Kitabı oku: «The Spanish Cavalier: A Story of Seville», sayfa 10

CHAPTER XXIV.
A FRIEND

The cause of Lucius Lepine's unexpected reappearance at Seville must be briefly explained. While on his journey towards Madrid, to which city Mr. Passmore had sent his clerk to transact some business, Lucius had accidentally heard that the merchant to whom he was going had actually passed him on the road, having made up his mind to travel to Seville in order to have a personal interview with the manufacturer. As there would consequently be no use in Lepine's prosecuting his journey, he returned at once to Seville, in time, as we have seen, to meet Inez a few minutes after she had quitted the governor's gate.

As Inez had almost swooned, the first care of Lucius was to stop an empty vehicle which chanced to be passing, in order that the young lady might be at once conveyed to her home. Lucius would not have so violated Spanish decorum as to have accompanied Inez in the carriage, had not her state of utter prostration made his presence needful. The poor girl was scarcely sensible of anything that was passing around her when Lucius gently lifted her into the carriage. He bade the driver stop at the nearest fountain, and brought from it water to revive the fainting maiden. Before the Calle de San José was reached, Inez had so far recovered herself as to recognize her brother's friend, and to catch a gleam of hope from his opportune return to the city.

"You will not desert Alcala? you will at least try to see him?" faltered Inez de Aguilera.

"You may trust me," was the Englishman's reply.

And Inez did trust young Lepine. It was with the confidence that a sister might have felt in a brother's protecting care that she leant on his strong arm to stay her feeble steps when she re-entered her home. Necessity and a common sorrow had to a great degree broken down the barrier of reserve between Alcala's sister and his English friend. Inez found the patio empty; Teresa was in attendance on her mistress in a different part of the mansion.

Inez and Lepine seated themselves near the fountain, and there, in trembling tones, Inez gave a full account to her companion of much that had passed on that, to her, most eventful day. The maiden told of the discovery of the treasure, and pointed, as she did so, to the spot whence it had been dug out by herself and Chico. Inez did not dwell long on her own imprisonment; she did not care to fix the attention of her indignant hearer on what only concerned herself. Of Alcala's subsequent arrest his sister could only speak through tears. Inez lightly glanced at her own unsuccessful efforts to obtain the help of friends for Alcala, and would hardly have mentioned them at all, had she not, from maidenly instinct, wished to account for her own solitary wanderings so far from her home.

"And now that you know all, señor," said Inez, raising for a moment her dark tearful eyes to the face of Lepine, "can you – will you aid us?"

"If I do not, most assuredly it will not be will but power that is wanting," replied Lucius, who had been deeply interested both by the narrative and by the grief of the artless narrator.

"Will you not visit Alcala in his prison? will you not stir up your English friends to save him?"

Lucius was silent for a few seconds, revolving the difficulties before him, ere he returned an answer. The young man knew how utterly useless it would be to attempt to enlist the aid of Mr. Passmore, even were that aid of any value. It was more than doubtful whether any interference on the part of Englishmen would avail even to mitigate punishment inflicted on one who was not a British subject. Spanish jealousy might even resent a foreigner's intervention. Lucius could hardly bear to quench the hope which his presence had kindled, but it would have been more cruel to raise expectations which must end in keen disappointment. England might reprobate the way in which the Spanish government dealt with the Spanish people; she might view with indignation the cruelty of the oppressor; but when his arm was raised to strike an innocent victim, she had no right to cry, "Hold! hold!" Lucius felt that he could do nothing to free Alcala from his prison; it was doubtful whether he would even be permitted to see him there.

"I do not think that any stranger would be suffered to visit your brother to-day, señorita," said Lucius at last; "the evening is now coming on, and it is too late for me to obtain an order of admission. I shall certainly do my utmost to procure one ere long. But it seems to me," Lucius continued, "that it is of the utmost importance to your brother that he should be furnished with the means of securing good legal advice, and that fair play which, I fear, is not always shown to those whose purses are empty."

There was something almost reproachful in the sad tone of Inez as she replied, "Think you, señor, that gold would be spared – if we had it to give?"

"There is, as you have told me just now, señorita, a considerable amount of valuable property of which you have been basely robbed. It appears to me that our first efforts must be directed to recovering that property."

"I fear that its recovery is impossible – at least to us, señor," replied Inez. "No one cares to take up our cause. I suspect that the alguazils themselves have been bribed. How can we, poor helpless ladies, track out a robber, as Alcala, if free, might have done?"

"Think you that this Chico will remain in Seville to bear witness against your brother?" asked Lucius.

