Chapter II (2)

“Heathen dog, your deceit will end here with your life,” and struck a blow which the other escaped by throwing himself on his back.

The mute’s mouth worked spasmodically in his seeming efforts to enunciate, and he eagerly directed their attention to the path they had just descended. Hilo caught his meaning.

“Watch him well,” he exclaimed, and bounded up the steep hill side.

The peasant was found after a short search, standing at the narrow entrance of a cavern.

“Here, my good man,” the Spaniard said, showing him a gold piece. “It goes against our conscience to take any thing from a poor fellow like you.”

At this gracious speech the Portuguese came forward with alacrity, and Hilo eyed him keenly.

“In the king’s name I arrest you, Count de Torrevedros!” he cried on a sudden, seizing the viceroy as he spoke.

The cowardly governor made no resistance, but looking toward his slave whom the captain had by this time driven unwillingly to the spot.

“Wretch!” he exclaimed, “you have betrayed your master, and I would kill you if I had a sword.”

“We owe him a grudge ourselves,” Carlo muttered, and passing his short blade through the Moor’s body, threw it upon the rocks.

“Spare my life, señores!” the alarmed count cried, trembling and falling on his face. “I will give you double the sum offered for me by your marquis—double the sum—”

“Get up, Viceroy of Tercera,” Hilo answered, contemptuously touching him with his foot.

“Show us where your gold is, and you may go,” Wolfang eagerly put in. But the other put him aside.

“Bargain with Santa Cruz for your own head, I choose not to risk mine for a few extra ducats,” he said to his avaricious companion, while securing Torrevedros. And grumbling after his usual fashion, the Captain was obliged to submit.

* * * * *

The Commandant de Chaste, in the little village of Nostre Dame de Loup, saw nothing before him but ruin of one sort or another. Partly out of friendship, and partly to save Hilo, by a comprehensive treaty, the two maîtres-de-camp, had urged upon the marquis, the policy of securing a peaceful surrender on the part of the French general, rather than drive to despair, the handful of gentlemen remaining in the illy-fortified town. Once a secret messenger carried a note, in which, under cover of solicitude for his safety, in the event of falling into the power of Santa-Cruz, a surrender was proposed, but met with so little favor from the dauntless old knight, their ambassador found no inconvenience in keeping in mind the caustic answer.

“We must see him in person,” Don Pedro said.—And the next morning the maîtres-de-camp rode over together, under a flag of truce.

The gaunt visages of the cavaliers in the commandant’s ante-room, showed the strait to which they were reduced, but they had lost nothing of their native courtesy, and were all armed from head to heel, ready to repel an assault at a moment’s warning. De Chaste himself laid aside his helmet in honor to his guests, who lost no time in disclosing their errand, when the others had withdrawn. It had been agreed beforehand, that Padilh should relate the leading features of their story in order to afford a basis for the consequent urgency of the surrender they came to propose. The commandant heard the knight through in grave silence: at the end he mused awhile and said:

“His name served him in good stead once, for with any other he would have been hanged at my yard-arm for mutiny. It may not be known to you, messires, the wife of the elder De Ladron, was my sister.”

“Ha!” Inique ejaculated, with a sudden red spot in either sallow cheek.

But the calm voice of the old knight, promptly reassured him.

“You are endeavoring to retrieve the past, monseigneur, and I am no intermeddler. When you have cleared your conscience, M. de Padilh here, and I, will talk over the disposition of our unfortunate nephew. For the rest I submit to the necessity of the case and the counsel of my companions in arms, and to-morrow will send an envoy to settle conditions of surrender.” With which success, the Spanish cavaliers were well satisfied.

It was an unlucky choice on the part of the commandant in keeping his promise, to appoint Du Vict, the same whose blunt speech formerly increased the viceroy’s enmity to the French. That hotheaded cavalier proposed terms of advantage, where there was cause to be thankful for the reception of any terms at all.

“Tell your commandant I will send him answer by fifteen hundred fighting men,” Santa-Cruz cried in a rage, and instantly gave orders for the march of his infantry.

At this crisis, when the marquis refused to halt an hour, a courier was dispatched in haste by Padilh to warn the French of their danger, and the unhappy general, heart-broken at his disasters, and deserted by all but a remnant of his army, struggled no longer against his fate. A cavalier of milder temper was promptly dispatched to accede to any honorable capitulation, and meeting the Spanish vanguard half way from Angra, concluded a treaty by which a free passage was provided to France, and every gentleman suffered to retain his sword.

Inique himself, rode back with the ambassador to console the gray-haired soldier, and it was while returning from Dame de Loup, his assassination occurred. Had he delayed an hour, the deadly spot might have been safely passed, for within that period De Chaste marched out of his intrenchments, and into the Spanish camp, accompanied by his handful of Frenchmen.

Two purposes now occupied the attention of Santa-Cruz; discovering the assassin of his maître-de-camp, and securing the person of the late viceroy of the island, for each of which services, he offered a reward of five hundred ducats, and a free-conduct to the parties if desired. There was no lack of competitors for the latter prize, and one of these exploring detachments, headed by a corporal, penetrated to the mouth of the cavern at which the Moor lay, not many hours after the capture of his master.

The mute had enough vitality remaining, to motion he had things of consequence to relate, and a French deserter recognizing the count’s slave, restored his strength temporarily, by a draught from his flask.

