The Flag of Distress Part 55

There is no reply to this taunting speech.

"Well, if you won't answer, I shall take it for granted you _are_ annoyed; besides looking a little alarmed too. You've no need to be that."

"No, indeed," endorses Calderon. "We mean you no harm--none whatever."

"On the contrary," goes on De Lara, "only good. We've nothing but favours to offer you."

"Don Francisco de Lara!" exclaims Carmen, at length breaking silence, and speaking in a tone of piteous expostulation; "and you, Don Faustino Calderon, why have you committed this crime? What injury have we ever done you?"

"Come! not so fast, fair Carmen! Crime's a harsh word, and we've not committed any as yet--nothing to speak of."

"No crime! _Santissima_! My father--my poor father!"

"Don't be uneasy about him. He's safe enough."

"Safe! Dead! Drowned! _Dios de mi alma_!"

"No, no. That's all nonsense," protests the fiend, adding falsehood to his sin of deeper dye. "Don Gregorio is not where you say. Instead of being at the sea's bottom, he is sailing upon its surface; and is likely to be, for Heaven knows how long. But let's drop that subject of the past, which seems unpleasant to you, and talk of the present--of ourselves. You ask what injury you've ever done us? Faustino Calderon may answer for himself to the fair Inez. To you, Dona Carmen, I shall make reply--But we may as well confer privately."

At this he lays hold of her wrist, and leads her aside; Calderon conducting Inez in the opposite direction.

When the whole length of the cavern is between the two pairs, De Lara resumes speech:

"Yes, Dona Carmen; you _have_ done me an injury--a double wrong I may call it."

"How, sir?" she asks, withdrawing her hand from his, with a disdainful gesture. "How?" he retorts. "Why, in making me love you--by leading me to believe my love returned."

"You speak falsely; I never did so."

"You did, Dona Carmen; you did. It is you who speak false, denying it.

That is the first wrong I have to reproach you with. The second is in casting me off, as soon as you supposed you'd done with me. Not so, as you see now. We're together again--never more to part till I've had satisfaction for all. I once hinted--I now tell you plainly, you've made a mistake in trifling with Francisco de Lara."

"I never trifled with you, senor. _Dios mio_! What means this? Man-- if you be a man--have mercy! Oh! what would you--what would you?"

"Nothing to call for such distracted behaviour on your part. On the contrary, I've brought you here--for I'll not deny that it's I who have done it--to grant you favours, instead of asking them. Ay, or even satisfying resentments. What I intend towards you, I hope you will appreciate. To shorten explanations--for which we've neither opportunity nor time--I want you for my wife--_want you, and will have you_."

"_Your_ wife!"

"Yes; my wife. You needn't look surprised, nor counterfeit feeling it.

And equally idle for you to make opposition. I've determined upon it.

So, you must many me."

"Marry the murderer of my father! Sooner than do that, you shall also be mine. Wretch! I am in your power. You can kill me now."

"I know all that, without your telling me. But I don't intend killing you. On the contrary, I shall take care to keep you alive, until I've tried what sort of a wife you'll make. Should you prove a good one, and fairly affectionate, we two may lead a happy life together, notwithstanding the little unpleasantness that's been between us. If not, and our wedded bondage prove uncongenial, why, then, I may release you in the way you wish, or any other that seems suitable. After the honeymoon, you shall have your choice. Now Dona Carmen! those are my conditions. I hope you find them fair enough!"

She makes no reply. The proud girl is dumb, partly with indignation, partly from the knowledge that all speech would be idle. But while angry to the utmost, she is also afraid--trembling at the alternative presented--death or dishonour; the last if she marry the murderer of her father; the first if she refuse him!

The ruffian repeats his proposal, in the same cynical strain, concluding it with a threat.

She is at length stung to reply; which she does in but two words, twice repeated in wild despairing accent. They are:

"Kill me--kill me!"

Almost at the same time, and in similar strain does Inez answer her cowardly suitor, who in a corner of the grotto has alike brought her to bay.

After the dual response, there is a short interval of silence. Then De Lara, speaking for both, says:

"Senoritas! we shall leave you now; and you can go to sleep without fear of further solicitation. No doubt, after a night's rest, you'll awake to a more sensible view of matters in general, and the case as it stands. Of one thing be a.s.sured; that there's no chance of your escaping from your present captivity, unless by consenting to change your names. And if you don't consent, they'll be changed all the same.

Yes, Carmen Montijo! before another week pa.s.ses over your head, you shall be addressed as Dona Carmen de Lara.

