Part 4 (1/2)

Page 66]

”Are these bulls bound for the circus?” inquired the Englishman with interest.

The driver nodded his head. ”Ay, not one of them will be alive this evening,” observed the peasant. ”The poor brutes would not go on so proudly towards Seville if they knew what is before them.”

”Danger awaits others besides them,” muttered Lucius Lepine.

”Ay, senor,” observed the herdsman, misunderstanding the drift of the words; ”other folk may go as blindfold as these bulls to their death, strong and gay in the morning, dragged in the dust before night.

There's my own brother, for instance, he who lives in our village under the sierra yonder. Poor Carlos was dancing the fandango one day at a bridal, the merriest of the company there; on his way home he but slipped his foot on a steep, rocky path, and down falls the strong, active man, to be picked up with a broken back, and carried to our cottage to lie, as he has done for months, groaning with pain, and helpless as a child.”

It occurred to Lucius that here might be an opportunity given to him of introducing into an abode of suffering the comfort of G.o.d's holy Word. ”Can your brother read?” he inquired.

”Read!--ay, almost as well as the priest. Carlos always took to the learning, whilst most of our folk know no more of letters than one of the beasts that they drive.” The man rose from his seat as he spoke, for he had finished repairing his sandal with a morsel of string.

”Will you give your brother this from me?” said the Englishman, taking from his breast-pocket the Spanish Testament, and offering it to the hind with an effort to overcome the shyness which had hitherto prevented his attempting to spread gospel-knowledge in Spain.

The man took the little volume with a blank stare of surprise at the stranger who had made so extraordinary a present. The peasant then opened and glanced at the contents of the book, and the expression on his face changed to that of fanatical fierceness.

”Bad book--heretical--_muera a los Protestantes_!” (death to the Protestants!) exclaimed the peasant, tearing out several pages from the sacred volume, and then flinging it back at the face of the giver.

The fanatic would probably have added insults and imprecations, had not the necessity of making up for lost time, by rejoining the herd with all speed, obliged the driver to run on quickly in the direction of Seville.

Lucius with a sigh--for failure in an attempt to do good is always painful--picked up first the Testament, and then the scattered leaves,--all save one which escaped his notice, for a light wind had whirled it away.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] I have been informed, since writing the above, that there was an English chaplain; but we may suppose him to have been absent at this time.

CHAPTER VIII.

WITHOUT AND WITHIN.

Not long after Lucius had quitted that spot, there came to it a single horseman, slowly riding towards the city of Seville. The cavalier was richly attired in green and silver; a broad scarlet scarf was wound round his waist, and its fringed end hung gracefully over his shoulder. His feet, cased in high boots, rested on stirrups of peculiar shape, designed from their size and strength to act as a protection to the rider. A Spanish sombrero shaded the cavalier's brow, and his hand grasped a sharp spear. The horseman was Alcala de Aguilera, in full fico as a picador, bound for the Plaza de Toros.

But, save in costume, the young Spaniard had nothing in common with the bull-fighter by profession; Alcala's face and form were both in strong contrast to those of the low-bred favourite of the Coliseo. The form was tall and slight, and conveyed no impression of possessing great physical strength. The pale intellectual countenance, with its delicately-formed features, suggested the idea of a student or poet, rather than that of a bold picador as dead to fear as to mercy. The expression on those features was that of intense melancholy, and formed but too faithful an index to the feelings of the heart which beat beneath the folds of that brilliant scarf.

Alcala was sensible that he had committed an act of the greatest folly. He had ventured all--his sister's peace of mind, his family's comfort, his own life--for a bubble that was not worth the grasping, even were it within his reach. Alcala was not one to care for the applause of a mob; nay, his proud, reserved nature shrank sensitively from the idea of appearing to court it. The greatest success in the common circus would be rather a disgrace than an honour to an Aguilera; he could not raise but degrade himself by competing for popular favour with professional picadors.

Nor had Alcala the incitement of pa.s.sion to impel him onwards in his perilous career. His admiration of the governor's daughter had been but a pa.s.sing fancy, a homage paid to mere beauty; it had no strong hold on his soul. The discovery of Antonia's heartlessness and selfish pride had changed that admiration into something almost resembling contempt. Alcala contrasted Antonia with Inez, the vain selfish beauty with the loving, self-forgetting woman, and felt much as did the knight of old who scornfully flung at the feet of his lady the glove which she had bidden him bring from the arena in which wild beasts were contending.

”Were I offered the hand of Antonia de Rivadeo,” mused Aguilera, ”I would not now accept it, though she should bring as her dowry all Andalusia!”

Thus even in success there was nothing to attract the young Spaniard.

But Alcala had scarcely any hope of success; and if the brighter side of the picture was but dull, the darker was gloomy indeed. Alcala had not frequented bull-fights; the sport was little to his taste, though he did not regard it with all the horror and disgust which he would have felt had he been brought up in England. But though the cavalier had not been frequently seen at the Plaza de Toros, he had often enough been a spectator of the scenes acted in the circus to know well what dangers attend the contest with a furious bull, and how absolutely essential to the safety of a picador is skill in the use of his weapon. Such skill could only be acquired by practice, and until this time Alcala had never handled a spear. In the grasp of the young cavalier it felt unwieldy and c.u.mbrous. He was as little likely to use it effectually, as he would have been to climb to the mast-head of a vessel in the midst of a storm, having never had nautical training.

Superst.i.tion, from which Alcala was not perfectly free, although far more enlightened than most of his countrymen, tended to deepen the impression on his mind that he was riding to his destruction. When Alcala had been very young, his mother had consulted an old Gitana, famed for her skill in prognostications, as to the future fate of her boy. The child had never forgotten the weird appearance of the old wrinkled hag, nor the words of her mumbled reply: ”He will die in his prime a violent death, and many shall look on at his fall.” The warning recurred to Alcala's memory with almost the force of prophecy, now that he appeared so likely to meet such a fate as had been thus foretold.