DON BALTASAR DE SALDOS.
"We must not fail, we must not fail,
However fraud or force assail;
By honour, pride, or policy,
By Heaven itself! we must be free.
We spurned the thought, our prison burst,
And dared the despot to the worst;
Renewed the strife of centuries,
And flung our banner to the breeze."--DAVIS.
A start of extreme astonishment deepening into a black scowl, which
anon changed to something of a scornful smile in the Spaniard's
sallow visage, was Quentin Kennedy's first greeting from the Guerilla
Chief, who then bowed haughtily, and said with an unpleasant
emphasis--
"Oho, senor; so you are the messenger! Santos--why didn't you tell
me your errand on the day we met by the cross of King Alphonso? You
would thus have saved yourself a devil of a journey and me this knock
on the head."
"It would have been unwise to reveal my mission to the first stranger
I met; I deplore the result of our second interview, senor; but I
would not stand by and see an unarmed man killed without interfering."
"A Frenchman!" said Baltasar with intense scorn.
"Maledito," said the Padre Trevino, a man with a pair of quiet and
deeply set, but the most treacherous looking dark eyes that ever
glanced out of a human head,. "Maledito!" he repeated, while playing
with the knife in his sash, "so this is the fellow who wounded you
and rescued the French officer?"
"Yes, Padre; but that is my affair, not yours," said Baltasar,
haughtily.
"And your precious Frenchman--you conducted him no doubt to
Valencia?" said the Padre, anxious apparently to make mischief.
"I left him very near it--indeed, he was my guide part of the way
here," replied Quentin with composure.
"Very accommodating of him, certainly," said Baltasar, in whose face
the scowl returned; it was evident, apart from his indignation at
Quentin, that he had found some of the wrong eggs, the legends on
which foretold the early abandonment of the entire Peninsula by the
British, for his mind was full of ill-concealed anger and
apprehension. "You see now, senor," he resumed with a malevolent
grimace, "you see now that the spit has become a sword, and the sword
only a spit. Por vida del demonio! but Don Tomaso Yriarte was right
after all, for we must never take men or things for what they may
appear."
While Quentin was pondering what reply to make to this strange
speech, a drop of blood fell from the wound in Baltasar's head, and
made a large scarlet spot on the open map of Alentejo. On seeing
this the eyes of the Spaniard flashed fire, his nostrils seemed to
dilate, and, striking the table with the haft of his dagger, he
exclaimed--
"But that the fact of shooting the bearer of a British despatch--a
messenger of Don Juan Hope, as Lazarillo says you are--might
compromise me with the Junta of Castile as well as with your general,
and thus injure the budding Spanish cause, by the Holy Face of Jaen!
I would send you to keep company with those sixteen dogs whom Trevino
shot to-night!"
"Senor, I was innocent of intending evil against _you_," urged poor
Quentin.
"And this despatch which you bring, if it be as my soul forebodes, a
notification that I am only to cover the retreat of the British when
falling back upon Lisbon and the sea, _then_ say over any prayer your
heretic mother may have taught you, for you, Inglese, shall not see
the sun of to-morrow rise. I never forgive an insult--a word or a
blow!"
Though Quentin had been told at Portalegre somewhat of the contents
of the despatch, he knew so little of the great game of war and
politics about to be played in Spain that his mind misgave him, and
he trembled in his heart lest the treasured paper which he now handed
to this ferocious Spaniard, might indeed prove his death-warrant, and
seal his doom! He thought of his pistols, and cast a glance around
him--escape was hopeless, and a cruel smile wreathed the thin wicked
lips of the Padre Trevino.
Baltasar tore open the long official sheet of paper, and when his
piercing eyes had run rapidly over the contents, to Quentin's great
relief of mind, a smile that was almost pleasant spread over his
sallow visage, like sunshine on a lake.
"Hombres," he exclaimed to those around him, "listen! There are none
here but true Castilians, so all may share my joy. On the second day
of the ensuing November, the first division of the British army which
is to rescue Spain will enter Castile by the Badajoz road, led by Sir
John Hope, whose advance we are to cover by a collateral movement
along the mountains by the hill ef Albuera. Long live Ferdinand the
Seventh!"
"Viva el Rey de Espana!"
"Viva el nombre de Jesus!"