“We must take the infidel down to Angra, my men,” the corporal said, after putting his ear close to the mouth of the Moor. “By St. Boniface! we came out to fish for minnows, and catch silverfish.”

After nightfall of the same day, with their customary _insouciance_, the captors of Terrevedros conducted that unhappy nobleman, bareheaded, his wrists bound behind him, and in a peasant’s dress, into the presence of the vindictive marquis, who loaded him with epithets of contempt, and threats of a speedy end. Extremity of danger occasionally exalts a coward into a hero for the time being, and the only words spoken by the count, were uttered with a dignity which astonished the Spanish cavaliers present.

“I am content to die,” he said calmly, “since at least, I have retained strength enough to prefer doing homage to the devil, than to that perfidious tyrant, the king of Spain.”

“He has signed his own death warrant, as you are all witnesses, Señores,” the marquis cried, scarce restraining his anger to words. “Let him be put in chains until a day is appointed for the traitor’s execution.”

Thus, within the walls of Angra, were gathered, in partial ignorance of such propinquity, the chief personages of this history; and there leaving them, the narrative transfers itself from the Azores to Spain, to a castle opposite a keep, in brief, where the fancy of faithful Sir Pedro was wont to stray nightly.

It may be assumed a rule in authorship, that no reader is to be introduced into a heroine’s sick room; that obliging personage should always be met at the street-door as a lover might, by the physician, who good-naturedly preserves his romance by disclosing none of the disagreeables up stairs.—But much may be made of a convalescent. The open windows inhale the blessed air of heaven, to replace the nauseous smell of drugs, and where the tumbler with a spoon in it, flanked by a labelled phial or two, stood on the table, somebody has set a bouquet of rosebuds and verbena, and a glass plate of cool grapes: moreover every one smiles now, the doctor ceases to shake that solemn head of his, and fears no longer, waylaying and cross questioning on the stair, and you, yourself, lie still in a state of placid pleasure, and watch the preparations for your comfort, with the sole member of your physical system inclined to be active.

So, it was Doña Viola lay after the subjugation of the fever which had begun to show its delirious power in Don Pedro’s presence, and before the knight reached Lisbon, was extorting from the girl’s innocent lips, exclamations, equally of denunciation and passionate love for the graceless Hilo.

What would become of us in sickness, ladies, deprived of your attendance?—what would become of yourselves, if it did not come natural to you all from the finest lady downward, termagant and gentle alike, to smooth pillows, decant medicine, and perform numberless offices in no respect agreeable, but with the most exquisite gentleness and devotion.

Doña Hermosa, (may her memory be kept green!) suffered no one to overhear poor Viola’s ravings, but the solemn parish physician, (notwithstanding whom, she recovered,) and a trusty maid-servant; and when the crisis had passed, prepared with her own hands, delicacies of every kind found in her recipe book. Viola showed her sense of such unaccustomed petting, poor child, by tasting every thing and smiling feebly, and Doña Hermosa, woman-like, felt her charge every day, growing more into her heart, by reason of her very helplessness and docility. After a little, the elder lady laid herself out to rival Scheherazade, and told the invalid all sorts of pleasant stories to while away the time, varied with readings from the half dozen books constituting the knight’s library: she left nothing undone, which might remove the indefinably sad expression about her young guest’s mouth, and coax her thoughts into some other channel than that in which they seemed commonly to run. And I am of opinion if any diversion of the sort had been practicable at the time, the occupation to which these ladies devoted part of one week, rummaging the stores of curiosities, first in the castle and afterward in Don Pedro’s lesser keep, would have served the desired purpose. During this period, Señora Padilh showed Señorita Inique her wedding dress, (of course,) and afterward the very doublet in which Don Pedro had adorned himself with unusual finery, at the same auspicious era. She drew the arras aside and exhibited it, hanging a little apart from its more homely fellows, with much pride, thinking all the time what the dear old knight was that moment doing, and whether he had looked at it often, and with the same happy associations she now did, when he was at home: and when Viola walked on, her interest in the knight’s wardrobe being naturally limited, she stroked the velvet softly with one white hand, and looking quickly around, raised the sleeve to her lips twice at least.

It was a silly action, of course, for a lady of her time of life—she was nearly thirty now—but who of us has not done more foolish things with less cause?—and there is something, so altogether winning and admirable in the untutored fealty of the sex for ours, when allowed to appear, that I can’t help despising the man who makes the pretty weaknesses of a wife or sweetheart, a target for his shallow wit.

The wife of our knight was so occupied with her thoughts, that she did not at first observe Viola, who had retired to the embrasure of a window, and by the position of her head—she stood with her face directed to a landscape without, but cognizant of nothing out of her own brain—was quietly weeping.

A milk-and-water heroine, always melancholy, and shedding a profusion of tears to evince sensibility, is the reasonable abhorrence of every sensible reader. But Doña Viola was not of this kind, as the countess well knew. That kind soul reproached herself secretly for broaching a subject likely to recall unhappy recollections in the breast of her charge, and said something to that effect, while drawing an arm caressingly around her.

“You do yourself injustice, dear lady Hermosa,” Viola said after an interval, “nothing we have seen or said, has earned me any pain. You know my past history,” she added, “and what a ban has been laid upon my future, by recent events, and should not wonder much at my yielding to grief whenever your attention is withdrawn.”

“You must endeavor, poor little dove, to let your wounds heal, and forget the author of them,” the countess answered compassionately, scarcely knowing what to say.

Doña Viola looked at her friend with a faint smile.

“Did I mention him frequently in my delirium?” she asked rather abruptly.

“Why yes,” Doña Hermosa replied, hesitatingly.

“Dear cousin,” Viola cried quickly, “be assured of this; Señor de Ladron is nothing to me: not a particle of the affection, I blush now to have entertained for him, remains. You see, I speak quite calmly of it; I could not have done so prior to the fever, which has apparently revolutionized my mind, but in truth, only made the climax of an unhappy passion, after which, comes this quiet.”

“Heaven be praised!” the countess exclaimed, with a sense of great relief.

“Yes, the saints are my witness, I loved him not obstinately but dutifully, and until immediately preceding the return of Don Augustino to Madrid, when the wickedness of the steps he took to annul our betrothment, first came to my knowledge, (and crazed me, I believe,) I had always believed him faithful to the letter, if not to the spirit, of our ill-advised contract: for he never once made an appeal, which self-respect would have compelled me to acquiesce in, had I loved him thrice as much. The most I did, was to suspect his coolness, but I easily found excuse for that, as any woman would, and for many painful scenes which I thought time and marriage would remedy. I purposed being a good wife to him.”

“Angels of mercy!” her friend broke in. “Did you receive no notes, no messages from him, insisting upon the contract being annulled!”

“None,” Viola answered. “Whatever I may have said to Don Pedro and yourself, in delirium, the truth is, as I have just related it.”

“Then, there has been very, very wicked work.” Hermosa exclaimed, with extraordinary vehemence for so placid a disposition.

“Oh that I were a man—a knight. Oh, that Don Pedro, or even Señor Inique, were here to ferret out this mystery!” With which wild words, to show how much she was a woman, and how dependent on the absent hero, she fell upon the neck of her disturbed protegée, and the two wept in great harmony together.

The doubts and difficulties which perplexed these two innocent heads from this hour, and led to innumerable discussions and secret conclaves, harassed chiefly by the impression left after each debate, of subtle enmity having been at work, although why and through whose agency, they could not even conjecture. Doña Hermosa told what little she had heard of Hilo’s passion for a French ambassador’s daughter, and so accounted for his wish to break his former engagement; but all the rest remained in the dark. If Viola had received no notice of Hilo’s desire to release himself from a distasteful union, the person or persons who suppressed his letters may have used her name in such a manner as to irritate him into the extraordinary steps he had taken to be rid of an intolerable because obstinate burden, and the same miscreants had doubtless unbarred the shutter to Captain Carlo and assisted that worthy’s escape; but this was all sheer conjecture. Indeed it could not be so, for all were long proved servants except a lad she employed as a page out of respect for the old nurse who had reared her from infancy, and for the few past years had been employed in taking charge of her poor brother with Don Augustino.

While such speculations engaged their thoughts, a letter arrived from the knight by a returned caravel, announcing the safe landing of the Spanish army and strait of the French, deserted by the Portuguese, and stating the confession made by Inique on shipboard. Doña Hermosa communicated this strange intelligence to Don Augustino’s daughter, and the two, as might be predicated always of two women in like circumstances, cried over it together, and then discussed the event in all its bearings. Viola also cried a good deal in private, for despite her disavowal of love for Hilo, she found it difficult to convert a lately affianced husband into a brother on such short notice; but in the course of a day or two her reflections took another shape. Was it not better to love him as a brother who indeed would never, she knew now, have been any thing else to her even without this obstacle? But how did she know she still had a living brother; between two such fiery tempers, what collision might not take place through ignorance on the one side and rashness on the other? Oh, she must hasten to interpose, to effect a reconciliation if any misunderstanding existed, to earn some consideration, too, from her brother, by undeceiving him as to her former apparent immodesty; and moreover this mystery, so closely touching her honor, must be probed. She came down to breakfast the third morning with her mind fully made up, and before the meal was over astonished her hostess by soliciting her protection in a voyage to Tercera. At first the countess strongly opposed the design, but in the end, of course, entered into it with her whole heart. What arguments Viola used are not worth recapitulating here; they were not very strong or philosophical, but were enunciated with much self-deceptive sophistry and based on affection, which is all that is requisite in feminine debates as a general thing.

The household was put in complete order and turned over with the estate to the care of a trusty major-domo, and an old cavalier, a relative of the countess, who had been summoned to attend, was pressed into service after a feeble remonstrance; he had been a great beau in his day and could not find it in his heart to long oppose the will of a lady; and dispatched to charter a vessel in which to accompany them to the Azores. The friends, attended by a detachment of the Hermandad for protection along the road, followed close at his heels, and were soon after out of sight of the shores of Spain, and as incredulous of surviving the miseries of the voyage as any ladies of the present day.

Somewhere about this time, an old woman saying aves as fast as her trembling fingers could slip the beads, in the cabin of a crazy ship flying before a furious gale straight for the rocky shores of Graciosa, might have given the needful clue to this labyrinth of conjecture: so might, if he had possessed the capacity, the poor wretch who sat watching her in greater awe than the tempest excited, from the crib in which he lay bound, and who had wondered time and again in his imbecile way, what it was she mumbled to herself when hobbling up and down the cabin floor in fair weather, her chin elevated in the air. She never cared for his overhearing, a glance was enough at any moment to make him cower and blink in fear of the crutch which, during Señor Inique’s absence, not seldom corrected his waywardness. This vessel with others, had been driven from her moorings off Praya, and parting company became unmanageable: one afternoon the peaks of Graciosa suddenly appeared through a rift in the surging mist around, in terrible proximity, and coasting the island a few leagues, by daybreak the next morning the ship struck and immediately after took its final plunge. They had fallen into a gap of the rock-bound shores, and in the comparatively quiet sea, contrived, like St. Paul’s companions, to reach shore on whatever came to hand. The crew congratulated themselves on every soul being saved but the captain, who was below deck when the wreck went down; it was supposed he had descended to secure treasure of some sort, but the crone who listened to their talk while they all dried themselves about a fire, knew better; for at the first alarm, while clambering up the cabin stairs, she encountered the captain in wild haste to save his patron’s son. She tore herself loose from his clutch and had seen neither of them again.

“Who’s sorry, who’s sorry, eh?” she mumbled repeatedly to herself, wagging her scheming old head with a wicked leer. But she shed abundance of crocodile tears a day or two later when relating the sad event to the Countess Padilh and Doña Viola, whose vessel compelled them to touch at Graciosa to repair some little damages suffered during the gale. Other tears were shed upon the occasion, but fewer than would have followed a like announcement ten days back to Viola, whose mind was too much engrossed by the object of her mission to grieve much over a death which seemed a providence.

* * * * *

While the two ladies were preparing to continue their voyage, strange disclosures had followed the condemnation of the Viceroy of Tercera in the Spanish camp.

Despite their recklessness, Hilo and Carlo had judged it best to show themselves as little as possible where they were likely to meet with importunate acquaintances; their plan was to convey the prisoner after night-fall to Angra, and beg a prompt payment of the reward and a free conduct. The better to elude observation they had smeared their cheeks with the thick juice of berries used by the natives to protect the skin from the sun, and wore the loose frock and silver ear-rings of Portuguese peasants, in which costume they had conducted their search for the unfortunate count. The presence of the French troops greatly increased the risk of recognition, but with night and this disguise the adventurers considered no great risk would be run: Santa Cruz was proverbially headstrong and impetuous, and once a free conduct was granted would not easily be led to retract it.

“That Moorish dog would have known us in these clothes if nobody else,” Wolfang said, well satisfied with their success, outside the walls of Angra. “But by this time the ravens are picking his bones on the peak, as I’m a living man.”

Whereas the Moor was at that moment lying in a tent not ten yards from the speaker, in care of a corporal, and attended by Padilh, a few cavaliers, and a notary in act of writing. So little life remained in the poor wretch that his usually husky and uncertain speech consequent on a maimed tongue, was scarcely audible, but he related his story between gasps with fierce eagerness, and the scribe read aloud as he wrote to confirm the statement. The deposition, after a short reference to the count’s condition, took this form.

“I made them believe I was dumb by showing them my withered tongue to save its being cut out. I am accustomed to make myself understood as much by gestures of the hand as word of mouth, because speaking is attended with great effort, and found no difficulty in carrying out the deception. I would have cried out once when stabbed, but the reproaches of the viceroy my master for betraying him, although it was at the last extremity to save my life, gave me resolution to shut my teeth and fall as if dead. I loved him much, he was good to me; I wished to revenge him. Perhaps if they had thought I could speak at times, they would have been at more pains to see if I was dead. When they caught me I was trying to escape by crawling from bush to bush, under cover of the thick fog the high wind had driven up the mountain. I had come to get food for my master, as we were almost famished, and hearing the trampling of horses hid myself till they should pass. At the same time two men, dressed like Portuguese islanders but speaking Spanish, came close to where I was and crouched down also. I could not go away or even stir for more than an hour, for fear of being killed; for the last comers remained where they were after the Spaniards had gone by, and talked of killing some one of the party on their return. One was short and thick-set, the other slender and younger; the former offered to assassinate the individual referred to, for something I could not understand, which the other agreed to; the younger saw that the charge of the arquebuss was all right and handed him the piece. When the company came back from the direction of Dame de Loup, the first named shot the cavalier in advance, and I saw him fall forward. I knew him to be a maître-de-camp then, for his baton dropped to the ground. I made off in the confusion, the assassins having first done so, but from not knowing the ground well they made a circuit and came upon me a few paces off. This time they saw and seized me as I have related.”

Padilh asked a few questions regarding the personal appearance of the pretended peasants, more especially of the one designated as slender, but the answers received were not at all conclusive.

“See that all his wants are supplied,” the maître-de-camp said, after musing a space in silence.

“He must be kept alive,” he added to the gentlemen with him, on their way to the quarters of the marquis; “we may need him to confront the assassins should they venture in with their prisoner.”

“The surest way of securing your purpose,” an old knight suggested, “would be to promise him safety and the reward offered for the information he has given: a hint that something may be done to save his master might add to his desire of living. If you consent, Sir Pedro, I will return and try the effect on the poor devil.”

“It is well thought of,” Padilh answered. “Do so without delay. I doubt if these men will put themselves in our power after all, but it is best to be prepared to receive them.”

Don Pedro’s doubt was terminated immediately after entering the city, for in turning a corner they suddenly encountered a party with lights and a prisoner.

