Romantic Spain Volume II Part 7

"The shallop of my peace is wrecked On Beauty's sh.o.r.e."

She was a Carlist, I was sure of that. All the comely maidens were Carlists. In the service of the King the most successful crimps were "dashing white sergeants" in garter and girdle. And she took me for an interesting Carlist fugitive, and she was determined to aid in my escape. How ravishing! She was a Flora Macdonald, and I--would be a Pretender. I had fully wound myself up to that as we entered Los Pasages.

Los Pasages consists of rows of houses built on either side of a basin of the sea, entered by a narrow chasm in the high rocky coast. Sailing by it, one would never imagine that that cleft in the sh.o.r.e-line was a gate to a natural harbour, locked against every wind, and large enough to accommodate fleets, and whose waters are generally placid as a lake.

This secure haven, _statio benefida carinis_, is hidden away in the lap of the timbered hills, and is approached by a pa.s.sage (from which its name is borrowed) which can be traversed in fifteen minutes. The change from the boisterous Bay of Biscay, with its "white horses capering without, to this Venetian expanse of water in a Swiss valley, dotted with chalets and cottages, must have the effect of a magic transformation on the emotional tar who has never been here before, and whose chance it was to lie below when his ship entered. The refuge is not unknown to English seamen, for there is a stirring trade in minerals with Cardiff, in more tranquil times. But now Los Pasages is deserted from the bar down to the uttermost point of its long river-like stretch inland, except by the smacks and small boats of the native fishers, a tiny tug, and a large steamer from Seville which is lying by the wharf.

There is no noise of traffic; the one narrow street echoes to our tramping feet as I follow my charming cicerone, who has started up for me like some good spirit of a fairy-tale. She leads me to an inn, bids me enter, and flies in search of the owner of the shallop. The landlord comes to greet me, and I recognise in him an acquaintance--Maurice, a former waiter in the Fonda de Paris, in Madrid. I questioned Maurice as to my chances of getting across to Irun by land that night; but he a.s.sured me it was too late, and really dangerous; that the road was infested by gangs of desperadoes; and that it would be safer for me to travel, even in the day-time, without money or valuables. The owner of the shallop came, but as he had the audacity to ask eighty francs for transporting me round to Fontarabia, and as I had found Maurice, I resolved to stop in Los Pasages for the night.

"You have only to cross the water to-morrow morning," said Maurice, "and you are in Kenteria, where you will be sure to get a vehicle."

The backs of the houses all overlook the port, and all are balconied and furnished with flowered terraces, from which one can fish, look at his reflection, or take a header into the water at pleasure. A glorious nook for a reading-party's holiday, Los Pasages. Not if fair mysteries like my friend crop up there; but where is she, by-the-way? She does not re-appear; but Maurice will help me to discover who and what she is.

"Maurice, are there any pretty girls here?"

Maurice looks at me reproachfully.

"Senor, you have been conducted to my house by one who is acknowledged to be the prettiest in all Spain."

That night I dreamt of Eugenia, the baker's daughter, the pride of Los Pasages, who was waiting for a husband, but would have none but one who helps Charles VII. to the throne. I recorded that dream for the bachelors of Britain, and conjured them to make haste to propose for her--not that the Carlist war was hurrying to a close; but I have remarked that girls inclined to be plump at eighteen sometimes develop excessive embonpoint about eight-and-twenty. On inquiry, I found a key to the enigma which had filled me with sweet excitement. Eugenia, who had been to the citadel-prison to carry provisions to a friend in trouble, had seen me speaking to Colonel Stuart, and was anxious to serve me because of my supposed Carlist tincture. My supposed Carlist tincture did not prevent a l.u.s.ty Basque boatman from charging five francs next morning for the five minutes' pull across the water to the road to Renteria, where I caught a huge yellow diligence, which had ventured to leave San Sebastian at last with the detained mails of a week. The machine was horsed in the usual manner--that is, with three mules and two nags--but how different from usual was the way-bill! With the exception of the driver and his aide, a youngster who jumped down from the box every hundred yards, and belaboured the beasts with a wattle, there was not one pa.s.senger fit to carry arms. We had a load of women and babies, a decrepit patriarch, and two boys under the fighting age. We halted at Renteria, harnessed a fresh team to our conveniency, and sent on a messenger to ascertain if the Carlists had been seen on the road. Everybody in Renteria carried a musket. All the approaches were defended by loopholed works, roofed with turf, and a perfect fortress was constructed in the centre of the town by a series of communications which had been established between the church and a block of houses in front by _caponnieres_. The church windows were built up and loopholed, and a semicircular _tambour_, banked with earth to protect it from artillery, was thrown up against the houses in the middle of the street, so as to enfilade it at either side in case of attack. There were troops of the line in Renteria, but no artillerymen, nor was there artillery to be served. Without artillery, however, the place, if properly provisioned, could not be taken, if the defending force was worth its salt.

