Westward Ho! Part 39

"Burned with her, sir!"

"Is this true, sir?" said Amyas, turning to the bishop, with a very quiet voice.

"I, sir?" stammered he, in panting haste. "I had nothing to do--I was compelled in my office of bishop to be an unwilling spectator-- the secular arm, sir; I could not interfere with that--any more than I can with the Holy Office. I do not belong to it--ask that gentleman--sir! Saints and angels, sir! what are you going to do?" shrieked he, as Amyas laid a heavy hand upon his shoulder, and began to lead him towards the door.

"Hang you!" said Amyas. "If I had been a Spaniard and a priest like yourself, I should have burnt you alive."

"Hang me?" shrieked the wretched old Balaam; and burst into abject howls for mercy.

"Take the dark monk, Yeo, and hang him too. Lucy Pa.s.smore, do you know that fellow also?"

"No, sir," said Lucy.

"Lucky for you, Fray Gerundio," said Will Cary; while the good friar hid his face in his hands, and burst into tears. Lucky it was for him, indeed; for he had been a pitying spectator of the tragedy. "Ah!" thought he, "if life in this mad and sinful world be a reward, perhaps this escape is vouchsafed to me for having pleaded the cause of the poor Indian!"

But the bishop shrieked on.

"Oh! not yet. An hour, only an hour! I am not fit to die."

"That is no concern of mine," said Amyas. "I only know that you are not fit to live."

"Let us at least make our peace with G.o.d," said the dark monk.

"Hound! if your saints can really smuggle you up the back-stairs to heaven, they will do it without five minutes' more coaxing and flattering."

Fray Gerundio and the condemned man alike stopped their ears at the blasphemy.

"Oh, Fray Gerundio!" screamed the bishop, "pray for me. I have treated you like a beast. Oh, Fray, Fray!"

"Oh, my lord! my lord!" said the good man, as with tears streaming down his face he followed his shrieking and struggling diocesan up the stairs, "who am I? Ask no pardon of me. Ask pardon of G.o.d for all your sins against the poor innocent savages, when you saw your harmless sheep butchered year after year, and yet never lifted up your voice to save the flock which G.o.d had committed to you. Oh, confess that, my lord! confess it ere it be too late!"

"I will confess all about the Indians, and the gold, and t.i.ta too, Fray; peccavi, peccavi--only five minutes, senors, five little minutes' grace, while I confess to the good Fray!"--and he grovelled on the deck.

"I will have no such mummery where I command," said Amyas, sternly. "I will be no accomplice in cheating Satan of his due."

"If you will confess," said Brimblecombe, whose heart was melting fast, "confess to the Lord, and He will forgive you. Even at the last moment mercy is open. Is it not, Fray Gerundio?"

"It is, senor; it is, my lord," said Gerundio; but the bishop only clasped his hands over his head.

"Then I am undone! All my money is stolen! Not a farthing left to buy ma.s.ses for my poor soul! And no absolution, no viatic.u.m, nor anything! I die like a dog and am d.a.m.ned!"

"Clear away that running rigging!" said Amyas, while the dark Dominican stood perfectly collected, with something of a smile of pity at the miserable bishop. A man accustomed to cruelty, and firm in his fanaticism, he was as ready to endure suffering as to inflict it; repeating to himself the necessary prayers, he called Fray Gerundio to witness that he died, however unworthy, a martyr, in charity with all men, and in the communion of the Holy Catholic Church; and then, as he fitted the cord to his own neck, gave Fray Gerundio various petty commissions about his sister and her children, and a little vineyard far away upon the sunny slopes of Castile; and so died, with a "Domine, in ma.n.u.s tuas," like a valiant man of Spain.

Amyas stood long in solemn silence, watching the two corpses dangling above his head. At last he drew a long breath, as if a load was taken off his heart.

Suddenly he looked round to his men, who were watching eagerly to know what he would have done next.

"Hearken to me, my masters all, and may G.o.d hearken too, and do so to me, and more also, if, as long as I have eyes to see a Spaniard, and hands to hew him down, I do any other thing than hunt down that accursed nation day and night, and avenge all the innocent blood which has been shed by them since the day in which King Ferdinand drove out the Moors!"

