Part 6 (1/2)
Alcala gave few signs of life during the long weary hours of darkness.
Occasionally he clutched his hand, sometimes his lips slightly moved and his brow was contracted with pain. Once a few scarcely articulate words escaped him: ”Not a convent--no, not a convent!” Towards morning, however, the wounded man sank into quiet sleep; and Lucius felt that he could now leave him with a more easy mind.
”It is dawn--you had better depart; thanks, thanks for your kindness to him,” murmured Inez, as a slight sound of movement made her aware that Lucius had risen from his seat. The Englishman bent his head to whisper a word of comfort to the poor watcher before he quitted her side.
”Senorita, trust in the mercy of G.o.d, and hope. I believe that your brother will be spared to you yet.”
CHAPTER XI.
FAILURE.
Lucius was dizzy from want of sleep when he left the mansion of the Aguileras and went forth into the fresh morning air. But he had no time for repose. He could but partake of a simple breakfast at his lodging before beginning the week's work in the Calle San Francisco.
Lepine's presence in the counting-house and factory was now more indispensable than usual, as he would, at least till a subst.i.tute could be found for Alcala, have to do the young Spaniard's work in addition to his own.
The mind of Lucius Lepine was very full of his friend. What he had seen of the interior of the fine old house in the Calle de San Jose had made Lucius sure of what he had long suspected, that Alcala de Aguilera, though of high lineage and aristocratic bearing, was yet exceedingly poor. Lucius doubted that the wounded man's family would be able to procure for him even the common comforts which his exhausted state required. Never had Lepine been more tempted to wish himself rich. He could give no further pecuniary help; he had cut down already to a very narrow limit his own personal expenses; his savings had been lately forwarded to England to pay for a brother's schooling.
Lucius saw no way of supplying the need of Alcala, unless he could interest his employer in the behalf of his friend. Mr. Pa.s.smore had a well-filled purse, his business profits were large, and the disburs.e.m.e.nt of twenty, thirty, or fifty doubloons would not alter his style of living, or cause the absence of one dainty from his luxurious table.
But Peter Pa.s.smore was not a man from whom it was pleasant to ask a favour, or easy to draw a donation. Lucius, when he made up his mind to plead for a.s.sistance for Alcala, was doing for his friend a thing which nothing short of starvation would have induced him to do for himself.
Lepine had been for two hours in the counting-house before he heard the heavy step and puffing breathing of Mr. Pa.s.smore.
”So your friend, the picador, was yesterday carried home dead,” was the first sentence with which the master of the iron-works greeted his clerk.
”Not dead, sir, I am thankful to say, but gored and sorely injured,”
was the reply.
”How he escaped with life is a miracle,” said the manufacturer; ”but of course the chulos went to his help. It was indeed a sight to make one hold one's breath! The bull, a magnificent brute, rushed on with the force of a steam-engine. The horse received the goring thrust full in his chest, so was put at once out of pain, more lucky than the wretched hacks usually are. Of all barbarous sports invented by man or by demon, bull-fighting is to my mind the most atrocious.”
”The sufferings which I witnessed last night,” said Lucius, ”make me more ready than ever to subscribe to that opinion;” and he gave a graphic description of what he had seen in the Calle de San Jose, but as briefly as possible, for Pa.s.smore was never a patient listener, at least to the tale of other's woe. But the glimpse given by Lucius of the poverty of Alcala's home made the manufacturer more indignant than ever.
”Not the means of getting comforts!” he exclaimed, striking his flabby hand on the desk; ”then why, in the name of common sense, did the madman, when in the receipt of a handsome salary--punctually paid--choose to ruin not only himself but his family, in order to gratify some fantastic, most incomprehensible whim of his own?”
”I understand that De Aguilera had some mistaken idea of honour,”
began Lucius; but his employer would not suffer him to finish the sentence.
”Honour! fiddlestick and nonsense!” exclaimed Mr. Pa.s.smore. ”What has a clerk in an ironware factory to do with honour? Nay, you need not fire up, young man; the blow does not hit you. My notion of true honour is for a man to pay his way and earn his pay; and I'm satisfied that you do both. But for this wretched Spanish pride I've no patience! It is anything but honourable in a man to take the bread from the mouths of his family by squandering all his money on finery only fit for the stage; it is anything but honourable to cheat his employer by spending on bull-sticking the time which should have been given to book-keeping--a much wiser, safer, and, to any man with an atom of sense, a far more agreeable employment!”
Lucius saw that it was utterly useless to attempt to draw a single dollar from Mr. Pa.s.smore for the relief of the Aguileras. He was disappointed, but scarcely surprised. It was impossible to refute what the manufacturer had said, however unpalatable truth might be, conveyed in a manner so coa.r.s.e.
Another disappointment awaited Lucius Lepine. After a day of unusual toil, rendered more irksome by the heat of the weather acting on a frame wearied by a long night of watching, Lucius, as soon as his work was done, set out for the Calle de San Jose. He was anxious to know the state of his friend, and again to take his place by his bedside.
Should the improvement in Alcala's state continue--and Lucius, who was hopeful by nature, regarded recovery as probable--what opportunities there would be during his convalescence for quiet religious converse!
Lucius felt that he could and would say by the bedside what he could not say in the counting-house or the Prado. Aguilera would have to pa.s.s many long weary hours of confinement in his apartment, and then his mind would be free to receive the good seed of the Word.
”Into how rich a soil,” thought the young Englishman, ”that seed will be dropped; and who can estimate what may be the result, not only to Alcala, but to others whom he may influence! The man who dared face a horrible death for love or honour, must become a Christian hero if once he embrace evangelical truth.”