The messenger having returned with word that all was right, we went ahead at a fearful pace on a very good road, lined with poplars, and running through a neat park-like country. Over to the right we could see the church-spire of Oyarzun, and the smoke curling from the chimneys; a little farther on we pa.s.sed the debris of a diligence on the wayside; the telegraph wires along the route were broken down, and the poles taken away for firewood; we dived under a railway bridge, but never a Carlist saw we during the continuous brief mad progress over the eight miles from Renteria to the rise into Irun.

We clattered up to the rail way-station at a hand-gallop, the people rushing to the doors of the houses, and beaming welcome from smiling countenances. There was a faint attempt to cheer us. At the station a number of officials, a couple of Carabineros, and a knot of idlers were gathered. The driver descended with the gait of a conquering hero, and turned his glances in the direction of a cottage close by. An old man on crutches, a blooming matron with rosary beads at her waist, and a nut-brown maid with laughing eyes stood under the porch, embowered in tamarisk and laurel-rose. The driver strode over to them, crying out triumphantly:

"El primero! Lo! I am the first."

"How valiant you are, Pedro!" said the nut-brown maid, advancing to meet him.

"How lucky you are!" said the matron, with a grave shake of the head.

"How rash you are!" mumbled the grandfather; "you were always so."

I envied that driver, for the nut-brown maid kissed him, as she had the right to do, for she was his affianced, and had not seen him for five days.

From the Irun station to Hendaye was free from danger. I walked down through a field of maize to the Bida.s.soa, crossed by a ferry-boat to the other side, where a post of the 49th of the French Line were peacefully playing cards for b.u.t.tons in the shade of a chestnut, and a few minutes afterwards was seated in front of a bottle of Dublin stout with the countryman who forwarded my letters and telegrams from over the border.

Naturally I had a desire to ascertain the whereabouts of Santa Cruz. The man had almost grown mythical with me. I had heard at San Sebastian that ten thousand crowns had been offered for his scalp at Tolosa, and the fondest yearning--the one satisfying aspiration of the hyena--was to tear him into shreds, chop him into sausage-meat, gouge out his eyes, or roast him before a slow fire. Which form of torment he would prefer, he had not quite settled. A sort of intuitive faculty, which has seldom led me astray, said to me that Santa Cruz was somewhere near. I revolved the matter in my mind, and fixed upon the man under whose roof he was most likely to be concealed. I went to that man and requested him bluntly to take me to the outlawed priest--I wished very much to speak to him.

He smiled and answered, "He is not here."

"The bird is flown," I said, "but the nest is warm. He is not far away."

"True," he said, "come with me."

We drove some miles--I will not say how many--and drew up at an enclosed villa, which may have been in France, but was not of it. To be plain, it was neutral territory, and my host, who knew me thoroughly, disappeared for a few moments, and said Santa Cruz was sleeping, but that he had roused him, and that he would be with us presently.

I was sitting on a garden-seat in front of the house where he was stopping, when he presented himself on the threshold, bareheaded, and in his shirt-sleeves. The outlaw priest was no slave to the conventionalities of society. He did not adjust his necktie before receiving visitors. I am not sure that he wore a necktie at all. Let me try and draw his portrait as he stood there in the doorway, in questioning att.i.tude. A thick, burly man under thirty years of age, some five feet five in height, with broad sallow face, brawny bull-neck, and wide square-set shoulders--a squat Hercules; dark-brown hair, cut short, lies close to his head; he is bearded, and has a dark-brown pointed moustache; s.h.a.ggy brows overhang his small steel-gray eyes; his nose is coa.r.s.e and devoid of character; but his jaws are ma.s.sive, his lips firm, and his chin determined. He is dressed like the better cla.s.s of peasant, wears sandals, canvas trousers, a light brownish-gray waistcoat, and has a large leathern belt, like a horse's girth, round his waist. His expression is severe, as of one immersed in thought; with an occasional frown, as if the thought were disagreeable. His brows knit, and a shadow pa.s.ses over his features when anything is mentioned that displeases him; but I was told when he smiled, the smile was of the sweetest and most amiable. I cannot say I saw him in smiling mood, but I saw him frown, and never did anyone so truly translate to me the figure of speech of "looking black." He advanced with self-possession, returned my salute without coldness or _empress.e.m.e.nt_, as if it were a mere matter of form, and sat down beside me. We had a long chat. Santa Cruz did not take much active part in it, but listened as his host spoke, punctuating what was said with nods of a.s.sent, and now and again dropping a guttural sentence. His maxim was that deeds were of more value than words, and he adhered to it. His host, I may interpose, was the most devoted of Carlists, and had given largely of his means to aid the cause. He had great faith in Santa Cruz, and told me in his presence (but in French, which the Cura understood but slightly) that while Santa Cruz was in the northern provinces, the King had half-a-man in his service, and that if he would now call on Cabrera he would have a man and a half, for that Santa Cruz would act with Cabrera.