Such were the kind of shouts that were raised by a hundred voices,
while sundry faces, ere while darkened by hostile and suspicious
scowls, were now wreathed with broad smiles, and many a battered
sombrero and greasy bandanna were flourished aloft, while to the
triumphant vivas the musket-butts clattered an accompaniment on the
esparto-covered floor; and many a somewhat dingy hand shook Quentin's
with energy, while, in token of friendship and alliance, wine,
cigaritos, and tobacco pouches were proffered him on all sides.
When the hubbub was somewhat over, Quentin (with some anxiety for his
departure, as the atmosphere of the guerilla head-quarters seemed a
dangerous one) said to the chief--
"Don Baltasar, my orders were and my most earnest wishes are to join
my regiment at Portalegre, so I should wish to set out by daybreak
to-morrow."
"But the army will soon be advancing--why not remain with us till it
comes up?"
"Impossible!" said Quentin, whose heart sank at the suggestion.
"Perhaps you think that you have seen enough of us; but in a war of
independence, the invaded must not be too tender-hearted."
"Nay, senor; but if it would please you to give me to-night your
reply to the general commanding our division, it would favour me
greatly."
This simple question seemed to raise some undefinable suspicion, or
recall something unpleasant to the Spaniard's mind, for, knitting his
thick black brows over his deeply-set and lynx-like eyes, he regarded
Quentin with a steady scrutiny, and said:
"You are not an officer, it would seem? (How often had this remark
stung poor Quentin.) You have no sash, gorget, or epaulettes?"
"No, senor," replied Quentin, with a sigh; "I have not the good
fortune."
"What are you then--a simple soldado?"
"Senor," replied Quentin, with growing irritation, for, in truth, he
was very weary of his long day's journey, and its exciting episodes;
"the letter you have just read, I believe, tells you what you require
to know."
"Santos! you are a bold fellow to bear yourself thus to _me_."
"I am a British soldier on military duty," replied Quentin, loftily,
as he saw that hardihood was the only quality appreciated by his new
acquaintances.
"What is this? You are styled, _voluntario del Regimiento Viente y
Cinco--Fronteros del Rey_--is that it?"
"A volunteer of the King's Own Borderers--yes."
"An English corps, of course, by your uniform?" remarked Baltasar,
while twisting up a cigarito.
"No, senor."
"_Maledito_--what then?" he asked, pausing, as he lit it.
"Escotos."
"_Demonio_! I saw them at Vimiera, and thought all the Escotos were
bare-legged, and wore Biscayner's bonnets with great plumes. But you
shall have the answer you wish this instant. I am not a man for
delay."
"A guide also, senor, will be necessary, so that I may avoid the
French patrols."
"You made your way here without one," said the Spaniard, with one of
his keen and suspicious glances; "moreover, I suppose you are not
without at least one French friend in Valencia; but a guide you shall
have, if we can spare one," he added, dipping a pen in an ink-horn,
and, drawing before him a sheet of paper, he wrote hastily the
following brief despatch, for El Estudiente, as he was sometimes
named, had been well educated by his father, a professor at the
University of Salamanca.
"SENOR GENERAL,--I have had the high honour of receiving your
despatch announcing the day of your march into Castile, and, with the
help of God, Madonna, and the saints, I shall be in motion at the
same time towards the hill of Albuera, with my guerilla force, now
two thousand strong, with five 12-pounders, to cover your flank, if
necessary, from the cavalry of Ribeaupierre, who occupy all the
district in and about Valencia. With the most profound esteem, I
have the honour to be, illustrious Senor and General, &c. &c.--
"BALTASAR DE SALDOS Y SALAMANCA."
While addressing this letter, which he handed to Quentin, he turned
to the Padre Trevino, who had stood all the while leaning on his long
musket, and said, with a sombre expression on his dark face:--
"Padre, now that I have a moment to spare, I shall be glad to learn
how your plan for ridding us of General de Ribeaupierre has failed,
and what has become of your remarkably luxuriant beard and whiskers,
which were ample enough to have frightened Murillo himself? You are
now shaven as bare----"
"As when I threw my gown and sandals over the Dominican gate at
Salamanca," interrupted the ex-friar, with a grin.
"Exactly so."