"And you, Inez Alvarez, will be called Dona Inez Calderon. No need for you to feel dishonoured by a name among the first in California. n.o.ble as your own; ay, or any in old Spain."

"_Hasta manana, muchacas_!" salutes De Lara, preparing to take leave.

"_Pasan Vs buena noche_!"

Calderon repeating the same formulary, the two step towards the entrance, lift up the piece of suspended sailcloth, and pa.s.s out into night. They have taken the lantern along with them, again leaving the grotto in darkness.

The girls grope their way, till their arms come in contact. Then, closing in mutual embrace, they sink together upon the cold flinty floor!

CHAPTER SIXTY FOUR.

OCEANWARDS.

Another day dawns over the great South Sea. As the golden orb shows above the crest of the central American Cordillera, its beams scatter wide over the Pacific, as a lamp raised aloft, flashing its light afar.

Many degrees of longitude receive instant illumination, at once turning night into day.

An observer looking west over that vast watery expanse would see on its shining surface objects that gladdened not the eyes of Balboa. In his day, only the rude Indian _balsa, or_ frail _periagua_, afraid to venture out, stole timidly along the sh.o.r.e; but now huge ships, with broad white sails, and at rare intervals the long black hull of a steamer, thick smoke vomited forth from her funnel, may be descried in a offing that extends to the horizon itself.

But not always may ships be seen upon it; for the commerce of the Pacific is slight compared with that of the Atlantic, and large vessels pa.s.sing along the coast of Veragua are few and far between.

On this morning, however, one is observed, and but one; she not sailing coastwise, but standing out towards mid-ocean, as though she had just left the land.

As the ascending sun dispels the night darkness around her, she can be descried as a white fleck on the blue water, her spread sails seeming no bigger than the wings of a sea-gull. Still, through a telescope-- supposing it in the hands of a seaman--she may be told to be a craft with polacca-masts; moreover, that the sails on her mizzen are not square-set, but fore-and-aft, proclaiming her a barque. For she is one; and could the observer through his gla.s.s make out the lettering upon her stern, he would read there her name, _El Condor_.

Were he transported aboard of her, unaware of what has happened, it would surprise him to find her decks deserted; not even a man at the wheel, though she is sailing with full canvas spread, even to studding-sails; no living thing seen anywhere, save two monstrous creatures covered with rust-coloured hair--mocking counterfeits of humanity.

Equally astonished would he be at finding her forecastle abandoned; sailors' chests with the lids thrown open, and togs lying loose around them! Nor would it lessen his astonishment to glance into the galley, and there behold a black man sitting upon its bench, who does not so much as rise to receive him. Nor yet, descending her cabin-stair, to see a table profusely spread, at either end guest, alike uncourteous in keeping their seats, on the laces of both an expression of agonised despair! And all _this_ might be seen on board the Chilian barque, on the morning after she was abandoned by her traitorous and piratical crew, A sad night has it been for the three unfortunates left aboard, more especially the two constrained to sit at the cabin-table. Both have bitterest thoughts, enough to fill the cup of their misery to the brim. A night of anguish for the ex-haciendado. Not because of having seen his treasure, the bulk of his fortune, borne off before his eyes; but from the double shriek which, at that same instant, reached him from the deck, announcing the seizure of things more dear. His daughter and grand-daughter were then made captive; and, from their cries suddenly leasing, he dreaded something worse--fearing them stifled by death.

Reminded of an event in Yerba Buena, as also recognising the ruffian who taunted him, made it the more probable that such had been their fate.

He almost wished it; he would rather that, than a doom too horrible to think of.

The first mate? He must have been killed too; butchered while endeavouring to defend them? The unsuspicious captain could not think of his chief officer having gone against him; and how could Don Gregorio believe the man so recommended turning traitor?

While they were thus charitably judging him, they received a crushing response; hearing his voice among the mutineers--not in expostulation, or opposed, but as if taking part with them! One, Striker, called out his name, to which he answered; and, soon after, other speeches from his lips sounded clear through the cabin windows, open on that mild moonlight night.

Still listening, as they gazed in one another's face with mute astonishment, they heard a dull thud against the ship's side--the stroke of a boat-hook as the pinnace was shoved off--then a rattle, as the oars commence working in the tholes, succeeded by the plash of the oar-blades in the water. After that, the regular "dip-dip," at length dying away, as the boat receded, leaving the abandoned vessel silent as a graveyard in the mid-hour of night.