The Spanish Cavalier Part 5

The muleteer was no stranger to Alcala, who knew him to be an honest but ignorant man, unable even to read. The cavalier would not send a verbal reply to the note of Inez, but had no time to return to the posada in order to write what he could not speak. Alcala drew out a pencil-case which he chanced to have on his person, but he carried with him no paper, and he would not return to the unhappy Inez her own epistle; that token of her affection he would bear with him to the last. The muleteer guessed from his gesture that the cavalier wished to write, and saw that he had no writing materials save the pencil-case in his hand. The man supplied the want, in his own rough way, by stooping and picking up from the road a dusty fragment of paper which happened to be lying upon it. There was no opportunity of procuring a more suitable sheet; Alcala scarcely even noticed that the paper was part of a leaf torn from a printed book. There was room on the margin for a few words; and resting the paper on his saddle, after giving the muleteer charge of his spear, Alcala hastily scrawled the brief note which was soon afterwards received by his sister. How many bitter tears were to be shed over that leaf!

"It is I who am blighting her young life; it is I who am riveting chains upon her whose only fault is that of loving an ungrateful brother too well," muttered Alcala to himself, as he saw his messenger speed on before him.

The painful task of answering the letter of Inez being over, Alcala thrust it under his scarf, gently shook his rein, and rode on. No prisoner condemned to suffer at an auto-da-fe had ever gone to the stake erected in the Plaza more hopeless of deliverance than Alcala felt at that moment. His embroidered vestments were to him as the san-benito worn by the doomed; the horrible ordeal from which nature shrank was before him, and he had no enthusiasm of zeal, no joy of hope, to bear him through it.

Some stragglers, bound for the sport at the Coliseo, were overtaken by Aguilera. They recognized him as a picador by his peculiar dress, turned eagerly to look at him, and in loud tones made their remarks on the horseman as he pa.s.sed them.

"Brave caballero! how splendid he looks!" cried an Andalusian maiden.

"But scarcely strong enough to drive his spear deep into the tough hide of a bull," remarked her more experienced companion.

"Tush, Tomaso, it's all skill," laughed the girl. "I warrant you the picador knows how to manage his horse in the ring, and avoid the thrust of the horns--"

The conclusion of the sentence did not reach the ears of Alcala; he had urged his steed to a quicker pace, in order to get beyond hearing.

CHAPTER X.

STRUCK DOWN.

Lucius endeavoured so to time the hour of his return to Seville that he might re-enter the town when the result of the bull-fight might be known. He proposed calling at the mansion in the Calle de San Jose on his way back to his lodging, with the hope, if not of seeing Alcala, at least of hearing tidings of his safety.

The sun was still some height above the western horizon when Lucius entered the deserted street. The glare reflected back from the high dead wall was oppressive.

"I am too early; I have been too impatient," thought the young Englishman, as he laid his hand on the bell which hung in the shadow of the archway. He marked that the grating of the patio was ajar. Inez had forgotten to lock it after receiving from the muleteer the note from Alcala which crushed her last hope. The unprotected state of the house mattered, however, little; there was no great danger of thieves invading a place in which they would find no plunder.

Lucius rang softly, as one who would by no loud summons disturb a house of mourning; but the bell was instantly answered. The grating at the end of the vestibule was thrown hastily back, and the trembling Inez herself hurried through the opening, and along the arched pa.s.sage. Her dark eyes were dilated with fear, her pale lips trembled.

She knew not whom she was addressing, but her whole soul appeared to flow forth in the question, "Bring you tidings from the Plaza de Toros?"

"I come to ask for them, senorita," began Lucius. But the eyes of Inez rested on him no longer, they were turned wistfully in another direction. Her ear, quickened by fear, had caught a sound which Lucius had heard not, and breathless with expectation she gazed up the street. In another moment a crowd of persons appeared emerging from the entrance of a lane which crossed the Calle de San Jose. They came not with shout or mirth, as if escorting a victor home, but slowly, like a throng who follow a funeral procession. There was no noise, save the tramping of feet, and ever and anon the wail of a woman.