"Amen!" said Salvation Yeo. "I need not to swear that oath, for I have sworn it long ago, and kept it. Will your honor have us kill the rest of the idolaters?"

"G.o.d forbid!" said Cary. "You would not do that, Amyas?"

"No; we will spare them. G.o.d has shown us a great mercy this day, and we must be merciful in it. We will land them at Cabo Velo. But henceforth till I die no quarter to a Spaniard."

"Amen!" said Yeo.

Amyas's whole countenance had changed in the last half-hour. He seemed to have grown years older. His brow was wrinkled, his lip compressed, his eyes full of a terrible stony calm, as of one who had formed a great and dreadful purpose, and yet for that very reason could afford to be quiet under the burden of it, even cheerful; and when he returned to the cabin he bowed courteously to the commandant, begged pardon of him for having played the host so ill, and entreated him to finish his breakfast.

"But, senor--is it possible? Is his holiness dead?"

"He is hanged and dead, senor. I would have hanged, could I have caught them, every living thing which was present at my brother's death, even to the very flies upon the wall. No more words, senor; your conscience tells you that I am just."

"Senor," said the commandant--"one word--I trust there are no listeners--none of my crew, I mean; but I must exculpate myself in your eyes."

"Walk out, then, into the gallery with me."

"To tell you the truth, senor--I trust in Heaven no one overhears.-- You are just. This Inquisition is the curse of us, the weight which is crushing out the very life of Spain. No man dares speak. No man dares trust his neighbor, no, not his child, or the wife of his bosom. It avails nothing to be a good Catholic, as I trust I am," and he crossed himself, "when any villain whom you may offend, any unnatural son or wife who wishes to be rid of you, has but to hint heresy against you, and you vanish into the Holy Office--and then G.o.d have mercy on you, for man has none. n.o.ble ladies of my family, sir, have vanished thither, carried off by night, we know not why; we dare not ask why. To expostulate, even to inquire, would have been to share their fate. There is one now, senor-- Heaven alone knows whether she is alive or dead!--It was nine years since, and we have never heard; and we shall never hear."

And the commandant's face worked frightfully.

"She was my sister, senor!"

"Heavens! sir, and have you not avenged her?"

"On churchmen, senor, and I a Catholic? To be burned at the stake in this life, and after that to all eternity beside? Even a Spaniard dare not face that. Beside, sir, the mob like this Inquisition, and an Auto-da-fe is even better sport to them than a bull-fight. They would be the first to tear a man in pieces who dare touch an Inquisitor. Sir, may all the saints in heaven obtain me forgiveness for my blasphemy, but when I saw you just now fearing those churchmen no more than you feared me, I longed, sinner that I am, to be a heretic like you."

"It will not take long to make a brave and wise gentleman who has suffered such things as you have, a heretic, as you call it--a free Christian man, as we call it."

"Tempt me not, sir!" said the poor man, crossing himself fervently. "Let us say no more. Obedience is my duty; and for the rest the Church must decide, according to her infallible authority--for I am a good Catholic, senor, the best of Catholics, though a great sinner.--I trust no one has overheard us!"

Amyas left him with a smile of pity, and went to look for Lucy Pa.s.smore, whom the sailors were nursing and feeding, while Ayacanora watched them with a puzzled face.

"I will talk to you when you are better, Lucy," said he, taking her hand. "Now you must eat and drink, and forget all among us lads of Devon."

"Oh, dear blessed sir, and you will send Sir John to pray with me? For I turned, sir, I turned: but I could not help it--I could not abear the torments: but she bore them, sweet angel--and more than I did. Oh, dear me!"

"Lucy, I am not fit now to hear more. You shall tell me all to- morrow;" and he turned away.

"Why do you take her hand?" said Ayacanora, half-scornfully. "She is old, and ugly, and dirty."

"She is an Englishwoman, child, and a martyr, poor thing; and I would nurse her as I would my own mother."

"Why don't you make me an Englishwoman, and a martyr? I could learn how to do anything that that old hag could do!"

