Part 10 (1/2)

Inez cried out aloud in her alarm, when she thus unexpectedly found herself in darkness, a prisoner in her own home. With mingled threats, entreaties, and promises she conjured the false Chico to open the door. The traitor, however, thought time far too precious to wait either to listen or to reply. He could not, indeed, pa.s.s through the grating, of which Teresa had taken the key; but he easily made his way out by the same pa.s.sage as that through which he had entered, one which communicated with the now empty stable.

Inez now exerted all her strength in the endeavour to force open the door, but it resisted her utmost efforts. The air in the armoury was close and confined. Inez could hardly breathe; she was faint with exhaustion and terror. Her cries for help were not heard, though she tried to call out loud enough for her voice to reach some pa.s.ser-by in the street. Inez at last, finding all her exertions vain, could only await in discomfort and misery the return of Teresa, who would liberate her from her prison.

How long, how intolerably wearisome was the time of waiting! What painful companions to poor Inez in her solitude were her own reflections! She could not doubt that the family had been robbed by the worthless Chico,--robbed of their all at the very time when its possession was most sorely needed. The short-lived hopes which the sight of the treasure had raised in the mind of Inez, had vanished from her view like some mirage in the desert before the thirsty traveller's eyes. Poverty--dest.i.tution--appeared all the more dreadful from contrast with abundance beheld, but not enjoyed.

The minor cares of the moment lent their weight to add to the pressure of greater. Inez was uneasy at the thought of Donna Benita awaking from her siesta, and being frightened at finding no one beside her.

Alcala, too, must need his lemonade, and would miss his Book,--the precious volume which Inez had still in her bosom. Add to all this the physical distress, the sense of suffocation consequent on confinement in a place in which there was no circulation of air, and some idea may be formed of the misery endured by Alcala's sister.

The impatience of Inez had risen to the point of agony long before, to her intense relief, she heard in the vaulted pa.s.sage the heavy step of Teresa, wearily returning from her visit to the shrine of her patron saint.

”Release me--oh, release me!” cried out Inez from her place of confinement.

Teresa was so much astonished by hearing the cry for help, m.u.f.fled as it came through the closed door of the armoury, that she dropped the key of the grating, which she was just about to open.

”Make haste--or I die!” gasped poor Inez.

Teresa made what haste her infirmities and her amazement would permit; but she had to stoop and pick up the key, fit it into the hole, and then push open the grating, and every moment thus employed was a moment of torture to Inez. At length, guided by the voice of her mistress, the old servant entered the patio, and turned round where the armoury door stood close behind the grating. In another second Inez, trembling and gasping for breath, was released from her terrible prison.

”In the name of all the saints, how came you to be locked up here?”

exclaimed the wondering duenna.

”Chico has robbed us--I can say no more now!” faltered Inez, scarcely able to speak. ”Go quickly to Donna Benita,--she may want help,--while I--” The sentence was never ended; for Inez, exhausted and faint as she felt, was already on her way to her brother's apartment.

”Chico has robbed us!” echoed the bewildered Teresa, lifting up her hands in amazement. ”Robbed the house, and shut up the lady! I know not what there was in the place that the poorest thief in Seville would think it worth his while to take!”

Glancing around her, Teresa soon perceived the disordered state of the patio; the marble round the parterre enc.u.mbered with heaps of dust and earth, and in the ground under the bushes a hole large enough for an infant's grave. Something had surely been dug out, something had been carried away. Teresa was puzzling her brain to divine what could have occurred during her absence, when she was alarmed by sounds,--but the cause of these sounds must be reserved for the ensuing chapter.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] _Vide_ ”Daybreak in Spain.”

[19] A kind of police.

CHAPTER XVII.

ARRESTED.

”Inez!--truant! I have lost you all the morning!” cried Alcala, as he heard the approach of his sister. Inez was surprised on entering the room to see that the wounded man had managed to rise and dress himself without a.s.sistance. ”I waited for you till I had no patience for longer waiting,” continued Alcala cheerfully; ”you have carried away my Book, and have been so buried in its contents that you have quite forgotten your brother.”

The playful rebuke was given with a smile, which, however, vanished from the face of Alcala as soon as he turned and looked on that of his sister.

”What has happened?” exclaimed Aguilera, alarmed at the appearance of Inez, who stood with pale lips apart, as if still gasping for breath; her hair, usually smooth as satin, disordered, and pushed carelessly back from a face that bore the impress of terror and suffering.

The poor girl, exhausted both by the strain on her physical endurance and the alarm which she had undergone, came forward, sank on her knees at her brother's feet, and burst into tears. Inez did not, however, long give vent to her emotions. Struggling to speak through her sobs, she gave an account of all that had happened,--the discovery of the treasure, the treachery of Chico, and the cruel means which he had taken to secure his own flight with the gold.

Alcala listened with breathless attention and burning indignation. The fiery young Spaniard bit his nether lip hard to keep himself from uttering the vow of deep vengeance which, a few weeks before, would have been, under lighter provocation, sternly spoken and ruthlessly kept. It was no easy task to Aguilera to wrestle down and keep under control the pa.s.sion which he now felt to be unbecoming a Christian.

Alcala, however, said not a word until Inez had finished her story.