Part 17 (2/2)
”Yes, and thence to the Indies My ransom has arrived, and with it the promise of an office I aratulate me on my promotion”
A mist was over Rose's eyes The Spaniard's voice was hard and flippant Did he care for her, after all? And if he did, was it nevertheless hopeless? How her cheeks glowed! Everybodyto turn away their attention from her, and in that nervous haste which makes people speak, and speak foolishly too, just because they ought to be silent, she asked-- ”And where is La Guayra?”
”Half round the world, on the coast of the Spanish Main The loveliest place on earth, and the loveliest governor's house, in a forest of palh: I shall only want a wife there to be in paradise”
”I don't doubt that you may persuade some fair lady of Seville to accoracious madam: but the truth is, that since I have had the bliss of knowing English ladies, I have begun to think that they are the only ones on earth worth wooing”
”A thousand thanks for the colish uardianshi+p of a duenna Eh, Rose? how should you like to be kept under lock and key all day by an ugly old woman with a horn on her forehead?”
Poor Rose turned so scarlet that Lady Grenville knew her secret on the spot, and would have tried to turn the conversation: but before she could speak, soher's wife blundered out a commonplace about the jealousy of Spanish husbands; and another, tomore true than delicate about West Indian masters and fair slaves
”Ladies,” said Don Guz, ”believe norance If we be more jealous than other nations, it is because we love ate, it is because they, poor men, have no helpmate, which, like the amethyst, keeps its wearer pure I could tell you stories, ladies, of the constancy and devotion of Spanish husbands, even in the Indies, as strange as ever roive us one at least”
”I fear it would be too long, er the more pleasant, senor How can we spend an hour better this afternoon, while the gentle, in those old times, when books (and authors also, lucky for the public) were rarer than noas a common amusement; and as the Spaniard's accomplishments in that line ell known, all the ladies crowded round hiht chairs and benches; and Don Guz his seat in the an-- ”Your perfections, fair and illustrious ladies, must doubtless have heard, ere no Sebastian Cabota, soo, sailed forth with a commission from my late olden lands of Tarshi+sh, Ophir, and cipango; but being in want of provisions, stopped short at the ave the na up it, discovered the fair land of Paraguay But you may not have heard how, on the bank of that river, at the mouth of the Rio Terceiro, he built a fort which men still call Cabot's Tower; nor have you, perhaps, heard of the strange tale which will ever make the tower a sacred spot to all true lovers
”For when he returned to Spain the year after, he left in his tower a garrison of a hundred and twenty men, under the command of Nuno de Lara, Ruiz Moschera, and Sebastian da Hurtado, old friends and fellow-soldiers of randfather Don Ferdinando da Soto; and with them a jewel, than which Spain never possessed one more precious, Lucia Miranda, the wife of Hurtado, who, famed in the court of the emperor no less for her wisdom and modesty than for her unrivalled beauty, had thrown up all the pomp and ambition of a palace, to marry a poor adventurer, and to encounter with hiora, the cacique of the neighboring Timbuez Indians (hom Lara had contrived to establish a friendshi+p), cast his eyes on this fair creature, and no sooner saw than he coveted; no sooner coveted than he plotted, with the devilish subtilty of a savage, to seize by force what he knew he could never gain by right She soon found out his passion (she ise enough--what every wo her husband, kept as ht; while the savage pressed Hurtado to co his lady with hi to offend the cacique, excused himself courteously on the score of his soldier's duty; and the savage, ainst Hurtado's life
”So went on several weeks, till food grew scarce, and Don Hurtado and Don Ruiz Moschera, with fifty soldiers, were sent up the river on a foraging party Mangora saw his opportunity, and leapt at it forthwith
”The tower, ladies, as I have heard fro of the two rivers, while on the land side stretches a dreary rass and bushes; a fit place for the aora, with devilish cunning, placed around the tohile he himself went boldly up to it, followed by thirty ame, and all the delicacies which his forests could afford
”There, with a s Lara his sorrow for the Spaniards' want of food; besought hiht, and was, as he had expected, invited by Lara to come in and taste the wines of Spain
”In went he and his thirty fellow-bandits, and the feast continued, with songs and libations, far into the night, while Mangora often looked round, and at last boldly asked for the fair Miranda: but she had shut herself into her lodging, pleading illness
”A plea, fair ladies, which little availed that hapless da (by I know not what ora and his Indians within, than they were awakened by the cry of fire, the explosion of their azine, and the inward rush of the four thousand froentle ears with details of slaughter? A few fearful minutes sufficed to exterminate my bewildered and unarmed countrymen, to bind the only survivors, Miranda (innocent cause of the whole tragedy) and four other women with their infants, and to lead them away in triumph across the forest towards the Indian town
”Stunned by the suddenness of the evils which had passed, and still ht of those worse which were to coht through the forest, and was brought in triu to receive her doo up, she saw that he was not Mangora
”A ray of hope flashed across her, and she asked where he was
