Part 5 (1/2)
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.