Lucius glanced at Inez, and read despair in her face. An icy numbness was creeping over her frame; she had no power to go forward to meet the corpse of her brother. Soon the crowd reached the entrance of the dwelling of Aguilera; in the midst of the throng was seen a litter borne by men. On that litter lay stretched a motionless form. Pale and ghastly, with garments blood-stained and torn, Alcala de Aguilera was borne back to the home of his fathers.

Lucius intuitively took the place of a brother. "Back--back!" he exclaimed in a tone of authority to the crowd who pressed round the litter,--"none but the bearers shall enter. Who will go for a surgeon?"

"I--I," replied several voices, and the crowd dispersed in various directions, whilst the litter was borne through the arched pa.s.sage.

"Show the way to his room," said Lucius to Teresa, whom he recognized, as she followed her master closely, crying and wringing her hands.

The litter was carried across the patio, and through a long s.p.a.cious corridor, at the end of which lay the cavalier's apartment. Alcala's wound had already been roughly bound up at the circus, the flowing blood had been stanched. He was, with the help of Lucius and Inez, gently lifted from the litter and placed on his bed, to await the surgeon's arrival.

"Water--bring water!" cried Lucius. Teresa hurried to obey the command, but her young mistress had forestalled her. In this emergency the energy of Inez had returned. But not a word had she uttered, not a tear had she shed; her anguish had sealed her lips, her terror had dried up her tears. Kneeling beside her brother's low bed, Inez sprinkled with water his corpse-like face; Lucius, gently supporting his head, put a cup to his lips.

"Oh, Heaven be praised!--he drinks! there is life in him still!"

exclaimed Inez.

"He's dying--he's dying--last of his race! Oh, woe's me! woe's me!"

moaned Teresa.

Lucius dismissed the bearers, satisfying their demands with the coin--it was but little--that he chanced to have on his person. They had scarcely left the place ere the anxiously expected surgeon arrived.

The surgeon removed the bandages from the insensible Alcala, and examined his ghastly wound. There was a deep gash in the left shoulder, from which there had been a great effusion of blood. The full extent of the injury sustained by the unfortunate cavalier could not be ascertained at once.

"He was crushed up against the barrier,--I saw it with my own eyes,--oh that I should have lived to see it!" cried Teresa, with pa.s.sionate gestures. "The bull charged, and in a moment man and horse were down in the dust. Campeador never rose again, the horns of the savage--"

"Be silent, woman!" said Lucius sternly; "does not your lady already suffer enough?"

Teresa stared in angry surprise at this unexpected rebuke from the stranger, who had a.s.sumed a post of command in the house of his friend by the tacit consent of its mistress; for Inez felt as if, in her sorest need, a helper and supporter had been sent to her by Heaven.

The old woman dared not reply, but muttering something between her teeth about "insolent heretic," busied herself with the bandages required for the wound.

When the surgeon had finished his work, Lucius accompanied him out of the room, that his question, "Do you think that there is hope?" might not be heard by Inez.

"It is impossible to give any decided opinion as yet, senor," answered the surgeon. "Fever will probably ensue; let some one sit up with the caballero during the night."

As the surgeon crossed the patio, it was entered by a priest. In this stout personage, swathed in long black robe with rosary and crucifix dependent; with plump, dark, close-shaven face, and tonsured head from which the huge flapped hat was now removed, Lucius recognized the priest who had touched him on the shoulder on the previous evening.

There was no word spoken between the two men; the family confessor needed no guide to the room of Alcala. But the eyes of the Spaniard and the Englishman met, and each read in the glance of the other, "I shall find an opponent in you."

From motives of delicacy, Lucius did not follow the priest into Alcala's apartment, but remained waiting in the lofty corridor. He would not by his presence disturb the visit of a spiritual director.

The door was closed between them; no ordinary conversation could therefore be heard by one standing outside, who had no wish or intention to listen. The priest, however, probably purposely, spoke loudly enough in the chamber of sickness for a word or two occasionally to reach the ear of Lucius.