"Instead of calling her names, go and tend her; that would be much fitter work for a woman than fighting among men."

Ayacanora darted from him, thrust the sailors aside, and took possession of Lucy Pa.s.smore.

"Where shall I put her?" asked she of Amyas, without looking up.

"In the best cabin; and let her be served like a queen, lads."

"No one shall touch her but me;" and taking up the withered frame in her arms, as if it were a doll, Ayacanora walked off with her in triumph, telling the men to go and mind the ship.

"The girl is mad," said one.

"Mad or not, she has an eye to our captain," said another.

"And where's the man that would behave to the poor wild thing as he does?"

"Sir Francis Drake would, from whom he got his lesson. Do you mind his putting the negro la.s.s ash.o.r.e after he found out about--"

"Hush! Bygones be bygones, and those that did it are in their graves long ago. But it was too hard of him on the poor thing."

"If he had not got rid of her, there would have been more throats than one cut about the la.s.s, that's all I know," said another; "and so there would have been about this one before now, if the captain wasn't a born angel out of heaven, and the lieutenant no less."

"Well, I suppose we may get a whet by now. I wonder if these Dons have any beer aboard."

"Naught but grape vinegar, which fools call wine, I'll warrant."

"There was better than vinegar on the table in there just now."

"Ah," said one grumbler of true English breed, "but that's not for poor fellows like we."

"Don't lie, Tom Evans; you never were given that way yet, and I don't think the trade will suit a good fellow like you."

The whole party stared; for the speaker of these words was none other than Amyas himself, who had rejoined them, a bottle in each hand.

"No, Tom Evans. It has been share and share alike for three years, and bravely you have all held up, and share alike it shall be now, and here's the handsel of it. We'll serve out the good wine fairly all round as long as it lasts, and then take to the bad: but mind you don't get drunk, my sons, for we are much too short of hands to have any stout fellows lying about the scuppers."

But what was the story of the intendant's being murdered? Brimblecombe had seen him run into a neighboring cabin; and when the door of it was opened, there was the culprit, but dead and cold, with a deep knife-wound in his side. Who could have done the deed? It must have been t.i.ta, whom Brimblecombe had seen loose, and trying to free her lover.

The ship was searched from stem to stern: but no t.i.ta. The mystery was never explained. That she had leapt overboard, and tried to swim ash.o.r.e, none doubted: but whether she had reached it, who could tell? One thing was strange; that not only had she carried off no treasure with her, but that the gold ornaments which she had worn the night before, lay together in a heap on the table, close by the murdered man. Had she wished to rid herself of everything which had belonged to her tyrants?

The commandant heard the whole story thoughtfully.

"Wretched man!" said he, "and he has a wife and children in Seville."

"A wife and children?" said Amyas; "and I heard him promise marriage to the Indian girl."

That was the only hint which gave a reason for his death. What if, in the terror of discovery and capture, the scoundrel had dropped any self-condemning words about his marriage, any prayer for those whom he had left behind, and the Indian had overheard them? It might be so; at least sin had brought its own punishment.

And so that wild night and day subsided. The prisoners were kindly used enough; for the Englishman, free from any petty love of tormenting, knows no mean between killing a foe outright, and treating him as a brother; and when, two days afterwards, they were sent ash.o.r.e in the canoes off Cabo Velo, captives and captors shook hands all round; and Amyas, after returning the commandant his sword, and presenting him with a case of the bishop's wine, bowed him courteously over the side.

"I trust that you will pay us another visit, valiant senor capitan," said the Spaniard, bowing and smiling.

"I should most gladly accept your invitation, ill.u.s.trious senor commandant; but as I have vowed henceforth, whenever I shall meet a Spaniard, neither to give nor take quarter, I trust that our paths to glory may lie in different directions."

The commandant shrugged his shoulders; the ship was put again before the wind, and as the sh.o.r.es of the Main faded lower and dimmer behind her, a mighty cheer broke from all on board; and for once the cry from every mouth was Eastward-ho!