"I should doubt it," replied Inez. "I believe that Chico only accused Alcala in order to prevent his being able to take any measures to recover the jewels and gold."

"This is the conclusion to which I also have come," said Lepine. "Chico is not likely to stop long in Seville, where he could not, without awaking suspicion, dispose of such gems as you have described. He will doubtless be leaving this city; but he was in it but a few hours ago, and cannot as yet be far off. Men cannot travel in Spain with the railroad speed that they do in my country. Have you any idea, señorita, whether Chico has any friends or connections in Seville, in whose house he might be likely to lurk for awhile with his ill-gotten spoil?"

Inez reflected for a brief space. "A cousin of Chico keeps the Posada de Quesada," she said; "it is in the entrance of the Dehesa, about a mile beyond the city."

"I know it – I know it!" cried Lepine, who had often in his Sunday rambles noticed the lone picturesque little inn; "it is in a lane that opens on the highroad to Xeres."

"My brother once passed a night there," continued the maiden; "from that inn he rode forth to the dreadful Plaza de Toros. Chico had mentioned the posada to Alcala, on account of having a relative there. But Alcala has told me that he would never set foot in that place again, for that it had seemed to him like a haunt of robbers."

"Which makes it all the more likely that the villain Chico may at this moment be lying concealed there!" cried Lucius eagerly. "Señorita, I will sleep in that posada to-night!"

The face of Inez expressed anxiety and alarm. "There might be danger, señor, in your doing so; you know not what things happen in Spain," she said, lowering her voice.

Lucius smiled, the free joyous smile of a light-hearted youth to whom anything would be welcome that might come in the shape of adventure. He was one to whom

 
"If a path be dangerous known,
The danger's self is lure alone."
 

What an attractive episode in a life given to dull counting-house drudgery would be some exploit performed in a romantic Spanish posada! Consideration for his widowed mother, of whom he was the earthly stay, would have kept Lucius from wantonly risking his safety for mere amusement; but to run some risk for the sake of a friend was quite a different thing. Even conscience made no protest, so inclination might be gratified without violation of duty.

Lucius now rose and took his leave of the young desolate being to whom he was more than ever anxious to act the part of a brother. It cannot be denied that the pleasure of serving Inez was a great additional stimulus to the Englishman's efforts to help his friend. As Lucius quitted the patio on the one side, it was entered on the other by Teresa, who caught sight of the visitor's form ere it disappeared under the archway.

"Donna Inez!" exclaimed the old duenna, almost choking with indignation, "how dare that Inglesito presume to enter a house of sorrow like this! How can you – the grand-daughter of Don Pedro de Aguilera – you, a high-born lady of Andalusia, brought up as becomes your rank – suffer the shadow of that foreign heretic to darken this threshold! We have had nothing but misery since that young man came near us with his deceiving words and his dangerous book! If I'd my will" – the duenna clenched her hands and stretched forth her skinny arms as she spoke – "I'd fling both the heretic and his book into the Guadalquivir!"

"Oh! hush! hush!" exclaimed Inez de Aguilera; "would you speak thus of the only protector whom we have found in Seville, the only being who comes forward to help us when all the rest of the world stand back?"

Teresa's passion was cooling a little, but her Spanish pride recoiled from the idea that the family whom she served should need either help or protection from an English clerk in the employ of Messrs. Passmore and Perkins.

"The house of De Aguilera has many friends in Seville," said the ancient retainer.

"Where are these friends?" exclaimed Inez with emotion. "I have been to Donna Maria – to her who was my mother's playmate in childhood, and companion in youth. She refused even to see me!"

Teresa lifted up her hands, and uttered an exclamation of indignant surprise.

"I went then to Donna Antonia," continued Inez, while Teresa bent eagerly forward to listen, for the duenna's chief hopes for Alcala lay in that quarter; "Antonia mocked my misery, rejected my prayer, though I asked for her aid on my knees!"

"On your knees!" echoed Teresa in the shrillest of tones; "an Aguilera kneel to a daughter of the upstart, money-making, time-serving, poor-grinding Lopez de Rivadeo! Donna Inez! Donna Inez! how could you have stooped so low?"

"I forgot that I was an Aguilera – I only felt that I was a woman," said Inez. "O Teresa, what has a broken-hearted girl like me to do with pride? May it not be our pride that has drawn Heaven's displeasure upon us? Nay, you must hear me, Teresa. Alcala has shown to me in his Book the words of our heavenly Master, 'Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly.' If He spake thus, He who is Lord of heaven and earth, shall we, poor children of dust, be proud of title or birth? Is not such pride a grievous sin in His sight?"

"Do you quote to me out of the Protestant's book?" said Teresa bitterly.