"Not at confession for the last year,--bad influence--heretic--Protestant," such were the words which the raised tone in which they were spoken rendered audible,--though an indistinct murmur was all that was otherwise heard of the voice of the ecclesiastic through the closed door.

"Would that I had better deserved the priest's suspicions!" thought Lucius, with some self-reproach.

When the priest left Alcala's apartment he was followed by Inez and Teresa, though the former went but a few steps beyond the door. Her hands were clasped; a look of entreaty was on her pale face.

"You will not refuse my brother the last rites of the Church?" she said faintly.

"I will come again to-morrow, and hear his confession, if Don Alcala be then able and willing to confess," was the sternly uttered reply.

"I hope that I shall find him a true son of the Church;" the hope was expressed in a tone that was more suggestive of doubt. Inez bowed low with submissive reverence, and returned to her post.

As Father Bonifacio--such was the name of the priest--pa.s.sed Lucius, again his eyes rested on the young Englishman with an expression of dislike and suspicion. The glance was calmly returned.

Teresa accompanied the priest to the outer arch, while Lucius went back to the room of his friend.

"I knew that there was something wrong," muttered Teresa, when Bonifacio had pa.s.sed out into the street. "Don Alcala has been too much with those vile blasphemers of the saints and the blessed Virgin.

If all the bulls that graze on the Sierra Nevada had come against him, the arm of an Aguilera would have prevailed, had his lance but been sprinkled with holy water. Had the caballero been to ma.s.s and confession in the morning, he would never have rolled in the dust at noon. If I had my will, that English heretic should never come near or look at him again!"

But Teresa had not her will, at least on the night which followed that anxious day. Lucius shared with Inez the long sad watch by the sufferer's pillow. As his presence certainly did not seem to be unwelcome to the sister of his friend, he remained at his post until dawn.

How often the scene in that sick-room afterwards returned to the recollection of Lucius, its most trifling accessories imprinted indelibly on his mind! The large and lofty but scantily-furnished apartment, so dimly lighted by one small lamp that its further corners were left in almost absolute darkness; the walls, on which the plaster was cracked and peeling; while square-shaped marks and projecting nails showed that pictures had once been hung where they no longer remained to bear witness to the wealth and taste of their late possessors. One family portrait alone was left, evidently painted by the hand of a master; but it had apparently served as a pistol target in the time when the French were quartered in Seville, as it was drilled with several holes. The ceiling had once been richly painted and gilded; but the gold had long since lost all trace of brightness, and the faded painting showed in the dull light like mere undefined stains of various hues. There was no carpet on the floor; this was not necessarily a sign of poverty in a climate so warm as that of Andalusia, but the boards themselves were time-worn, and in some places seemed going to decay.

The part of the scene on which interest centred was that where Alcala lay, on his bed of pain, with countenance so pale that it looked as if it belonged to a monumental rec.u.mbent figure chiselled out of marble.

Almost as pale and as still, his sister sat watching beside him, scarcely ever raising her long dark lashes, so fixed was her gaze on the face of Alcala. Inez seemed scarcely to be aware of the presence of a stranger, save when Lucius helped her to change the position of the sufferer, or placed the fever-draught in her hand. Inez would then thank him by a mute and scarcely perceptible gesture.

Hour after hour pa.s.sed away, whilst the only sounds that broke the stillness were the rustle of Teresa's dress, or the crack of one of the old boards under her heavy tread. The old servant flitted about uneasily, like a bird whose nest is invaded. It was against all the duenna's ideas of propriety, as well as the devotee's prejudiced views of religion, that the English heretic should remain in the sick-room, which nothing would persuade Donna Inez to quit. But Teresa dared not speak out her mind in the presence of Lucius Lepine, above all in that still and solemn apartment. Even Teresa could hardly help seeing, though she would not have openly acknowledged the fact, that the services of the young stranger could not, on that night, have been well dispensed with. No one would ever have introduced Chico into a sick-room; and before the long night was over, Teresa's own eyelids were closed in sleep. The old servant was worn out with the fatigue, excitement, and distress of the day.