Sc.r.a.p by sc.r.a.p, as weakness and confusion of intellect permitted her, Lucy Pa.s.smore told her story. It was a simple one after all, and Amyas might almost have guessed it for himself. Rose had not yielded to the Spaniard without a struggle. He had visited her two or three times at Lucy's house (how he found out Lucy's existence she herself could never tell, unless from the Jesuits) before she agreed to go with him. He had gained Lucy to his side by huge promises of Indian gold; and, in fine, they had gone to Lundy, where the lovers were married by a priest, who was none other, Lucy would swear, than the shorter and stouter of the two who had carried off her husband and his boat--in a word, Father Parsons.

Amyas gnashed his teeth at the thought that he had had Parsons in his power at Brenttor down, and let him go. It was a fresh proof to him that Heaven's vengeance was upon him for letting one of its enemies escape. Though what good to Rose or Frank the hanging of Parsons would have been, I, for my part, cannot see.

But when had Eustace been at Lundy? Lucy could throw no light on that matter. It was evidently some by-thread in the huge spider's web of Jesuit intrigue, which was, perhaps, not worth knowing after all.

They sailed from Lundy in a Portugal ship, were at Lisbon a few days (during which Rose and Lucy remained on board), and then away for the West Indies; while all went merry as a marriage bell. "Sir, he would have kissed the dust off her dear feet, till that evil eye of Mr. Eustace's came, no one knew how or whence." And, from that time, all went wrong. Eustace got power over Don Guzman, whether by threatening that the marriage should be dissolved, whether by working on his superst.i.tious scruples about leaving his wife still a heretic, or whether (and this last Lucy much suspected) by insinuations that her heart was still at home in England, and that she was longing for Amyas and his ship to come and take her home again; the house soon became a den of misery, and Eustace the presiding evil genius. Don Guzman had even commanded him to leave it--and he went; but, somehow, within a week he was there again, in greater favor than ever. Then came preparations to meet the English, and high words about it between Don Guzman and Rose; till a few days before Amyas's arrival, the Don had dashed out of the house in a fury, saying openly that she preferred these Lutheran dogs to him, and that he would have their hearts' blood first, and hers after.

The rest was soon told. Amyas knew but too much of it already. The very morning after he had gone up to the villa, Lucy and her mistress were taken (they knew not by whom) down to the quay, in the name of the Holy Office, and shipped off to Cartagena.

There they were examined, and confronted on a charge of witchcraft, which the wretched Lucy could not well deny. She was tortured to make her inculpate Rose; and what she said, or did not say, under the torture, the poor wretch could never tell. She recanted, and became a Romanist; Rose remained firm. Three weeks afterwards, they were brought out to an Auto-da-fe; and there, for the first time, Lucy saw Frank walking, dressed in a San Benito, in that ghastly procession. Lucy was adjudged to receive publicly two hundred stripes, and to be sent to "The Holy House" at Seville to perpetual prison. Frank and Rose, with a renegade Jew, and a negro who had been convicted of practising "Obi," were sentenced to death as impenitent, and delivered over to the secular arm, with prayers that there might be no shedding of blood. In compliance with which request, the Jew and the negro were burnt at one stake, Frank and Rose at another. She thought they did not feel it more than twenty minutes. They were both very bold and steadfast, and held each other's hand (that she would swear to) to the very last.

And so ended Lucy Pa.s.smore's story. And if Amyas Leigh, after he had heard it, vowed afresh to give no quarter to Spaniards wherever he should find them, who can wonder, even if they blame?

CHAPTER XXVII.

HOW SALVATION YEO FOUND HIS LITTLE MAID AGAIN.

"All precious things, discover'd late, To them who seek them issue forth; For love in sequel works with fate, And draws the veil from hidden worth."

The Sleeping Beauty.

And so Ayacanora took up her abode in Lucy's cabin, as a regularly accredited member of the crew.

But a most troublesome member; for now began in her that perilous crisis which seems to endanger the bodies and souls of all savages and savage tribes, when they first mingle with the white man; that crisis which, a few years afterwards, began to hasten the extermination of the North American tribes; and had it not been for the admirable good sense and constancy of Amyas, Ayacanora might have ended even more miserably than did the far-famed Pocahontas, daughter of the Virginian king; who, after having been received at Court by the old pedant James the First, with the honors of a sister sovereign, and having become the reputed ancestress of more than one ancient Virginian family, ended her days in wretchedness in some Wapping garret.