"It is God's book," returned Inez; "I have felt certain of that since its blessed words have sounded in my heart as they have sounded to-day! These words have been my comfort, my strength, my support under trials which, without them, would have utterly crushed me. And now it is one who is guided by that book who stands by us when every other mortal deserts us. Don Lucius has promised to do all in his power to aid us; he will try his utmost to track out the man who has robbed us."

"Robbed us!" repeated Teresa, her intense curiosity getting the better of every other feeling; "you have spoken before of Chico's stealing property, but you have never fully explained what that property was."

"The treasure which my grandfather had buried under the orange-trees yonder, – a treasure accidentally discovered by me," answered Inez.

An expression of eager hope and pleasure flashed across the face of Teresa. "The golden goblet?" she hurriedly asked.

"That, and money, and my grandmother's jewels besides."

Teresa clasped her hands, and uttered a cry of delight.

"But all are gone – Chico has carried all away," said Inez sadly; "our only hope of recovering anything is through the generous exertions of my brother's English friend; Don Lucius will try to find out and restore the lost treasure."

"Ah! if the Inglesito do that," exclaimed the duenna, "never again will Teresa speak a word against him or his book! Restore the treasure – the pearls which I myself have clasped round the señora's neck, the brilliants which she wore at her bridal, the goblet out of which I've seen Don Pedro de Aguilera so often quaff the red wine! Oh! that goblet of chased gold," continued the old retainer, kindling into enthusiasm as she recalled the days of wealth and splendour with thought of which that cup was connected – "I'd rather have that inestimable treasure restored to the family than – than even the lock of Santa Veronica's hair!"

CHAPTER XXV.
WARNINGS

I must report my return to Mr. Passmore, and procure a few necessaries from my lodgings, before I start for the Posada de Quesada," said Lucius to himself, as he emerged from the richly sculptured gateway of the house of the Aguileras.

Making this detour necessarily occupied a considerable time, and took the young Englishman through some of the most thickly populated parts of Seville. It seemed to Lucius as if all the world were abroad, – except, perhaps, the priests and monks, who were rather conspicuous by their absence. Lucius had sometimes difficulty in making his way along the narrow crowded streets. In many places knots of people were collected together, conversing in subdued tones, but with more animation of gesture than is common with the stately and solemn Spaniard. The beggar seemed to forget to beg; the muleteer let the heavily-laden beast on which he was mounted pick his own way, unguided, over the large rough stones which paved the road, while the rider eagerly listened to words exchanged between men who to him were strangers. Had not the mind of Lepine been preoccupied with forming plans, and revolving his chances of success in his coming adventure, he must have noticed that on that Saturday afternoon in September one topic of common interest engaged the attention of the inhabitants of Seville, whether of high or low degree. It might be a bull-fight announced for the morrow, or some grand ceremonial of the Romish Church which was to come off on the following day.

The air was still sultry, though the greatest heat of the afternoon was over. Lucius, feeling thirsty, stopped to buy a few oranges of an old woman who sat with her basket before her at the corner of one of the streets. Another old crone who crouched close to her neighbour, with a covered basket on her knee, watched the Englishman, as he made his trifling purchase, with keen black eyes which glittered like beads from a face bronzed by sun and wind to almost African darkness.

"Will you not buy my wares too, señor?" she said in deep guttural tones, raising the cover of her basket, in which Lucius saw several knives. The appearance of the scimitar-shaped clasp-knife, so commonly used among Spaniards whether for purposes peaceful or warlike, was of course familiar to Lucius; but the knives in the basket were of a size which he had never seen before. They were nearly a foot in length, making allowance for the curve, and such a knife when unclasped looked a truly formidable weapon.

"Thanks; I need not such wares," said Lucius.

"You will need one, my goodly youth, and that ere twenty-four hours be over," muttered the dark-visaged woman, whose appearance and voice reminded Lucius of those of the witches who met Macbeth on the blasted heath. "Better the sharp than the sweet; better the steel at the side than the fruit at the lip! There is wild work before thee."

The words of the old crone sounded like a prophecy of evil to come; but Lucius, who was no Spaniard, and little troubled with superstition, only smiled and passed on.

"Perhaps, after all, I might as well have taken the old gipsy's advice," thought Lucius, "and had something sharper and stronger than a pencil-case upon me before going to pass the night in that lone Spanish posada." The young man was half disposed to retrace his steps and make the purchase; he might have done so, had not the state of his funds been so low that it would have inconvenienced him to expend even a few dollars on a long Spanish knife.

Lepine found Mr. Passmore at his private residence, his business hours closing earlier on Saturdays than on other days of the week.

