The Rover's Secret Part 6

Four days from the date of our incarceration the muster-roll of the prison was increased by the addition of the names of half a dozen Spanish smugglers, who had been captured a few miles up the coast by one of the guarda-costas and brought into La Guayra. They were a rough, reckless-looking set of vagabonds; but their looks were the worst part of them, for they all turned out to be gay, jovial spirits enough, taking their reverse of fortune with the utmost nonchalance, and having a laugh and a jest for everything and everybody, the guards included, with whom they soon became upon the most amicable terms. One of these men, a fellow named Miguel--I never learned his other name--was attached to the gang of labourers to which I belonged; and though I fought rather shy of him for a time his hearty good-nature and accommodating disposition soon overcame my reserve, and I gradually grew to be on the best of terms with him. He could speak a word or two of English, and, seeming to have taken a fancy to me, he would strike up a conversation with me as often as the opportunity offered, much to his own amus.e.m.e.nt and mine, since we rarely succeeded in comprehending each other. These efforts at conversation, however, inspired me with the idea that this man's companionship afforded me an opportunity to acquire a knowledge of Spanish, which could not fail to be of service to me; and this idea I at length with some difficulty succeeded in conveying to my smuggler friend. He pantomimically expressed himself as charmed with the suggestion, which he intimated might be improved upon by my undertaking in return to teach him English; and, a satisfactory understanding being arrived at, we commenced our studies forthwith. We were of course utterly dest.i.tute of all aid from books, and we were therefore compelled to fall back upon the primitive method of pointing out objects to each other and designating them alternately in English and Spanish, each repeating the word until the other had caught its proper p.r.o.nunciation.

From this we advanced to short simple sentences, the meaning of which we conveyed as well as we could by appropriate gestures; and though we sometimes made the most ridiculous mistakes through misunderstanding the meaning of those gestures, yet on the whole we managed tolerably well.

The first steps were the most difficult, but every word mastered cleared the way to the comprehension of two or three others; so that by the time we had been a couple of months at our studies we found ourselves making really satisfactory progress. And when seven months had been thus spent, though neither could speak the language of the other like a native, each could converse in the other's language with tolerable fluency and make himself perfectly understood. I had, long before this, however, after considerable hesitation and cautious feeling of my ground, broached to Miguel the question of escape, and had been considerably chagrined to learn from him that, unless aided by friends outside the prison, there was hardly the remotest chance of success.

The only way in which it could be done was, in his opinion, to obtain shelter and concealment for, say a month, in some family in the immediate neighbourhood; and _then_, when the scent had grown cold and the zeal of the pursuers had died away, a dark night and some a.s.sistance might enable one to get safely off the coast. If _he_ were free now, he was good enough to say, the thing might be managed, for a consideration, without any very great difficulty; but--a shrug of the shoulders and a glance at the prison dress which he was condemned to wear for more than a year longer eloquently enough closed the sentence.

About this time--or, to speak more definitely, some eight months from the date of our landing at La Guayra--a change in our fortunes occurred, which, whilst it had the immediate result of considerably ameliorating Courtenay's and my own condition, was destined to ultimately--but avast!

I must not get ahead of my story. It happened in this way. One morning after we had been out at work about a couple of hours the military engineer who was in charge of our operations rode up to the battery, accompanied by a very fine, handsome, middle-aged man, evidently also a soldier, for he was attired in an undress military uniform.

"Hillo!" exclaimed Miguel, as he noticed the new arrivals, "what is in the wind now? That is the commandant of the district with Senor Pacheco."

The appearance of such a notability naturally created a profound sensation; but we were of course obliged to go on with our work all the same. The commandant dismounted, and, accompanied by Senor Pacheco, proceeded to make an inspection of the battery, which by this time was beginning to a.s.sume the appearance of a tolerably strong fortification.

That done, the sergeant of the guard was summoned, and something in the nature of a consultation ensued, which terminated in Courtenay and myself being ordered to drop our tools and step forward to where the commandant was standing.

The great man regarded us both fixedly for a moment or two, and then said, of course in Spanish:

"I understand that you are two of the officers who were landed here from the British frigate _Hermione_?"

I replied that we were.

"Well," he said, "I suppose, in that case, you know all about ships, or, at all events, sufficient to be able to construct and rig a few models?"

I answered that we certainly did.

"Very well," said he, turning to Senor Pacheco, "in that case they will serve my purpose very well, and you may send them up to the castle at once. And, as they are, after all, merely a couple of boys, I think we shall run no very great risk of losing them if we arrange for them to stay about the place altogether; what say you?--it will be much more convenient for me; and I will find rations and quarters for them; and they can report themselves periodically at the citadel, if need be."