“It is the Count de Torrevedros,” the officer in command answered to the maître-de-camp’s inquiry.

“Is it possible,” the knight returned, regarding sorrowfully the mean figure shown by the torches the soldiers held aloft for the purpose.

“He speaks the truth—I am that unfortunate man,” the count said dejectedly.

Upon which Padilh exclaimed—“It would be a shame to knighthood to see the representative of any king stand bare-headed,” and placed his own bonnet on the viceroy’s head.

“Give me your word as a knight and nobleman that you will not attempt to escape Señor Count,” he added immediately.

“It would be so vain to think of it, that I pledge my honor willingly, sir,” the count rejoined, “if it gives you any satisfaction.”

“Unbind his arms,” the maître-de-camp said, turning to the officer, “I will be responsible. See that he wants no comfort, and let his expenses be set to my cost. A viceroy in such condition has had his share of misfortune already.”

With which injunction spoken aside the knight hastened on.

“If that is not your Cid returned to life,” the count said slightly smiling, “it can only be Don Pedro de Padilh.”

“You are right,” the officer replied, unloosening his cord, “he is the very mirror of Spanish chivalry.”

Meantime, the maître-de-camp, followed by his suite, rapidly neared the quarters of the marquis. From a swift walk they fell into a run.

“We must make haste or the vultures will have flown,” he said, and not without reason, for at the moment they arrived in front of the house occupied by the Spanish commander, two men were in the act of coming out. The stream of light from the rooms behind showed at once that one was taller and more slender than the other, and that both wore peasant’s frocks, and the stouter of the couple at the instant jingled the contents of a bag in his hand, and said something with a laugh to his comrade.

“In the name of the King of Spain,” Don Pedro cried advancing, “I arrest you for murder. Draw your swords gentlemen and close in.”

“Curse the luck!” Wolfang unguardedly exclaimed, grinding his teeth with rage; “another half hour and we would have been safe.”

“Hold your tongue, fool!” Hilo said sharply.

“Who dares oppose a free conduct of the commander-in-chief, Marquis of Santa Cruz,” he demanded aloud, showing a bit of paper.

“I—maître-de-camp of the marquis,” Padilh rejoined, “and until his further pleasure is known, you will remain my prisoners.” And without staying for more words the knight passed through a private door and straight to the rooms of Santa Cruz.

That nobleman was stepping out upon a balcony to learn the cause of the disturbance below, but turned back on seeing Don Pedro.

“What brawl is this at my door?” he asked in no pleasant tone.

“I have taken it upon myself to disregard the passport of your excellency, and arrest the men you dismissed a moment ago.”

“Ha!” interrupted Santa Cruz, frowning. “And why, sir?”

“I suspect them to be the assassins of my colleague,” the knight returned; “I have proof to that effect by which you can judge if I have done more than my duty, señor.”

“Speak on,” the other said, and Padilh at once gave a brief narrative of the events within his knowledge.

At the end, the marquis said: “I was hasty in thinking you over zealous. These fellows must be brought face to face with their accuser, and to make that sure, their examination shall be immediate. Send quickly for the Moor you speak of—but how is it that you are without a cap, Don Pedro?”

“I met the viceroy bare-headed,” the knight answered, with honest bluntness.

At which Santa Cruz, something nettled, exclaimed:

“By the three kings! You will teach us presently to be worthy our spurs!”

The captors of the unfortunate viceroy returned to the presence of the marquis with no good grace.

“Answer no questions,” Hilo muttered to the captain, “and they can prove nothing.”

But both were startled by the appearance of a witness they believed beyond the power of lifting a finger, and leagues away. Hilo uttered a savage oath of surprise, and Wolfang stood staring at the former mute, with his villainous mouth agape. Both heard the deposition read through and affirmed, without interfering or replying a syllable to any questions asked. The captain’s animal spirits had quite deserted him, and sullenness gave his face strong resemblance to a bull’s, while his fellow prisoner’s sharp features suited the cat-like activity of his eyes.

“The evidence is complete enough,” the marquis exclaimed finally; “and, by Heaven, gentlemen, these villains shall swing within twenty-four hours. Off with their sorry disguises, and let us see if they will persist in their insolence still.”

But Hilo, without waiting for the enforcement of the order, threw his peasant’s frock from him.

“If you call yourself Don Pedro de Padilh,” he cried to the knight, “take this gall to your pride. All Spain shall know before I die whose uncle you are, and that you brought your own blood to this strait; I swear it here before all the saints, and can prove my words.”

“I beg you, sir, to make no account of my relationship,” Padilh said smiling to Santa Cruz. “In good season, gentlemen, you will understand this innuendo.”

“I am not to be led astray by such a fellow’s lies,” the marquis replied, with a contemptuous laugh. “We have had enough of their company, señores, and leave them to you, Padilh, to have cared for. Only see that escape is made impossible.”

“Stop!” Hilo exclaimed; “one word, my lord marquis, before I go. Knights and gentlemen here present, bear witness I hold in my hand the written parole of free conduct of this man—a thing no knight ever violated before. Santa Cruz I tear your worthless paper to atoms, thus, and proclaim you an infamous liar—a liar!” he reiterated, at the highest pitch of his voice, and stamping with impotent fury.

