fortress.

But their fighting was not to end here; a second body of the enemy,
incensed as much by the loss of their comrades as elated by various
victories over other detachments of the army, fell upon them; but they
were met with such determined spirit and bravery, and so completely did
Lorenzo Bezan infuse his own manly and resolved spirit into the hearts
of his followers, that the second comers were routed, their banners
taken, and themselves dispersed. These two victories, however, had cost
him dear; half his little gallant band had lost their lives, and there
were treble their number of prisoners securely confined within the
fortress.

Fresh troops were despatched, in reply to his courier, to escort these
to the capital, and an order for himself and the rest of his command to
return to Madrid, forthwith. This summons was of course complied with,
and marching the remnant of his command to the capital, Captain Bezan
reported himself again at head quarters. Here he found his services had
been, if possible, overrated, and himself quite lionized. A major’s
commission awaited him, and the thanks of the queen were expressed to
him by the head of the department.

“A major,—one step is gained,” said the young soldier, to himself; “one
round in the ladder of fame has been surmounted; my eyes are now bent
upward!”

And how he dreamed that night of Cuba, of rank and wealth, and the
power and position they conferred-and still his eyes were bent upward!

With a brief period permitted for him to rest and recover from slight
wounds received in his late battles, Lorenzo, now Major Bezan, was
again ordered to the scene of trouble in the southern district, where
the insurgents, more successful with older officers sent against them,
had been again victorious, and were evidently gaining ground, both in
strength of purpose and numbers. This time he took with him a full
command of four companies, little less than four hundred men, and
departed under far better auspices than he had done before, resolved,
as at the outset, to lead his men where work was to be done, and to
lead them, too, on to victory or utter destruction! It was a fearful
resolve; but in his present state of feelings it accorded with the
spirit that seemed to actuate his soul.

But success does not always crown the most daring bravery, and twice
were Lorenzo Bezan and his followers worsted, though in no way
discouraged. But at last, after many weeks of toil and hardship, he was
again victorious, again routed twice his own number, again captured a
stand of colors, and again despatched his trophies to the feet of his
queen. The civil war then became general, and for nearly a year Lorenzo
Bezan and his followers were in the battle field. Victory seemed to
have marked him for a favorite, and his sword seemed invincible;
wherever he led, he infused his own daring and impetuous spirit into
the hearts of his followers, and where his plume waved in the fight,
there the enemy faltered.

A second and third victory crowned him within another promotion, and a
colonel’s commission was sent to the adventurous soldier after the hard
fought battles he had won for the queen. Once more he paused, and
whispered to himself:

“Another round in the ladder is gained! have patience, Lorenzo Bezan;
fame may yet be thine; she is thy only bride now; alas, alas, that it
should be so! that there cannot be one-one dearer than all the world
beside-to share with thee this renown and honor, this fame won by the
sword on the field of battle; one whose gentleness and love should be
the pillow on which to rest thy head and heart after the turmoil and
whirlwind of war has subsided!”

Scarcely a year had transpired since the condemned soldier had been
banished from Cuba, and now from a captaincy he had risen to wear the
star of a colonel. No wonder, then, that he thus soliloquized to
himself upon the theme of which he dreamed.

The life he led, the fierce contests he engaged in, had no effect in
hardening the heart of the young soldier: one thought, one single word,
when he permitted himself to pause and look back upon the past, would
change his whole spirit, and almost render him effeminate. At times his
thoughts, spite of himself, wandered far away over the blue waters to
that sunny isle of the tropics, where Isabella Gonzales dwelt, and then
his manly heart would heave more quickly, and his pulses beat swifter;
and sometimes a tear had wet his check as he recalled the memory of
Ruez, whom he had really loved nearly as well as he had done his proud
and beautiful sister. The boy’s nature, so gentle, affectionate and
truthful, and yet in emergency so manly and venturesome, as evinced in
his drawing the bullets from the guns that would else have taken the
life of Lorenzo Bezan, was a theme of oft recalled admiration and
regard to the young soldier.

Though he felt in his heart that Isabella Gonzales could never love
him, judging from the cold farewell that had at last separated them,
still fame seemed dear to him on her account, because it seemed to
bring him nearer to her, if not to raise a hope in his heart that she
might one day be his. At times, in the lonely hours of the night, alone
in his tent, he would apostrophize her angelic features, and sigh that
Heaven, which had sent so sweet a mould in human form, should have
imbued it with a spirit so haughty, a soul so proud as to mar the
exquisite creation.

“I have thought,” he amused to himself, “I that I knew her-that the
bright loveliness of her soul would dazzle and outshine the pride that
chance had sown there-that if boldly and truly wooed, she would in turn
boldly and truly love. It seemed to me, that it was the first barrier
only that must he carried by assault, and after that I felt sure that
love like mine would soon possess the citadel of her heart. But I was
foolish, self-confident, and perhaps have deserved defeat. It may be
so, but Isabella Gonzales shall see that the humble captain of
infantry, who would hardly be tolerated, so lowly and humble was he,
will command, ere long, at least, some degree of respect by the
position that his sword shall win for him. Ay, and General Harero, too,
may find me composed of better metal than he supposed. There is one
truthful, gentle and loving spirit that will sympathize with me. I know
and feel that; Ruez, my boy, may Heaven bless thee!”