Senor Pacheco expressed himself as perfectly satisfied with the proposed arrangement; and we were forthwith instructed to leave work there and then and make the best of our way to a chateau which was pointed out to us, and which lay embosomed in trees some three miles to the westward of the town and about a mile from the sh.o.r.e. We had no packing to do, as we possessed nothing in the world but the clothes we stood up in--and which, by the way, were now in the very last stage of "looped and windowed raggedness"--so we simply nodded a "good-bye" to such of our envious acquaintances as happened to be within saluting range, and at once set off up the road which we were informed would conduct us to our destination.

Once fairly away from the scene of our late labours, Courtenay and I gave full rein both to our tongues and to our imaginations, discussing and wondering what in the world the commandant could possibly want with ship-models; but that, after all was a question which we did not greatly trouble ourselves to solve; the dominant thought and reflection in our minds that we were likely to be, for some time at least, absentees from the prison and all the discomfort and wretchedness connected with it, and which I have not dwelt upon or attempted to describe for the one simple reason that it was wholly undescribable. We never thought of escaping, although we soon found ourselves pa.s.sing through a thinly- inhabited country where our abandonment of the high-road and concealment in the neighbouring woods could have been accomplished without the slightest risk of observation; but we had learned by this time that escape was no such easy matter; it was a something which would have to be carefully planned beforehand and every possible precaution adopted to ensure success, and had we been foolishly tempted to try it then and there our non-arrival at the chateau would speedily have been reported, with the result that a search would have been inst.i.tuted, followed by our speedy recapture and ignominious return to the abhorred prison. No; we were very thankful for and very well satisfied with the sudden change in our fortunes which had been so unexpectedly wrought, for, though we could of course form no very clear idea of what our lot would be in the service of the commandant, we felt pretty certain it would be much easier than what we had been obliged to put up with since our landing from the frigate; and, for the rest, we were content to wait and see what time had in store for us, whilst we were fully resolved to keep a bright lookout for and to take the utmost advantage of any opportunity for escape which might be opened out to us.

We had just arrived at a handsome pair of park gates which we conjectured gave admittance to the castle grounds when we were overtaken by the commandant, on horseback. He nodded to us; remarked, "I see you have found your way all right;" shouted for the ancient custodian to open the gates; and then, as the heavy iron barriers swung back, dismounted, threw the bridle over his arm, and walked up the long avenue with us.

We now had an opportunity to observe him a little more closely than at our first interview; and we found him to be a tall and strikingly handsome man, somewhere about fifty years of age, as we judged; with piercing black eyes which seemed to read one's very thoughts, yet which were by no means devoid of amiable expression, and black hair and moustache thickly dashed with grey. Somewhat to our surprise, we found that he could speak English very fairly. His demeanour to us was characterised by that lofty stately courtesy peculiar to the old n.o.bility of Castile (of which province he was a native); and we subsequently learned that he was as gallant a warrior as he was a polished gentleman, having served with much distinction in various parts of the world. His style and t.i.tle, we afterwards ascertained, was El Commandant Don Luis Aguirre Martinez de Guzman; and we speedily found that he had a very strong predilection for the English, attributable to the fact--which ultimately leaked out--that his first and deepest love had been won by an English girl, whom, however,--the course of true love not running smoothly--he never married.

As we walked up the n.o.ble avenue side by side he questioned us as to our names, ages, and rank, how long we had been prisoners, and so on; and expressed his astonishment at the harsh treatment which we had received at the hands of the prison authorities. Upon this I thought it advisable to mention to him our refusal to give our parole, stating as our reason our total lack of funds.

"Oh, well," he said laughingly, "that need no longer influence you, you know. You will have free quarters and rations at the castle, in addition to the remuneration to which you will be ent.i.tled for your services, so you can give your parole when next you report yourselves at the citadel, and that will end the matter."

This, however, would not suit our views at all, though we did not choose to say so; we therefore changed the subject by asking him what more particularly were the services which we should be asked to perform. His answer was to the effect that his especial hobby was the study of fortification, respecting which, it seems, he had several rather novel theories, in the working out and testing of which--and also by way of amus.e.m.e.nt--he had constructed the model of a fortified town on the sh.o.r.es of a small lake within the castle grounds; and he had sought our a.s.sistance to enable him to place a fleet of ship-models before this town, to ill.u.s.trate his method of overcoming the difficulties attendant upon a state of siege and blockade. By the time that this fancy of his had been fully explained we had reached the castle--a n.o.ble building as to size but of no very great pretensions from an architectural point of view--and, the major-domo having been summoned, we were handed over to him with the necessary instructions for our proper housing and so on.