The marquis, a man of unbridled passions, lost all command of himself at this insolent speech; his stiff beard bristled from excess of rage, like a boar’s back, and his sword was in his hand in an instant. But a number of cavaliers placed themselves simultaneously between, and Padilh grasped his sword-arm.

“My lord—my lord, you forget yourself and justice!” he uttered, in that steady voice which asserted the true superiority of the man, and caused the blood to return to the face of the great captain. He looked at Don Pedro savagely a moment; but before dismissing his court he had recovered sufficient equanimity to pay a compliment to the latter, who was absent seeing to the disposal of the prisoners.

“No knight is more worthy the name,” he added with a grim smile, “although he is somewhat rough and unguarded in performance of his duty, at times.”

The day following the marquis and his maître-de-camp met in secret council. The former heard with surprise the history of De Ladron.

“The wretch has put a climax to his crimes in this last,” he cried, “and please Heaven it shall be also the last he commits.”

“I think,” the ample-hearted knight answered, “he would not have done such a wickedness knowingly. It is hard to believe so young a man could have so far fallen in villainy as to assassinate his own father, recognizing him as such. Doubtless the papers placed in De Haye’s hands never reached their destination. That unhappy gentleman fell in the first battle beyond Praya.”

“Possibly,” Santa Cruz replied, thoughtfully, “and out of love to Inique I reverse my sentence, and postpone the day of execution until after that faithful cavalier draws his last breath; a period not far distant, his surgeon tells me.”

“So near,” Padilh replied, “that I think, my lord, M. de Chaste, you and I, to whom only the secret of his life is known, should remain custodians of his honor, and preserve his name from vulgar censure after death.”

“I give my hand to the compact cheerfully,” the other responded, and Don Pedro repaired at once to the quarters of the French commandant to enlist his neutrality.

“You will comprehend M. de Chaste,” he said, among other things, to that weather-beaten pattern of chivalry, “by what knightly motives I have been impelled to shun no duty incumbent on my office. And had he been my own nephew, wicked as he is, I would not have screened him from the full weight of justice he deserves. Our strenuous aim now should be to save Inique the knowledge of his son’s fate, and if possible, of even his vicinity to himself.”

This was not easy to do where no visiter to Inique’s bedside saw any reason for withholding the most important news, and in the course of a few days the dying soldier knew the worst and mastered it, and quietly desired Padilh to obtain permission for a last interview with his—his son. The word stuck in his throat.

The knight replied—“As soon as your recovery is advanced, or failing that, when you feel death drawing on, I will oppose nothing to your wish, Inique. But for the present spare yourself so agitating an encounter.”

“Don Pedro,” the wounded maître-de-camp answered, smiling faintly, “I wish to make my peace with the boy and acknowledge my sins, but you well understand where my most affectionate thoughts rest.”

To which Padilh assented gravely. He was thinking at the moment in what manner the tidings of the dispersion of the fleet at Praya, could be suppressed without equivocation.

“I will be compelled to confess the truth at last,” the honest gentleman said despairingly when alone, and still weighing the even balance of duty in his mind. “But it sadly perplexes a mortal intellect, Heaven knows, to distinguish between what is due one’s friend and one’s soul.”

Indeed, the last words spoken that evening by Don Augustino were to this effect: “Send a courier to Praya and let the boy be brought here immediately. I _must_ see him once more, and I haven’t many hours to live.”

But succor came unexpectedly to the upright knight, the succeeding morning.

It was his custom to pace a quay, looking seaward every dawn, in anxious hope of the appearance of the missing ship, the others having already made harbor at Praya and elsewhere; and for the first time he saw a sail on the northwestern horizon. Some hours later Padilh himself, boarded the vessel and was surprised beyond measure to find his countess and her protegée on board. His gratification, however, was even greater, and so he told her, on hearing the somewhat vague account of the object of this voyage.

“It was a madcap enterprise,” he said, smiling, “but the end is undoubtedly good; I would have sent for Doña Viola, if there had been the least probability of her arriving in time.”

A speech which greatly reassured Doña Hermosa, who had been considering during the voyage, what good reason she could offer her lord, for sanctioning the expedition, and had found with dismay there would be none forthcoming. As ladies generally do they had laid their hearts together in the first instance, instead of their heads, and mistook sentiment for conviction, after their usual fashion.

With a more disturbed mind, the knight listened to the recital of the shipwreck, and subsequently cross questioned the old woman accompanying them, who made no favorable impression. “I don't like her,” he told his countess; “she sheds too many crocodile tears, over a disaster, which to only one person concerned, can appear in any other light, than a cessation of pain. I have cautioned her to keep out of sight for the present, as the knowledge would assuredly kill Don Augustino.”

It was necessary to break the news of her father’s situation, and its antecedents to poor Viola, who by imagining the occurrence of all manner of evils during the few past weeks, had arrived at a state of mind not entirely unprepared for any thing, and the two ladies mingled their tears freely together, while Don Pedro returned to prepare his associate for the meeting. Little preparation was needed in this quarter, the dying man’s thoughts being occupied by a single object. Who of us can fix a bound to the justice of Heaven, and blasphemously call all beyond it harsh exercise of omnipotent power. It seems to me even retribution, that this soldier who had prided himself above all things, on his honor and the world’s applause, should die without one scrip of either, if what was conceded in acknowledgement of his tardy confession be excepted, and from compassion had, step by step, arrived at such a state of infatuation for the witness of his passionate pride at St. Quentin, that natural affection for his own offspring seemed almost wholly stifled, and the ignominious fate of his accredited son, gave occasion to scarce any emotion. People are apt to attribute such perverseness to want of sanity, much as a coroner’s jury gives in a like verdict in cases of suicide; yet Inique was as collected as you or I, and his weakness merely physical. The man’s nature had received a wrench in youth, and the tree retained the twist, only shifting the direction of its growth as it worked around. If he had lived long enough, he might have been more penitent or less, nearer a saint or more openly a sinner. How many mercies, and how many lies, our lives will example at the last great day, none of us living can compute.