For the mind of the savage, crushed by the sight of the white man's superior skill, and wealth, and wisdom, loses at first its self- respect; while his body, pampered with easily obtained luxuries, instead of having to win the necessaries of life by heavy toil, loses its self-helpfulness; and with self-respect and self-help vanish all the savage virtues, few and flimsy as they are, and the downward road toward begging and stealing, sottishness and idleness, is easy, if not sure.

And down that road, it really seemed at first, that poor Ayacanora was walking fast. For the warrior-prophetess of the Omaguas soon became, to all appearance, nothing but a very naughty child; and the Diana of the Meta, after she had satisfied her simple wonder at the great floating house by rambling from deck to deck, and peeping into every cupboard and cranny, manifested a great propensity to steal and hide (she was too proud or too shy to ask for) every trumpery which smit her fancy; and when Amyas forbade her to take anything without leave, threatened to drown herself, and went off and sulked all day in her cabin. Nevertheless, she obeyed him, except in the matter of sweet things. Perhaps she craved naturally for the vegetable food of her native forests; at all events the bishop's stores of fruit and sweetmeats diminished rapidly; and what was worse, so did the sweet Spanish wine which Amyas had set apart for poor Lucy's daily cordial. Whereon another severe lecture, in which Amyas told her how mean it was to rob poor sick Lucy; whereat she, as usual, threatened to drown herself; and was running upon deck to do it, when Amyas caught her and forgave her. On which a violent fit of crying, and great penitence and promises; and a week after, Amyas found that she had cheated Satan and her own conscience by tormenting the Portuguese steward into giving her some other wine instead: but luckily for her, she found Amyas's warnings about wine making her mad so far fulfilled, that she did several foolish things one evening, and had a bad headache next morning; so the murder was out, and Amyas ordered the steward up for a sound flogging; but Ayacanora, honorably enough, not only begged him off, but offered to be whipped instead of him, confessing that the poor fellow spoke truly when he swore that she had threatened to kill him, and that he had given her the wine in bodily fear for his life.

However, her own headache and Amyas's cold looks were lesson enough, and after another attempt to drown herself, the wilful beauty settled down for awhile; and what was better, could hardly be persuaded, thenceforth to her dying day, to touch fermented liquors.

But, in the meanwhile, poor Amyas had many a brains-beating as to how he was to tame a lady who, on the least provocation, took refuge in suicide. Punish her he dared not, even if he had the heart. And as for putting her ash.o.r.e, he had an instinct, and surely not a superst.i.tious one, that her strange affection for the English was not unsent by Heaven, and that G.o.d had committed her into his charge, and that He would require an account at his hands of the soul of that fair lost lamb.

So, almost at his wits' end, he prayed to G.o.d, good simple fellow, and that many a time, to show him what he should do with her before she killed either herself, or what was just as likely, one of the crew; and it seemed best to him to make Parson Jack teach her the rudiments of Christianity, that she might be baptized in due time when they got home to England.

But here arose a fresh trouble--for she roundly refused to learn of Jack, or of any one but Amyas himself; while he had many a good reason for refusing the office of schoolmaster; so, for a week or two more, Ayacanora remained untaught, save in the English tongue, which she picked up with marvellous rapidity.

And next, as if troubles would never end, she took a violent dislike, not only to John Brimblecombe, whose gait and voice she openly mimicked for the edification of the men; but also to Will Cary, whom she never allowed to speak to her or approach her. Perhaps she was jealous of his intimacy with Amyas; or perhaps, with the subtle instinct of a woman, she knew that he was the only other man on board who might dare to make love to her (though Will, to do him justice, was as guiltless of any such intention as Amyas himself). But when she was remonstrated with, her only answer was that Cary was a cacique as well as Amyas, and that there ought not to be two caciques; and one day she actually proposed to Amyas to kill his supposed rival, and take the ship all to himself; and sulked for several days at hearing Amyas, amid shouts of laughter, retail her precious advice to its intended victim.