”'He was slain last night,' said the king; 'and I, his brother Siripa, am now cacique of the Tie, and wounds, had caught up his sword, rushed into the thick of the fight, singled out the traitor, and slain hie, had continued to plunge his sword into the corpse, heedless of the blows of the savages, till he fell pierced with a hundred wounds
”A ray of hope, as I said, flashed across the wretched Miranda for a moment; but the next she found that she had been freed from one bandit only to be delivered to another
”'Yes,' said the new king, in broken Spanish; 'my brother played a bold stake, and lost it; but it orth the risk, and he showed his wisdom thereby You cannot be his queen now: youmine'
”Miranda, desperate, answered hiainst his treachery and his crime; and asked him, how he came to dream that the wife of a Christian Spaniard would condescend to beco, unhappy lady, to exasperate hied thereby her own ht of divine virtue and beauty awed (as it may have awed me ere nohere it had just before e (as it may have crossed el help his ambition, as well as her beauty his happiness; or whether (which I will never believe of one of those dark children of the devil, though I can boldly assert it of myself) some spark of boldness within him made him too proud to take by force what he could not win by persuasion, certain it is, as the Indians thee only answered her by s his men unbind her, told her that she was no slave of his, and that it only lay with her to beconed her a hut to herself, loaded her with savage ornaments, and for several weeks treated her with no less courtesy (so miraculous is the power of love) than if he had been a cavalier of Castile
”Three months and more, ladies, as I have heard, passed in this rewher in the face, nearer and nearer, so doith the wives of the cacique to draater in the river, she saw on the opposite bank a white man in a tattered Spanish dress, with a draord in his hand; who had no sooner espied her, than shrieking her naed into the stream, swam across, landed at her feet, and clasped her in his arms It was no other, ladies, incredible as it may seem, than Don Sebastian himself, who had returned with Ruiz Moschera to the tower, and found it only a charred and bloodstained heap of ruins
”He guessed, as by inspiration, what had passed, and whither his lady was gone; and without a thought of danger, like a true Spanish gentleman and a true Spanish lover, darted off alone into the forest, and guided only by the inspiration of his own loyal heart, found again his treasure, and found it still unstained and his own
”Who can describe the joy, and who again the terror, of their ? The Indian women had fled in fear, and for the short ten ether, life, to be sure, was one long kiss But what to do they knew not To go inland was to rush into the enemy's arms He would have sith her across the river, and atteer and travel, failed hiain, and sat down by her to await their doom with prayer, the first and last resource of virtuous ladies, as weapons are of cavaliers
”Alas for them! May no true lovers ever have to weep over joys so soon lost, after having been so hardly found! For, ere a quarter of an hour was passed, the Indian women, who had fled at his approach, returned with all the warriors of the tribe Don Sebastian, desperate, would fain have slain his wife and hiain--and whose would not but an Indian's?--as he raised it against that fair and faithful breast; in a few minutes he was surrounded, seized froe And if you cannot feel for him in that misery, fair ladies, who have known no sorrow, yet I, a prisoner, can”
Don Guzman paused a moment, as if overcome by emotion; and I will not say that, as he paused, he did not look to see if Rose Salterne's eyes were on him, as indeed they were
”Yes, I can feel with hireatness of that love which could submit to captivity; to the loss of his sword; to the loss of that honor, which, next to God and his mother, is the true Spaniard's deity There are those who have suffered that shaain Don Guzman looked up at Rose), ”and yet would have sooner died a thousand deaths; but he dared to endure it froes, heathens; for he was a true Spaniard, and therefore a true lover: but I will go on with my tale
”This wretched pair, then, as I have been told by Ruiz Moschera hiether before the cacique He, like a true child of the devil, cohed with delight at seeing his rival in his power, and bade bind him at once to a tree, and shoot hi forward, and threw herself at his feet, and with piteous entreaties besought for mercy froht of her beauty, and the terrible eloquence of her words, while she invoked on his head the just vengeance of Heaven, wrought even on his heart: nevertheless the pleasure of seeing her, who had so long scorned him, a suppliant at his feet, was too delicate to be speedily foregone; and not till she was all but blind with tears, and du, did he make answer, that if she would consent to become his wife, her husband's life should be spared She, in her haste and madness, sobbed out desperately I know not what consent Don Sebastian, who understood, if not the language, still the ), shrieked to her not to lose her precious soul for the sake of his worthless body; that death was nothing compared to the horror of that shaentle now at her own frailty, would have recalled her pro, if she disappointed hiain, such a death to her husband as made her blood run cold to hear of; and the wretched woman could only escape for the present by some story, that it was not the custom of her race to celebrate nuptials till a er of Heaven would be on her, unless she first perforious rites; and lastly, that if he dared to lay hands on her husband, she would die so resolutely, that every drop of water should be deep enough to drown her, every thorn sharp enough to stab her to the heart: till fearing lest by de too much he should lose all, and awed too, as he had been at first by a voice and looks which seemed to be, in coo back to her hut, pro too, that if he ever found the two speaking together, even for a moment, he would pour out on them both all the cruelty of those tortures in which the devil, their father, has so perfectly instructed the Indians