The soldier was, therefore, not much agitated by the sobs of his daughter, but without agitation, life was fast ebbing now, and in accordance with his promise, Padilh brought Hilo from his prison for a final interview. That young gentleman had been whiling away the time at dice, and left the captain in no good humor at the interruption to his run of luck.

“Why am I brought here?” he asked after a supercilious glance around. “Is avenging an injury so uncommon? If this man had not withheld my dues he would not have received his own as you see.”

“Wretched young man,” the dying maître-de-camp said feebly, rather than sternly, “I had hoped to learn in the haste of the trial, some error had been made, and that it was not from your hand this ball came.”

“It was not from my hand,” Hilo interrupted.

“Heaven be praised, for as all here can witness you are my son and not De Ladron’s.”

At these words, Hilo started and turned pale, but his face was instantly flushed with passion.

“It is a base lie—a lie,” he exclaimed through his teeth, scowling around. “It is a shallow trick to cheat me out of my inheritance at the last gasp.”

“Brother!” sobbed out Viola, deprecatingly.

“Sir—son,” Inique cried, “I cannot disprove your bitter words by leaving you a fortune of my own; for the real son of De Ladron, whom I made an idiot, is the heir of the estate I hold. Forgive what actual wrong I have done you as a parent, remembering how soon the end of us both must be.”

Before he ceased speaking, a figure, coming no one knew whence, in the consternation of the moment, hobbled between, and cast a baneful look on Inique from a pair of ferret eyes sparkling with rage and malice. Her rage was so great that she mouthed and champed with her old toothless jaws, before a word could be emitted. The wounded knight sat bolt upright in bed, gazing at her wildly.

“Where is my boy—speak woman, speak?” he cried, with a sudden return of strength and voice.

“Food for fishes—ah ha! food for fishes!” She mumbled out, pointing with her crooked finger mockingly.

“Oh, heaven be merciful! he is dying—Hermosa—Don Pedro—help!” Viola exclaimed, receiving the cavalier’s weight in her quickly opened arms.

“Yes, yes, he’s dying at last,” the crone screamed “I killed him—me and my son. He’s cheated us both, but we’ve paid him back, and I’ve got money enough saved up to keep you in pocket money, my pretty game-chick.”

“Hag!” Hilo ejaculated, shaking loose the old woman’s clutch on his sleeve.

“Hey now,” she retorted, threatening him with her finger, “mind what I say. I’ve gold enough for both, without that swindler’s there. I wanted you to have that too. I would have been an honest girl, but for him, and he owed you a living; so I put you in place of your namesake, when a baby. I’ve been caring for you ever since. I wouldn’t let you marry who you wanted, because I wanted you to marry somebody richer than your French countess.”

“She devil—I spit on you,” her son broke in furiously.

“Is this my reward?” she shrieked, “mind, I have gold which you’ll never handle—you might if you were dutiful.”

And mutually vilifying each other, the mother and her offspring, were carried out from the ante-chamber by the guards of the latter.

Reader, the footlights begin to burn dim—one of the chief personages of this story, without so much will left of all his willfulness, to put his blind arms about his daughter, and confess his short-comings, and without a tatter hanging about him of former arrogance, lies expiring—the orchestra plays a dirge—the drop scene comes slowly down—all is over.

One act more, and a short one closes the drama.

Captain Wolfang Carlo, it may be borne in mind, had retained about his person, the papers taken from De Haye’s doublet, and from time to time, as opportunity offered, spelled out the meaning in private.—He was not inclined to think them of much value, and felt only a lazy curiosity in regard to the contents, but a reference to his comrade, he had met with during his last perusal, joined to the expressions let fall by Padilh, at the examination before the marquis, excited intolerable suspicions in his avaricious soul. What! after months and years of watching and following about like a dog; to find himself swindled and his debtor an impostor and penniless. He must see. And the captain eagerly embraced the rare interval of privacy afforded by the absence of De Ladron with Inique, to find in the MS. in his possession some warrant for his doubts. As the honest free soldier read laboriously, the veins in his forehead and cheeks swelled and purpled; he churned his tusks like any other savage boar, and finally threw himself on the stone floor, howling and beating the flags with his clenched fists. This frenzy was in full vigor, when Hilo entered, unguardedly and in no amiable mood.

“Get up, Flemish hog!” he cried imperiously, applying his foot to the other’s ribs.

He did get up; with a yell heard by the guard through the thick wall.

In the time it took to unbar and unclose the door, Wolfang had added one more to his list of crimes, and the wretched old woman, who had been placed in the same cell at her own stipulation, was discovered vainly endeavoring to break the hold of the former on her son’s throat.

Come children; cries the great exhibiter of vanity-fair, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out.