"Well, Baltasar, _amigo mio_, when I entered Valencia this morning, I
had, as you know, a goodly natural crop of black beard and whiskers,
with a wig that for length of matted locks rivalled those of
Lazarillo here. Over these I had a high-crowned sombrero, with a
tricoloured cockade, emblematical of my zealous loyalty to Joseph,
the Corsican. Clad in an old brown mantle, I assumed the character
of a poor, meek man, the bearer of a petition to the French general,
De Ribeaupierre, whom I meant to stab to the heart as he read
it--aye, _por Dios!_ though surrounded by all his staff and
quarter-guard, for I was well mounted, and they never would have
overtaken or stopped me, save by closing the city gate.
"I reached the head-quarters just as the whole staff were turning
out, for tidings had come that the guerillas of that devil of a
fellow Baltasar the Salamanquino, had cut off a cavalry patrol, and
shot the general's only son, a lieutenant of chasseurs. The
excitement was great in the garrison, where there was such mounting
and spurring, drumming and so forth, that I was almost unheeded,
while noisily importuning the staff-officers that I had a petition
for the general.
"'Here, Spaniard, give it to me,' said one who was covered with
orders, pausing, as with his foot in the stirrup, he was just about
to mount his horse.
"I measured him with a glance--I looked stealthily all round me to
see that the streets were clear for a start, as he opened my petition
and read it.
"I drew closer; the red cloud I have seemed to see on _former
occasions_, came before my eyes; my heart beat wildly, my hand, hot
and feverish, was on my knife. Another moment it was buried in his
heart, and I was spurring along the street towards the southern gate,
which I reached only to find it shut!"
"A thousand devils!" said Baltasar.
"_Por Baccho!_" muttered the listeners, with their eyes dilated.
"Dismounting, I quitted my horse, rushed down an alley, where I saw
the door of a bodega open, and plunged down into it unseen, scrambled
over the borrachio skins into a dark corner and crept behind a heap
of them. There I lay panting and breathless, dreading the proprietor
(but he had been hanged that morning as a spy), and also the French,
armed parties of whom passed and repassed, swearing and threatening;
and from what they said, I learned that I had not killed the
general----"
"_Not_ killed him? what the devil, Padre!--I thought you always
struck home!"
"So I do, and so I _did_, but the knife had reached only the heart of
his military secretary."
"Well, then, 'tis one more Frenchman gone the downward road, the way
we hope to send them all. And you----"
"I lay for some time in the cool wine vault, among the cobwebs and
dirty borrachio skins. One of them--for the temptation was too
great--I pierced with my yet bloody knife, and a long, long draught
of the vino de Alicante, cold, dry, mellow, delicious,
golden-coloured----"
"Ha, ha, ha! Bravo Padre Trevino!" chorussed all the laughing
listeners, as they clattered away with their musket-butts in applause
of his atrocious narrative.
"Thou wert revived, no doubt?" said Baltasar, impatiently.
"_Amiga mio_, I should think so; it brightened my intellects; it gave
me new ideas--I drew inspiration from that beloved borrachio skin. I
cast away my ample wig, drew from my wallet shaving apparatus, and in
a trice I was shaven to the eyes, as you see me. Abandoning my
cloak, I concealed my dagger in my left sleeve, took a wine skin
under my arm, and walking deliberately to the officer in command of
the guard at the south gate, offered the wine for sale at half its
value, seeming to all appearance a very quiet citizen, anxious in
these hard times to do a little business, even with the enemy. He
took the skin from me, bid me go to the devil for payment; the
sentinel opened the wicket, and I was thrust out of Valencia--the
very thing I wanted. I said nothing about my poor wife or starving
little ones, lest their hearts might relent, but turned my face to
the mountains, and I am here."
This savage story met, we have said, with great applause, and
Quentin, after the scene he had witnessed in the street of the
puebla, felt no surprise that it did so; but his horror of the Padre
was great, and he felt his repugnance for the guerillas increase
every moment.
Policy and necessity forced him to dissemble; yet, in that mountain
village there seemed such an atmosphere of blood, dishonourable
warfare, and patriotism gone mad, that he longed intensely to be out
of it, and once again in the more congenial and civilized society he
had left.
"Supper, senor," said Don Baltasar, rising from the table and
gathering up his papers; "let us rest now, for you must be weary, and
in truth so am I; and then to bed, for the hour is late, and we have
both work to do upon the morrow. Trevino, who has the quarter-guard?"
"El Conde de Maciera, senor," replied the Padre.
"Good--not a bat will stir between this and Valencia without his
hearing of it. This way, then," added Baltasar, ushering them into
an inner apartment, where a very different face from any Quentin had
yet seen in the Peninsula shed a light upon the scene.