”So Don Sebastian, being stripped of his garments, and painted after the Indian fashi+on, was set to all s and insults of the whole village And this, ladies, he endured without ait, as he would have endured things worse a thousand ti near the Goddess who her now and then afar off, happy enough to be repaid even by that for all indignities
”And yet, you who have loved uess, as I can, that ere a week had passed, Don Sebastian and the Lady Miranda had found means, in spite of all spiteful eyes, to speak to each other once and again; and to assure each other of their love; even to talk of escape, before the race should be expired And Miranda, whose heart was full of courage as long as she felt her husband near her, went so far as to plan a means of escape which seeest wife of the cacique, who, till Miranda's co, had been his favorite, often talked with the captive, insulting and tor in return only gentle and conciliatory words And one day when the woe to say, 'Do you fancy that I shall not be as glad to be rid of your husband, as you to be rid of et one, your husband will soon forgetthat the girl was inclined to listen, she went on to tell her of her love to Don Sebastian, entreating and adjuring her, by the love which she bore the cacique, to pity and help her; and so won upon the girl, that she consented to be privy to Miranda's escape, and even offered to give her an opportunity of speaking to her husband about it; and at last was so won over by Miranda, that she consented to keep all intruders out of the hile Don Sebastian that very night visited Miranda in her hut
”The hapless husband, thirsting for his love, was in that hut, be sure, the moment that kind darkness covered his steps:--and what cheer these two ether, lovers must fancy for the, there was no departure; and when the night ell-nigh past, Sebastian and Miranda were still talking together as if they had never ain
”But it befell, ladies (would that I was not speaking truth, but inventing, that Iht, that the young wife of the cacique, whose heart was lifted up with the thought that her rival was now at last disposed of, tried all her wiles to win back her faithless husband; but in vain He only answered her caresses by indifference, then by contempt, then insults, then blows (for with the Indians, woman is always a slave, or rather a beast of burden), and went on to draw such cruel colorious fairness of the Spanish lady, that the wretched girl, beside herself with rage, burst out at last with her own secret 'Fool that you are to er who prizes one hair of her Spanish husband's head more than your whole body! Much does your new bride care for you! She is at this moment in her husband's arms!'
”The cacique screamed furiously to knohat she uiltless lady boiling over once for all, bade hio see for himself
”What use of many words? They were taken Love, or rather lust, repelled, turned in ahis Indians, bade them bind the wretched Don Sebastian to a tree, and there inflicted on hi death to which he had at first been doomed For Miranda he had more exquisite cruelty in store And shall I tell it? Yes, ladies, for the honor of love and of Spain, and for a justification of those cruelties against the Indians which are so falsely imputed to our most Christian nation, it shall be told: he delivered the wretched lady over to the tender mercies of his wives; and what they were is neither fit for me to tell, nor you to hear
”The tretched lovers cast themselves upon each other's neck; drank each other's salt tears with the last kisses; accused the above fear and grief, broke out into triu themselves the martyrs of love, commended their souls to God, and then stepped joyfully and proudly to their doo voices
”Don Sebastian, as I have said, was shot to death with arrows; but as for the Lady Miranda, the wretches theeance for their crimes (as they did receive it), that after all shanities, she was bound to a tree, and there burned slowly in her husband's sight, stifling her shrieks lest they should wring his heart by one additional pang, and never taking her eyes, to the last, off that beloved face And so died (but not unavenged) Sebastian de Hurtado and Lucia Miranda,--a Spanish husband and a Spanish wife”
The Don paused, and the ladies were silent awhile, for, indeed, there was er spoke, half, it seemed, to turn off the too painful impression of the over-true tale, the outlines whereof may be still read in old Charlevoix
”You have told a sad and a noble tale, sir, and told it well; but, though your story was to set forth a perfect husband, it has ended rather by setting forth a perfect wife”
”And if I have forgotten,her to praise him also, have I not done that which would have best pleased his heroical and chivalrous spirit? He, be sure, would have forgotten his own virtue in the light of hers; and he would have wished me, I doubt not, to do the same also And beside, madam, where ladies are the theht upon their slaves?” And the Don hly- finished bows
”Don Guzo,” said one of the young ladies; ”but it was hardly courtier-like of hi”
”Yes,” said another; ”we s either,” said a third ”I fear he knows none but about forsakenlovers”