CHAPTER NINE.

INEZ DE GUZMAN.

We were conducted by our guide--an ancient and somewhat pompous individual--to a large and very pleasantly situated room in the north wing of the castle, from whence, through an opening between the trees, a glimpse of the sea was to be obtained; the foreground being occupied by a kitchen-garden. This room, it seemed, was to be our sleeping apartment. It was somewhat meagrely furnished, according to our English ideas, and there was only one bed in it--our guide informing us, however, that the commandant had ordered another to be placed there forthwith--but what little furniture the apartment contained was good, and everything was scrupulously clean, so that, in comparison with our recent quarters, those we were now to occupy seemed absolutely palatial.

And our gratification was considerably increased when we were informed that another very large and handsomely furnished room, through which we had pa.s.sed to gain access to our sleeping quarters, was to be devoted to our exclusive use and occupation during the day at such times as we were not engaged in the park. We voted the commandant a trump, there and then, and mutually resolved to do all that in us lay to retain our exceedingly comfortable berths until we should find opportunity to quit them of our own accord for good and all.

Having duly installed us, and suggestively directed our attention to the toilet gear--of which in truth we both most grievously stood in need-- the major-domo left us, first informing us, however, that if, when we were ready, we would ring a bell, the cord of which he pointed out to us, a servant would bring us some refreshment.

We lost no time in freshening ourselves up and making ourselves as presentable as circ.u.mstances would permit, and then sat down to a plain but substantial meal, which, after our meagre and coa.r.s.e prison fare, seemed a veritable banquet. At the conclusion of this meal we were informed that the commandant awaited us below, upon which we followed our informant down a sort of back staircase, and issuing from a little side door found ourselves in the garden before mentioned. It was walled in on all sides, but a door in the wall adjoining the house was pointed out to us, and issuing through it we found ourselves on the n.o.ble terrace which stretched along the whole front of the castle. Here we discovered the commandant pacing up and down with a cigar in his mouth, and joining him he proposed to conduct us to the scene of our future labours.

With all his stateliness, which he never laid aside, Don Luis de Guzman knew how to be very affable when he chose, and he chose to be so with us. Commencing a long conversation by courteously expressing a hope that our apartments were to our liking, and kindly informing us that, if they were not, a hint to the major-domo would be sufficient to secure the rectification of whatever might be amiss, he then went on to speak of "the unnecessary haste" with which we had been removed from the ship, and of the inconvenience which we must have experienced from the scantiness of our wardrobe, an inconvenience which, he said, he would "take the liberty" of having remedied as speedily as might be. This, of course, was very kind of him, and we ungrudgingly credited him with the most generous of motives; at the same time I have no doubt that the stately don was as heartily ashamed of the two scarecrows who accompanied him as we were of our own appearance.

Having thus cleared the ground, as it were, our benefactor proceeded to question us closely as to the circ.u.mstances connected with and which led up to the mutiny, at which he expressed the most unqualified reprobation; and when we had told him all we knew about it he informed us that the British government had made a formal demand for the rest.i.tution of the frigate and the surrender of the mutineers, as well as the captive officers, a demand which, he said, the Spanish government had seen fit to refuse; and I thought, from his manner of speaking upon the subject, that he by no means favourable regarded the action of his countrymen in the matter. This conversation, and indeed all that we subsequently held with him, was, I ought to say, conducted in English.

He asked us questions innumerable--indeed more than we were able to fully answer--respecting the habits and customs of our nation, our mode of government, and what not; and it was not long before we were able to perceive that his liking for the English was as strong as it was possible for a thorough-bred Spanish n.o.ble to entertain.

A walk, or rather a saunter, of about a mile and a half through the park brought us to the scene of our future operations--a lake of, I should say, some four or five acres in extent--and here the subject of our conversation was diverted to the theme of the commandant's requirements of us.