* * * * *

I THINK OF THEE.

BY GEO. D. PRENTICE.

I think of thee when eve’s last blush
Falls mournfully on heart and eye;
Of thee when morn’s first glories gush
In gold and crimson o’er the sky;
My thoughts are thine ’mid toil and strife,
Thine when from all life’s perils free—
Ay, thine—forever thine—my life
Is but a living thought of thee.

I think of thee ’mid spring’s sweet flowers,
And in the summer’s brighter glow,
Of thee in autumn’s purple bowers,
And gloomy winter’s waste of snow;
My thoughts are thine when joys depart,
And thine when all life’s sorrows flee—
Ay, thine—forever thine—my heart
Is but a throbbing thought of thee.

* * * * *

RUFFED GROUSE SHOOTING.

BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, AUTHOR OF FRANK FORESTER’S “FIELD SPORTS,” “FISH
AND FISHING,” ETC.

The beautiful bird which is depicted above, is that known as the Partridge, in New Jersey, and all the States east and north of the Delaware, and as the Pheasant everywhere to the westward of that fine stream; and by these provincial vulgarisms it is like to be known and designated, until sportsmen will take the trouble of acquiring a little knowledge of their own trade, and will cease to regard naturalists as mere theorizing bookmen, and scientific names and distinctions as supererogatory humbug. The distinction between the Grouse and other birds of the gallinaceous order, is that the former are invariably, the latter never, feathered below the knee. This distinction never fails, and is very easily noted; although, in different species of the genus, the extent of the feathering differs. In the Ruffed Grouse the soft fleecy feathering of the leg is sparse, and descends only to the middle of the shank. In the Pinnated Grouse, Prairie Hen of the West, and Grouse of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, the legs are feathered the whole way down the shank, to the insertion of the toes; and the same is the case of the Canada Grouse, or Spruce Partridge of the remote Eastern States. In all those species of Grouse, which are known as Ptarmigan, dwellers of the extreme north, or in the northern temperature of iced mountain-tops, the feathering continues the whole length of the toes quite to the insertion of the claws—this I merely mention _par parenthese_, as there is but one of the Ptarmigans likely to fall within reach of the sportsman; namely, the Willow-Grouse, or Red-Necked Partridge of the extreme parts of Maine, and the Easternmost British provinces, and thence so far as to the Arctic Circle.

These distinctions are easily borne in mind, nor will be found all-sufficient to the discriminating woodsman, who desires to be able to call things by their right names, and to give a reason for doing so.

The _true_ Pheasant is a native of Asia originally, though it has been naturalized in Europe, since a very early period, and is now abundant in France and England. No species of this bird, which is distinguished by a pointed tail, above half a yard in length, and by its splendidly gorgeous coloring, little inferior in intensity to that of the Peacock, has ever been found, or is believed to exist in any portion of the Western hemisphere; although those singular and showy birds, the _Curaçoas_ of South America, have some relation to it.

The same is true of the _real_ Partridge; although the Quail of this continent would seem to be its equivalent; being as it were a connecting link between the European Quail, and the Partridge of Europe.

The Ruffed Grouse ranges over a very wide portion of the United States and British provinces, from the 51st degree of north latitude to the Atlantic sea-board, although it is much more scarce in the Southern States than in the midland and northern regions. It is remarkable also that it varies exceedingly in color; those to the northward being comparatively dull and gray, to those of Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and more genial regions.

The distinctive feature, whence this bird derives his title of _Ruffed_ Grouse, is the tuft or tippet of jet-black feathers, glossed with metallic hues, which are shown more or less distinctly in each of the figures in the woodcut at the head of this paper, but the most decidedly in the cock-bird, represented as standing on a fallen log, in the act of drumming, with these ruffs elevated, and his tail erected and expanded after the manner of a Turkey or Peacock, in the season of his amorous phantasies.

This drumming, a sound sufficiently familiar to all ears accustomed to the sights and noises of the forest, is no less than the call of the male bird to his harem of attendant wives; for the Ruffed Grouse, unlike our pretty, constant, and domestic Quail, selects himself no one fond partner, whom to cheer with his loved notes, to comfort and amuse during the breeding season, but rejoices like a veritable grand Signor in a multiplicity of fair sultanas, whom so soon as they betake themselves to the cares of maternity, he abandons, like a _roué_ as he is, and passes the remainder of the season, until the broods disperse in the autumn, in company with small packs of his own faithless sex, reveling and enjoying himself on the mountain sides, in his loved pines and hemlocks, while his forgotten loves brood patient over the hopes of the coming season.

“This drumming,” says Wilson, in his eloquent and animated page, “is most common in spring, and is the call of the cock to a favorite female. It is produced in the following manner: the bird, standing on an old prostrate log, generally in a retired situation, lowers his wings, erects his expanded tail, contracts his throat, elevates the two tufts of feathers on the neck, and inflates his whole body something in the manner of a Turkey cock strutting and wheeling about in great stateliness. After a few manœuvres of this kind, he begins to strike his stiffened wings in short and quick strokes, which become more and more rapid until they run into each other, resembling the rumbling sound of very distant thunder dying away gradually on the ear. After a few minutes’ pause, this is again repeated, and in a calm day may be heard nearly a mile off. This is most common in the morning and evening, though I have heard them drumming at all hours of the day.”