“Count Basterio, what sort of a person is this Colonel Bezan, whose
sword has been invincible among the rebels, and who has sent us two
stand of colors, taken by himself?” asked the queen, of one of her
principal courtiers, one day.

“Your majesty, I have, never seen him,” answered the count, “but I’m
told he’s a grim old war-horse, covered with scars gained in your
majesty’s service.”

“Just as I had thought he must be,” continued the queen, “but some one
intimated to us yesterday that he was young, quite young, and of noble
family, Count Basterio.”

“He has displayed too much knowledge of warfare to be very young, your
majesty,” said the count, “and has performed prodigies during this
revolt, with only a handful of men.”

“That is partly what has so much interested me. I sent to the war
office yesterday to know about him, and it was only recorded that he
had been sent from Cuba. None of the heads of the department remembered
to have seen him at all.”

“I saw by the Gazette that he would return to Madrid with his regiment
to-day,” said the count, “when, if your majesty desires it, I will seek
out this Colonel Bezan, and bring him to you.”

“Do so; for we would know all our subjects who are gallant and
deserving, and I am sure this officer must be both, from what I have
already been able to learn.”

“Your wish shall be obeyed, your majesty,” said the obsequious
courtier, bowing low, and turning to a lady of the court, hard by,
began to chat about how this old “son of a gun,” this specimen of the
battle-field would be astonished at the presence of his queen.

“He’s all covered with scars, you say?” asked one of the ladies.

“Ay, senorita, from his forehead to his very feet,” was the reply.

“It will be immensely curious to see him; but he must look
terrifically.”

“That’s true,” added the count; “he’s grizzly and rough, but very
honest.”

“Can’t you have him muzzled,” suggested a gay little senorita, smiling.

“Never fear for his teeth, I wear a rapier,” added the count,
pompously.

“But seriously, where’s he from?”

“Of some good family in the middle province, I understand.”

“O, he’s a gentleman, then, and not a professional cut-throat?” asked
another.

“I believe so,” said the courtier.

“That’s some consolation,” was the rejoinder to the count’s reply.

While the merits of Lorenzo Bezan were thus being discussed, he was
marching his regiment towards the capital, after a year’s campaign of
hard fighting; and the Gazette was right in its announcement, for he
entered the capital on the evening designated, and occupied the
regularly assigned barracks for his men.




CHAPTER XII.
THE QUEEN AND THE SOLDIER.


It was a noble and brilliant presence into which Lorenzo Bezan was
summoned on the day following his arrival from the seat of war. Dons
and senoras of proud titles and rich estates, the high officials of the
court, the prime ministers the maids of honor, the gayly dressed pages
and men-at-arms, all combined to render the scene one of most striking
effect.

The young soldier was fresh from the field; hard service and exposure
had deepened the olive tint of his clear complexion to a deep nut
brown, and his beard was unshaven, and gave a fine classical effect to
his handsome but melancholy features. The bright clearness of his
intelligent eye seemed to those who looked upon him there, to reflect
the battles, sieges and victories that the gallant soldier had so
lately participated in. Though neat and clean in appearance, the
somewhat sudden summons he had received, led him to appear before the
court in his battle dress, and the same sword hung by his side that had
so often reeked with the enemy’s blood, and flashed in the van of
battle.

There was no hauteur in his bearing; his form was erect and military;
there was no self-sufficiency or pride in his expression; but a calm,
steady purpose of soul alone was revealed by the countenance that a
hundred curious eyes now gazed upon. More than one heart beat quicker
among the lovely throng of ladies, as they gazed upon the young hero.
More than one kindly glance was bestowed upon him; but he was
impervious to the shafts of Cupid; he could never suffer again; he
could love but one, and she was far away from here.

Lorenzo Bezan had never been at court. True that his father, and indeed
his elder brother, and other branches of the house had the entree at
court; but his early connection with the army, and a naturally retiring
disposition, had prevented his ever having been presented, and he now
stood there for the first time. The queen was not present when he first
entered, but she now appeared and took her seat of state. Untaught in
court etiquette, yet it came perfectly natural for Lorenzo Bezan to
kneel before her majesty, which he did immediately, and was graciously
bidden to rise.

“Count Basterio,” said the queen, “where is this Colonel Bezan, whom
you were to bring to us to-day? have you forgotten your commission,
sir?”

“Your majesty, he stands before you,” replied the complaisant courtier.

“Where, count?”

“Your majesty, here,” said the courtier, pointing more directly to our
hero.

“This youth, t

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