"Glad to see you back, Lepine," said the manufacturer, extending to Lucius a thick flabby hand, which never closed with a kindly pressure.

"I have returned earlier – "

"Oh, you need not explain; I know why you are at Seville instead of Madrid," interrupted Mr. Passmore. "Tasco has been with me for an hour, and all that affair is settled. I have never been so bothered with business in all my life as during these two days of your absence. As for that Miguel, whom I've got in place of the bull-fighting don, what with his bad Spanish" (that was to say, Spanish unintelligible to his English employer), "his stupidity, and his laziness, he has almost driven me crazy. I don't know whether Miguel is most ignorant, superstitious, or idle. I had determined not to have a hidalgo again as a clerk, so was content to try the son of a barber; but I soon found out my mistake. Don Alcala de Aguilera, though he might wear his sombrero with the air of a prince, had at least brains under the brim. I've half a mind," continued Passmore, lolling back in his easy-chair, "I've half a mind to ascertain whether the don is likely soon to get over the effects of his poke from the bull, and would like to come back to his desk. His fall may have brought down his pride a bit, and made him more willing to do my work and pocket my pay, like a sensible man. I'd sooner take Aguilera back to my office than endure longer this oily-fingered, garlic-scented mule of a Miguel."

"You are not aware then," said Lucius, "that Don Alcala has unhappily been arrested and taken to prison."

Passmore received the intelligence with a whistle of surprise. "Arrested for debt?" he inquired.

"No; not for debt," replied Lucius.

"If not for debt, what then?" cried Passmore. "What new prank of folly has the don managed to play when one thought him safe on a sick-bed? I bet Aguilera has been meddling with politics and burning his fingers, as every one must do who tries to fish raisins out of such a seething caldron as is always fizzing and boiling over in Spain. What was Aguilera's offence? Was it drinking in physic a health to Prim?"

"No, sir," replied the clerk; "my friend was arrested in his sick-room for merely reading the Scriptures to his household!"

I will not say that Peter Passmore sprang to his feet, for the manufacturer's bulky frame was never very quick in its movements, but he rose from his easy-chair with an exclamation by no means reverential. "He's insane, utterly insane!" cried the irritated man, "and may as well be shut up in prison as in a lunatic asylum. Was it not enough for this Spaniard narrowly to escape throwing away life by acting the picador, that he must throw away liberty also by acting the preacher?"

"I hope, sir, that you do not compare the two acts," said Lucius, with spirit.

"Both have the same root, I warrant you; both spring out of pride, the desire to be talked of," said Passmore. "Reading the Scriptures indeed! Don Alcala may make a fine clerk, he may make a superb picador (though an unlucky one, by the way), but nothing can persuade me that he can ever make a quiet, sober, matter-of-fact Protestant, like myself;" and Passmore subsided into his chair.

No; assuredly nothing could have transformed Alcala into the self-complacent worshipper of Mammon, who assumed to himself the title of a Protestant Christian.

"I cannot see why Spaniards should not be again what their fathers were," said Lepine. "This land has had many martyrs."

"I've no doubt of it, no doubt of it, my lad. Martyrs presuppose murderers, and Spain has never been lacking in them. I'm a Briton, and have no fancy to be either murderer or martyr. That reminds me," continued Passmore, "of what Tasco has been telling me of the state of affairs in Madrid. Clouds are gathering there pretty thick, and wise men will get under shelter when they hear the thunder rumbling. If I were not tied to a business like this, I'd be off to old England; but an ironware manufactory is a pretty heavy anchor to drag. It's just as well to be armed, however; I've to-day bought a brace of revolvers. The proverb says that an Englishman's house is his castle, so I'll have artillery for mine. Ho, ho, ho! And while I think of it, Lepine, you can have my old pistol if you like, as I am provided with others." Here Passmore opened a drawer in his table, and took out rather a rusty-looking weapon, with gunpowder-flask, and bag of bullets. "You go to and fro day and night through these streets of Seville, where ruffians think no more of sticking a knife into a man than of paring a turnip; it's just as well to have with you a friend who can speak for you, if need be, in a language even Spaniards can understand. Take the pistol; you may need it before twenty-four hours are over."

Lepine could not help noting as a curious coincidence that the warning of the dark woman should be repeated in almost the same words by his English employer. The young man, bound on a dangerous mission, gladly accepted the proffered weapon.

"Now mind that you neither blow out your own brains nor those of any one else without necessity," said Peter Passmore, as he handed the pistol to Lepine. "I'd not have made such a present," he added, with his explosive laugh, "to Don Alcala de Aguilera."