"If Don Carlos does not consent to that," said my host, "you will see that he will have to return into France, and live in ignominy for the rest of his days!"

This Cura, represented in the Madrid play-house as half-drunk and dancing lewdly, was the most abstemious and chastest of men, and neither smoked nor drank wine. His fame went on increasing, as did the number of his followers. He effected prodigies with the means at his command. His friends in France supplied him with two cannon, which were smuggled across the border. He turned the foundry at Vera into a munition factory; employed women to make uniforms for his men; and insisted that the intervals between his expeditions should be given up to drill. He was dreaded, respected, admired by his band; he was strong and hardy; faced perils and privations in common with the lowest, but used no weapon but his walking-stick The priest, the anointed of G.o.d, may not shed blood. The affair of Endarlasa was the coping-stone of his career.

Various accounts were related of that event; it is only fair to let Santa Cruz himself speak. This is what he told me:

At three one morning he opened fire on the guard-house occupied by the Carabineros, at the bridge over the Bida.s.soa, between Vera and Irun. A white flag was hoisted on the guard-house. He ordered the fire to cease, and advanced to negotiate the conditions of surrender. The enemy, who had invited him to approach, by the white flag, fired and wounded one of his men. He issued directions to take the place, and spare n.o.body. The place was taken, and n.o.body was spared. Twenty-seven dead bodies littered the Vera road that morning.

"Is it true that you pardoned two?" I asked the priest.

"No, ninguno! Porque?" he answered with astonishment. "Not one. Why should I?"

The reason I had asked was that I had been told that a couple of the Carabineros had plunged into the Bida.s.soa and tried to swim to the other side; but the Cura, on his own avowal, with Rhadamanthine justice had commanded them to be shot as they breasted the current, and they were shot. He was no believer in half-measures.

A lady partisan of his, who had dined with him the day before, told me he never breathed a syllable of the attack he meditated, to her or any of his band. An English gentleman, who visited the ground while the corpses were still upon it, a.s.sured me that the sight was horrifying, and, such was the panic in Irun, that he verily believed Santa Cruz might have taken the town the same afternoon, had he appeared before it with four men.

To pursue the story of the redoubtable Cura. The bruit of his exploits had gone abroad, and among certain Carlists it seemed to be the opinion, as one of them remarked to me, that "_Il a fait de grandes choses, mais de grandes betises aussi._" He was making war altogether too seriously for their tastes. Antonio Lizarraga was appointed Commandant-General of Guipuzcoa about that period, and ordered Santa Cruz to report to him.

Santa Cruz, who was in the field before him, and had five times as many men under his control, paid no heed to his orders. Lizarraga then sent him a death-warrant, which is so curious a doc.u.ment that I make no apology for appending it in full:

TRANSLATION.

(A seal on which is inscribed "Royal Army of the North, General Command of Guipuzcoa.")

"The sixteenth day of the present month, I gave orders to all the forces under my command, that they should proceed to capture you, and that immediately after you had received the benefit of clergy they should execute you.

"This sentence I p.r.o.nounced on account of your insubordination towards me, you having disobeyed me several times, and having taken no notice of the repeated commands I sent you to present yourself before me to declare what you had to say in your own defence in the inquiry inst.i.tuted against you by my directions.

"For the last time I ask of you to present yourself to me, the instant this communication is received; in default of which I notify to you that every means will be used to effect your arrest; that your disobedience and the unqualifiable acts laid to your charge will be published in all the newspapers; and that the condign punishment they deserve will be duly exacted.

"G.o.d grant you many years.

"The Brigadier-General Commanding.

(Signed) "ANTONIO LIZARRAGA.

"Campo Del Honor, 28th of March, 1873.

"Senor Don Manuel Santa Cruz."

"Note.--Have the goodness to acknowledge this, my communication."

This missive was received by Santa Cruz, but he never acknowledged it.

His host permitted me to read and copy the original.

"Is not that arbitrary?" he said to me in English; "very much like what you call Jedburgh justice; hanging a man first and trying him afterwards. Lizarraga says, 'This sentence I p.r.o.nounced'--all is finished apparently there; and yet he cites the man whom he has ordered to be immediately executed to appear before him to declare what he has to say!"

Another phrase in this death-warrant, which escaped the host, impressed me with its navete:

"_G.o.d grant you many years._"

But Lizarraga, in this politeness of custom, meant no more, it is to be presumed, than did the Irish hangman who expostulated with his client in the condemned cell: