Tom Cringle's Log Part 43

"She never made a fool of herself, Don Picador, but once; and G.o.d forgive those who were the cause of it. It is not kind of you, it is not kind."

"Well, well," rejoined the querulous old man, "do as you will, do as you will,--always crossing me, always crossing."

His wife took no farther notice, but stepped across the room to me, "Our poor dying Maria knows you are here; and probably you are not aware that he wrote to her after his"--her voice quavered after his condemnation, the night before he suffered, that you were the only one who shewed him kindness; and she has also read the newspapers giving an account of the trial. She wishes to see you will you pleasure her?

Senora Campana has made her acquainted that you are the bearer of some trinkets belonging to him, from which she infers you witnessed his last moments, as one of them, she was told, was her picture, poor dear girl; and she knew that must have grown to his heart till the last. But it will be too agitating. I will try and dissuade her from the interview until the doctor comes, at all events.'

The worthy lady stepped again into Maria's apartment, and I could not avoid hearing what pa.s.sed.

"My dear Maria, Mr Cringle has no objection to wait on you; but after your severe attack this morning, I don't think it will be wise. Delay it until Dr Bergara comes--at any rate, until the evening, Maria."

"Mother," she said, in a weak, plaintive voice, although husky from the phlegm which was fast coagulating in her throat--"Mother, I already have ceased to be of this world; I am dying, dearest mother, fast dying; and oh, thou All-good and All-merciful Being, against whom I have fearfully sinned, would that the last struggle were now o'er, and that my weary spirit were released, and my shame hidden in the silent tomb, and my sufferings and very name forgotten!" She paused and gasped for breath; I thought it was all over with her; but she rallied again and proceeded "Time is rapidly ebbing from me, dearest mother,--for mother I must call you, more than a mother have you been to me--and the ocean of eternity is opening to my view. If I am to see him at all, I must see him now; I shall be more agitated by the expectation of the interview than by seeing him at once. Oh! let me see him now, let me look on one who witnessed his last moments."

I could see Senora Cangrejo where she stood. She crossed her hands on her bosom, and looked up towards heaven, and then turned mournfully towards me, and beckoned me to approach. I entered the small room, which had been fitted up by the poor girl with some taste; the furniture was better than any I had seen in a Spanish house before, and there was a mat on the floor, and some exquisite miniatures and small landscapes on the walls. It was her boudoir, opening apparently into a bedroom beyond. It was lighted by a large open unglazed window, with a row of wooden bal.u.s.trades beyond it, forming part of a small balcony. A Carmelite friar, a venerable old man, with the hot tears fast falling from his old eyes over his wrinkled cheeks, whom I presently found to be the excellent Padre Carera, sat in a large chair by the bedside, with a silver cup in his hand, beside which lay a large crucifix of the same metal; he had just administered extreme unction, and the viatic.u.m, he fondly hoped, would prove a pa.s.sport for his dear child to another and a better world. As I entered he rose, held out his hand to me, and moved round to the bottom of the bed.

The shutters had been opened, and, with a suddenness which no one can comprehend who has not lived in these climates, the sun now shone brightly on the flowers and garden plants which grew in a range of pots on the balcony, and lighted up the pale features of a lovely girl, lovely even in the jaws of death, as she lay with her face towards the light, supported in a reclining position on cushions, on a red morocco mattra.s.s, laid on a sort of frame or bed.

"Light was her form, and darkly delicate, that brow, whereon her native sun had sat, but had not marr'd."

She was tall, so far as I could judge, but oh, how attenuated! Her lower limbs absolutely made no impression on the mattra.s.s, to which her frame appeared to cling, giving a ghastly conspicuousness to the oedematoust swelling of her feet, and to her person, for, alas! She was in a way to have become a mother.

The offspring of his wayward youth, When he betrayed Bianca's truth; The maid whose folly could confide In him, who made her not his bride.

Her hand, grasping her pocket-handkerchief, drenched, alas, with blood, hung over the side of the bed, thin and pale, with her long taper fingers as transparent as if they had been fresh cut alabaster, with the blue veins winding through her wrists, and her bosom wasted and shrunk, and her neck no thicker than her arm, with the pulsations of the large arteries as plain and evident as if the skin had been a film, and her beautiful features, although now sharpened by the near approaching death agony, her lovely mouth, her straight nose, her arched eyebrows, black, like pencilled jet lines, and her small ears,--and oh, who can describe her rich black raven hair, lying combed out, and spread all over the bed and pillow? She was dressed in a long loose gown of white c.r.a.pe; it looked like a winding-sheet; but the fire of her eyes--I have purposely not ventured to describe them--the unearthly brilliancy of her large, full, swimming eye!

When I entered, I bowed, and remained standing near the door. She said something, but in so low a voice that I could not catch the words; and when I stepped nearer, on purpose to hear more distinctly, all at once the blood mantled in her cheeks and forehead and throat, like the last gleam of the setting sun; but it faded as rapidly, and once more she lay pale as her smock.

"Yet not such blush, as mounts when health would show, All the heart's hue in that delightful glow; But 'twas a hectic tint of secret care, That for a burning moment fever'd there; And the wild sparkle of her eye seemd caught From high, and lighten'd with electric thought; Though its black orb these long low lashes fringe, Had temper'd with a melancholy tinge."

Her voice was becoming more and more weak, she said, so she must be prompt. "You have some trinkets for me, Mr Cringle?" I presented them.

She kissed the crucifix fervently, and then looked mournfully on her own miniature. "This was thought like once, Mr Cringle.--Are the newspaper accounts of his trial correct?" she next asked. I answered, that in the main facts they were. "And do you believe in the commission of all these alleged atrocities by him?" I remained silent. "Yes, they are but too true. Hush, hush," said she "look there."

I did as she requested. There, glancing bright in the sunshine, a most beautiful b.u.t.terfly fluttered in the air, in the very middle of the open window. When we first saw it, it was flitting gaily and happily amongst the plants and flowers that were blooming in the balcony, but it gradually became more and more slow on the wing, and at last poised itself so unusually steadily for an insect of its cla.s.s, that even had Maria not spoken, it would have attracted my attention. Below it, on the window sill, near the wall, with head erect, and its little basilisk eyes upturned towards the lovely fly, crouched a camelion lizard; its beautiful body, when I first looked at it, was a bright sea-green. It moved into the sunshine, a little away from the shade of the laurel bush, which grew on the side it first appeared on, and suddenly the back became transparent amber, the legs and belly continuing green. From its breast under the chin, it every now and then shot out a semicircular film of a bright scarlet colour, like a leaf of a tulip stretched vertically, or the pectoral fin of a fish.

This was evidently a decoy, and the poor fly was by degrees drawn down towards it, either under the impression of its being in reality a flower, or impelled by some impulse which it could not resist. It gradually fluttered nearer and more near, the reptile remaining all the while steady as a stone, until it made a sudden spring, and in the next moment the small meally wings were quivering on each side of the camelion's tiny jaws. While in the act of gorging its prey, a little fork, like a wire, was projected from the opposite corner of the window; presently a small round black snout, with a pair of little fiery blasting eyes, appeared, and a thin black neck glanced in the sun. The lizard saw it.

I could fancy it trembled. Its body became of a dark blue, then ashy pale; the imitation of the flower, the gaudy fin was withdrawn, it appeared to shrink back as far as it could, but it was nailed or fascinated to the window sill, for its feet did not move. The head of the snake approached, with its long forked tongue shooting out and shortening, and with a low hissing noise. By this time about two feet of its body was visible, lying with its white belly on the wooden beam, moving forward with a small horizontal wavy motion, the head and six inches of the neck being a little raised. I shrunk back from the serpent, but no one else seemed to have any dread of it; indeed, I afterwards learned, that this kind being good mousers, and otherwise quite harmless, were, if any thing, encouraged about houses in the country. I looked again; its open mouth was now within an inch of the lizard, which by this time seemed utterly paralysed and motionless; the next instant its head was drawn into the snake's mouth, and by degrees the whole body disappeared, as the reptile gorged it, and I could perceive from the lump which gradually moved down the snake's neck, that it had been sucked into its stomach. Involuntarily I raised my hand, when the whole suddenly disappeared.

I turned, I could scarcely tell why, to look at the dying girl. A transient flush had again lit up her pale wasted face. She was evidently greatly excited. "Can you read me that riddle, Mr Cringle?

Does no a.n.a.logy present itself to you between what you have seen, between the mysterious power possessed by these subtle reptiles, and Look--look again."

A large and still more lovely b.u.t.terfly suddenly rose from beneath where the snake had vanished, all glittering in the dazzling sunshine, and after fluttering for a moment, floated steadily up into the air, and disappeared in the blue sky. My eye followed it as long as it was visible, and when it once more declined to where we had seen the snake, I saw a most splendid dragonfly, about three inches long, like a golden bodkin, with its gauze-like wings moving so quickly, as it hung steadily poised in mid air, like a hawk preparing to stoop, that the body seemed to be surrounded by silver tissue, or a bright halo, while it glanced in the sunbeam.

"Can you not read it yet, Mr Cringle? can you not read my story in the fate of the first beautiful fly, and the miserable end of my Federico, in that of the lizard? And oh, may the last appearance of the ethereal thing, which but now rose, and melted into the lovely sky, be a true type of what I shall be! But that poor insect, that remains there suspended between heaven and earth, shall I say h.e.l.l, what am I to think of it?"

The dragonfly was still there. She continued--"En purgatorio, ah Dios, tu quedas en purgatorio," as if the fly had represented the unhappy young pirate's soul in limbo. Oh, let no one smile at the quaintness of the dying fancy of the poor heart-crushed girl. The weather began to lower again, the wind came past us moaningly--the sun was obscured large drops of rain fell heavily into the room--a sudden dazzling flash of lightning took place, and the dragonfly was no longer there. A long low wild cry was heard. I started, and my flesh creeped. The cry was repeated. "Es el--el mismo, y ningun otro. Me venga, Federico; me venga, mi querido!" shrieked poor Maria, with a supernatural energy, and with such piercing distinctness that it was heard shrill even above the rolling thunder.

I turned to look at Maria--another flash. It glanced on the crucifix which the old priest had elevated at the foot of the bed, full in her view. It was nearer, the thunder was louder. "Is that the rain-drops which are falling heavily on the floor through the open window?" Oh G.o.d!

Oh G.o.d! it is her warm heart's-blood, which was bubbling from her mouth like a crimson fountain. Her pale fingers were clasped on her bosom in the att.i.tude of prayer--a gentle quiver of her frame and the poor broken hearted girl, and her unborn babe, "sleeped the sleep that knows no waking."

CHAPTER XIV.--Scenes in Cuba

Ariel.--Safely in harbour, Is the king's ship; in the deep nook, where, once, Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew, From the still--vexed Bermoothes--there she's hid.

The Tempest, I. ii 227--29.

The spirit had indeed fled--the ethereal essence had departed--and the poor wasted and blood-stained husk which lay before us, could no longer be moved by our sorrows, or gratified by our sympathy. Yet I stood riveted to the spot, until I was aroused by the deep-toned voice of Padre Carera, who, lifting up his hands towards heaven, addressed the Almighty in extempore prayer, beseeching his mercy to our erring sister who had just departed. The unusualness of this startled me.--"As the tree falls, so must it lie," had been the creed of my forefathers, and was mine; but now for the first time I heard a clergyman wrestling in mental agony, and interceding with the G.o.d who hath said, "Repent before the night cometh, in which no man can work," for a sinful creature, whose worn-out frame was now as a clod of the valley. But I had little time for consideration, as presently all the negro servants of the establishment set up a loud howl, as if they had lost their nearest and dearest. "Oh, our poor dear young mistress is dead! She has gone to the bosom of the Virgin! She is gone to be happy!"--"Then why the deuce make such a yelling?" quoth Bang in the other room, when this had been translated to him. Clad to leave the chamber of death, I entered the large hall, where I had left our friend.

"I say, Tom--awful work. Hear how the rain pours, and murder--such a flash! Why, in Jamaica, we don't startle greatly at lightning, but absolutely I heard it hiss--there, again"--the noise of the thunder stopped further colloquy, and the wind now burst down the valley with a loud roar.

Don Ricardo joined us. "My good friends--we are in a sc.r.a.pe here--what is to be done?--a melancholy affair altogether."--Bang's curiosity here fairly got the better of him.

"I say, Don Ricardibus--do--beg pardon, though--do give over this humbugging outlandish lingo of yours--speak like a Christian, in your mother tongue, and leave off your Spanish, which now, since I know it is all a bam, seems to sit as strangely on you as my grandmother's toupe would on Tom Cringle's Mary."

"Now do pray, Mr Bang," said I, when Don Ricardo broke in "Why, Mr Bang, I am, as you now know, a Scotchman."

"How do I know any such thing--that is, for a certainty--while you keep cruising amongst so many lingoes, as Tom there says?"

"The docken, man," said I.--Don Ricardo smiled.

"I am a Scotchman, my dear sir; and the same person who, in his youth, was neither more nor less than wee Richy Cloche, in the long town of Kirkaldy, and in his old age Don Ricardo Campana of St Jago de Cuba.

But more of this anon,--at present we are in the house of mourning, and alas the day! that it should be so."

By this time the storm had increased most fearfully, and as Don Ricardo, Aaron, and myself, sat in the dark damp corner of the large gloomy hall, we could scarcely see each other, for the lightning had now ceased, and the darkness was so thick, that had it not been for the light from the large funeral wax tapers, which had been instantly lit upon poor Maria's death, in the room where she lay, that streamed through the open door, we should have been unable to see our very fingers before us.

"What is that?" said Campana; "heard you nothing, gentlemen?"

"By this the storm grew loud apace, The water-wraith was shrieking; And in the scowl of heaven each face, Grew dark as they were speaking."

In the lulls of the rain and the blast, the same long low cry was heard which had startled me by Maria's bedside, and occasioned the sudden and fatal exertion which had been the cause of the bursting out afresh of the blood vessel.

"Why," said I, "it is little more than three o'clock in the afternoon yet, dark as it is; let us sally out, Mr Bang, for I verify believe that the hollo we have heard is my Captain's voice, and, if I conjecture rightly, he must have arrived at the other side of the river, probably with the Doctor."

"Why, Tom," quoth Aaron, "it is only three in the afternoon, as you say, although by the sky I could almost vouch for its being midnight,--but I don't like that shouting--Did you ever read of a water-kelpie, Don Richy?"

"Poo, poo, nonsense," said the Don; "Mr Cringle is, I fear, right enough." At this moment the wind thundered at the door and window shutters, and howled amongst the neighbouring trees and round the roof, as if it would have blown the house down upon our devoted heads. The cry was again heard, during a momentary pause.

"Zounds!" said Bang, "it is the skipper's voice, as sure as fate--he must be in danger--let us go and see, Tom."

"Take me with you," said Campana,--the foremost always when any good deed was to be done----and, in place of clapping on his great-coat to meet the storm, to our unutterable surprise, he began to disrobe himself, all to his trowsers and large straw hat. He then called one of the servants, "Trae me un la.s.so." The la.s.so, a long thong of plaited hide, was forthwith brought; he coiled it up in his left hand. "Now, Pedro," said he to the negro servant who had fetched it, (a tall strapping fellow,) "you and Caspar follow me. Gentlemen, are you ready?" Caspar appeared, properly accoutred, with a long pole in one hand and a thong similar to Don Ricardo's in the other, he as well as his comrade being stark naked all to their waistcloths. "Ah, well done, my sons," said Don Ricardo, as both the negroes prepared to follow him.

So off we started to the door, although we heard the tormenta raging without with appalling fury. Bang undid the latch, and the next moment he was flat on his back, the large leaf having flown open with tremendous violence, capsizing him like an infant.

The Padre from the inner chamber came to our a.s.sistance, and by our joint exertions we at length got the door to again and barricaded, after which we made our exit from the lee-side of the house by a window.

Under other circ.u.mstances, it would have been difficult to refrain from laughing at the appearance we made. We were all drenched in an instant after we left the shelter of the house, and there was old Campana, naked to the waist, with his large sombrero and long pigtail hanging down his back, like a mandarin of twenty b.u.t.tons. Next followed his two black a.s.sistants, naked as I have described them, all three with their coils of rope in their hands, like a hangman and his deputies; then advanced friend Bang and myself, without our coats or hats, with handkerchiefs tied round our heads, and our bodies bent down so as to stem the gale as strongly as we could.

But the planting attorney, a great schemer, a kind of Will Wimble in his way, had thought fit, of all things in the world, to bring his umbrella, which the wind, as might have been expected, reversed most unceremoniously the moment he attempted to hoist it, and tore it from the staff, so that, on the impulse of the moment, he had to clutch the flying red silk and thrust his head through the centre, where the stick had stood, as if he had been some curious flower. As we turned the corner of the house, the full force of the storm met us right in the teeth, when flap flew Don Ricardo's hat past us; but the two blackamoors had taken the precaution to strap each of theirs down with a strong gra.s.s lanyard. We continued to work to windward, while every now and then the hollo came past us on the gale louder and louder, until it guided us to the fording which we had crossed on our first arrival. We stopped there;--the red torrent was rushing tumultuously past us, but we saw nothing save a few wet and shivering negroes on the opposite side, who had sheltered themselves under a cliff, and were busily employed in attempting to light a fire. The holloing continued.