The lake, it appeared, was a natural feature of the landscape, with a stream some twenty feet in width flowing through it. A walk had been constructed right round it, crossing the stream by a couple of rustic bridges; and for about one-half its length the banks had been most beautifully laid out as a flower-garden. For the remaining half of its length, however, nature had been allowed to have pretty much her own way, except at the point where the stream entered the lake. There the ground had been carefully cleared of trees, and trimmed so as to present the aspect of a low flat sh.o.r.e, with hills in the rear. And on this sh.o.r.e, covering an area of some fifty feet square on each side of the stream, the commandant had caused to be constructed an exceedingly pretty and carefully finished model of a town, with streets, houses, public buildings, squares, and even monuments, with a harbour, including moles, piers, lighthouses, batteries, etcetera, complete down to the minutest detail. It had evidently been a labour of love with him, as could be seen at a glance from the care and finish lavished upon the work; and we afterwards learned that it had occupied him and a staff of a dozen workmen for more than a year. It was to blockade this miniature town and port that the fleet of ships which we were to construct was required, the trenches and investing earthworks and batteries on the land side being already finished. It was surprising to see how this most dignified Spaniard unbent, and how enthusiastic he became as he described his plans to us and gave us instructions respecting the dimensions and number of his pigmy fleet. He was evidently much pleased with the admiration we expressed at the care and skill exhibited in working out his quaint idea; and when we had minutely inspected every part of it he led us to a comfortable airy little workshop, concealed in a kind of brake among the trees, where we found a good stock of wood, with a capital supply of tools and everything necessary to the proper carrying out of our task. We did not do anything in the way of work on that day, however, for by the time that we had seen everything and had taken a walk to the seaward extremity of the park the sun was getting low, and the time had arrived for us to see about getting back to the castle.

Oh, how we enjoyed the luxury of that first dinner at the castle!--the only decent meal of which we had partaken since our landing--with the quiet evening which followed it, spent in a large, lofty, well-furnished apartment, lighted up by a ma.s.sive silver lamp of elaborate workmanship, and cooled by the light evening breeze which floated in through the widely-opened cas.e.m.e.nts. Stretched luxuriously in a couple of low comfortable sloping-backed chairs, we sat at one of these open cas.e.m.e.nts discussing a bottle of excellent wine, and looking out upon the dark woods which surrounded the building, watching the full moon soar into the cloudless sky from behind the gently-swaying foliage, and listening to the song of the nightingale, amidst which we once or twice thought we detected the tinkling sounds of a guitar apparently issuing from one of the open windows in another wing of the castle.

We retired early to rest that night, after a bath, not so much because we were tired, but rather to enjoy the unwonted luxury of rest in an actual bed, with the pleasant accompaniment of clean sweet-smelling linen.

We were disappointed, however, in our antic.i.p.ations of a sound night's sleep. After making shift for so long with a heap of straw spread on a hard pavement, the beds seemed too soft and yielding to our unaccustomed limbs, and we lay tossing to and fro for a long time before we eventually dropped off to sleep. This trifling inconvenience disappeared, however, after a few nights' experience.

We were up and stirring by daybreak next morning, and a few minutes later we might have been seen scudding across the park on our way to a certain rocky pool on the beach, which the commandant had pointed out to us the day before as a place where we might safely venture to indulge in a swim without fear of the sharks. Taking his word for it we plunged in and swam off, until we found ourselves almost among the breakers, then returned to the sh.o.r.e, dressed, and made our way back to the castle, which we reached in good time for breakfast. That meal over we set out for the workshop, Pedro--the servant who seemed to have been appointed to wait upon us--informing us as we started that he had orders to have luncheon ready for us by one o'clock. Arrived at the scene of our labours we each selected a suitable block of wood, and whilst Courtenay set to work upon a model of the _Hermione_, I, with greater ambition, devoted all my energies to the hewing out of a line-of-battle ship.

Thus occupied the time pa.s.sed swiftly away, and almost before we were aware of it the commandant, who had looked in upon us to see how we were progressing, announced that it was time for us to see about returning to the castle. He walked back with us, chatting most affably all the way; and on reaching our rooms we found a tailor awaiting us, by his orders, to take our measures for a new outfit of rigging. The first instalment of this, in the shape of a loose white nankin suit apiece, with shirt, stockings, light shoes of tan-coloured leather, crimson silk sashes--to serve instead of braces--and broad-brimmed cane-hat, all complete, awaited us on our waking a couple of mornings later, much to our gratification, as the idea grew upon us that the castle contained other inmates besides the commandant, and we were anxious to avoid a rencontre with these so long as we retained our ragged, scarecrow appearance.

We had been at work about a week; Courtenay had completed the hull of his frigate, and was busy about her spars, whilst I was putting the finishing touches to a figure-head for my seventy-four, when, about four o'clock in the afternoon, our workshop suddenly became darkened to such an extent that we could no longer see to work. Looking up and glancing out of the window, we observed that, unnoticed by us, a heavy thunder- storm had been gathering over the sea, and the clouds, setting sh.o.r.eward, were now hovering immediately overhead. That it was likely to be a severe storm was manifest, the sky being blacker than I had ever seen it before. We were debating upon the advisability of effecting an immediate retreat to the castle, and taking our chance of reaching it before the storm should burst, when a vivid flash of lightning, green and baleful, quickly succeeded by a most deafening peal of thunder, decided us to remain where we were. Another flash and another rapidly followed, and then down came the rain in a perfect deluge. It fell, not in drops but in regular _sheets_ of water, lashing the surface of the lake into a plain of milky foam, and so completely flooding the ground that in five minutes the water everywhere, as far as we could see from the window at which we had taken our stand, must have been ankle-deep.

The storm gained in intensity with startling rapidity, the lightning blazing and flashing about us so uninterruptedly that the whole atmosphere seemed a-quiver with the greenish-blue glare; whilst the rattling crash and roar of the thunder went on absolutely without any intermission, filling the firmament with one continuous chaos of deafening sound and causing the very earth beneath our feet to tremble.

This had been going on for some eight or ten minutes, perhaps, when we caught sight, through the streaming deluge outside, of a couple of white-clad flying figures making their way down the path from the rustic bridge toward the workshop. I sprang to the door and threw it open; and in another moment two young women plunged through the doorway--their light flimsy garments streaming with water and clinging about their limbs--and flung themselves breathlessly down upon a bench, the taller and darker of the two panting out:

"A thousand thanks, senors! Madre de Dios, what a storm!"

"It is indeed terrible," I replied in my best Spanish, as I closed the door again. "And you have been fairly caught in it. Have you come from a distance?"

"Only from the castle. I am Inez de Guzman, the commandant's daughter, and this," pointing to her companion, "is Eugenia Gonzalez, my foster- sister. We left home about two hours ago to walk through the park as far as the beach; and it was not until we had emerged from among the trees near the sh.o.r.e that we noticed the gathering storm. Then we hastened back homeward as quickly as possible, but were overtaken before we could gain shelter anywhere. I hope you will excuse our bursting in so unceremoniously upon you. You are the young English officers who have come to a.s.sist my father, I presume?"

Courtenay and I bowed our affirmatives with all the grace we could muster.

"Poor papa!" she continued. "Are you not amused at his having taken so much, so _very_ much trouble just to work out and ill.u.s.trate his pet theories?"

"By no means," we hastened to a.s.sure her. "On the contrary," said I, "I regard it as an evidence of the thoroughness with which the commandant carries out all his undertakings."

"Ah, yes!" said she, evidently well pleased, "I see you understand my father. He is just the same in everything. Heavens, what a flash!

Will the storm _never_ cease!"

"There is no present indication of its ending," said I as I glanced through the window at the blackness outside illumined only by the quivering lightning flashes. "However, it surely _cannot_ last very much longer. Meanwhile you are both wet to the skin, and I fear we are utterly dest.i.tute of means to remedy the disaster. I am afraid you will be chilled sitting there in your drenched garments; and indeed--if you will forgive me for saying so--I think that, since you cannot possibly be made more wet than you now are, you would run less risk of taking cold if you were to proceed home to the castle at once, even though you would have to walk through the storm. We would of course accompany you if you would permit us that honour."

"But," said she with a little shudder indicative of incipient chill, "you are both of you dry and comfortable."

"That is nothing," said I. "It is evident that we shall have to go through it sooner or later; so perhaps the sooner the better."

After a little more persuasion on our part and protestations on theirs our fair companions acceded to our suggestion, and we set out, I leading the van with the commandant's daughter, and Courtenay following with the foster-sister.

We stepped out briskly, so as to avert, if possible, any evil consequences of the drenching already received; and as we picked our way along the partially submerged footpath, giving the trees as wide a berth as possible for fear of the lightning which still played vividly about us, my fair companion informed me that the commandant on returning from his visit to us that morning had found an urgent summons to Cartagena awaiting him, and that he had started in obedience thereto within half an hour of its receipt, mentioning, as he hastily bade her farewell, that he could not get back in less than a fortnight at the earliest. We discussed this subject and her father's probable present whereabouts for a few minutes, and then the young lady asked me to detail to her the particulars of the mutiny on board the _Hermione_, which I did as fully as I possibly could, exciting thereby her keenest anger against the mutineers and her tenderest commiseration for the sufferers.

"Poor boy!" said she as I concluded my narrative, "what a dreadful experience for you to pa.s.s through!"