THE PRISONER.
"I would my weary course were o'er,
Yet scarce can look for end save this,
To dash to pieces on the shore,
Or founder in the dark abyss.
Fond thoughts, sweet hopes! oh, far more blest
My bosom had it never known
Your presence, since in vain possest,
To lose you while you seemed my own."
RODRIGUEZ LOBO.
He rapidly learned that the court-martial was in the garrison orders
to assemble on the 5th instant, and that charges of the most serious
nature, involving, perhaps, the terrible penalty of--death, were to
be brought against him!
What sudden mystery--what inexplicable horror was this?
On the night he entered Alva he was relieved from the humiliation of
an armed escort or guard by the influence of Askerne and Warriston,
who both bound themselves by their parole of honour for his
appearance whenever required. He was thus at liberty to go about the
town, but he cared not to avail himself of it, and remained in his
quarters.
The evening of the 4th of December was dull and gloomy. Setting amid
saffron haze and shorn of all his beams, the lurid sun looming large
and crimson like a wondrous globe, shed a steady light along the
waters of the Tormes, a deep stream, which there rolls under a high
and ancient bridge, that was afterwards blown up when the British
retreated from Burgos.
An old Moorish wall surrounds Alva, which stands on the slope of a
hill, and there, above its flat-terraced mansions, rises the great
palace of the powerful Dukes of Alva and Berwick, where Ferdinand
Alvarez of Toledo, the terror of the Low Countries and the institutor
of "the Court of Blood," first saw the light. In an angle of the
Moorish rampart, then crumbling in ruins, stands a high round tower
of considerable strength and antiquity. Herein was posted the
quarter-guard of the 1st Brigade, and in an upper chamber Quentin had
his billet, and there he sat alone, after the day's march, left to
his own reflections, and these were mournful and gloomy enough.
The aspect of this chamber was little calculated to raise his
drooping spirit. Almost destitute of furniture, it was built of
massive stone, vaulted, and had three narrow windows, the sides and
horse-shoe arches of which were covered with elaborate zigzag Moorish
ornaments, arabesques, and uncouth inscriptions, which, though he
knew it not, were texts and quotations from the Koran in Arabic.
These had probably been gilded and gaudily coloured once, but now
were simply coated with mouldy whitewash. One of these windows
opened to the hill on the slope of which stands Alva, and afforded a
view of its tiled and terraced roofs, all drenched by the recent
rain. Another faced the mountains of Leon, and the third showed the
narrow gorge through which the red and swollen Tormes lay rolling
under the bridge; beyond which, on an eminence, were posted a brigade
of field guns and a cavalry picquet; the horses were linked together,
and the troops cloaked.
All looked wet and dreary, dull and mournful, and as the December sun
went down beyond the dark and purple hills where Salamanca lies, the
pipers of the 92nd played "Lochaber no more," their evening retreat,
and this air, so sad, so slow and wailing, as they marched along the
old Moorish wall, affected Quentin so deeply that he covered his face
with his hands and wept.
What would that fine old soldier, courtier, and cavalier, the mirror
of old-fashioned courage and honour, Lord Rohallion, say or think,
when he heard of his disgrace? What would Lady Winifred--what the
old quartermaster, John Girvan? and what would the emotions of Flora
Warrender be?
Whether the charges against him were false or true--proved or
refuted--she at least would be lost to him for ever, for his career
was closed ere it was well begun, and he felt that no other road in
life lay open to him. He felt too, instinctively, that Baltasar de
Saldos and his sister Donna Isidora were in some manner the secret
source of the present evil turn in his fortune; but how or in what
fashion he was yet to learn.
The phrase, that the charges involved death or such other punishment
as a court-martial might award, was ever before him.
The vagueness of the latter recourse, rather than the terror of the
first, cut him to the heart, as all the penalties inflicted by such a
court are severe and disgraceful.
Cosmo, he heard, had suggested that he should be handed over to the
tender mercies of the Spanish civil authorities; but Sir John Hope
insisted that the charges were such as only a military court could
take cognizance of; so what on earth were they? Unconscious alike of
a mistake or crime, oh, how he longed for the time of trial!
As the darkness of the sombre eve crept on, its gloom was singularly
in unison with his own sombre thoughts.
Bright visions had faded away and airy bubbles burst. Chateaux en
Espagne were no longer tenable now! How many gorgeous day-dreams of
glory and honour, of rank and fame, of position in society attained
by worth and merit, were now dissolved in air! His naturally warm,
generous, and kindly heart had become seared, callous, and
misanthropical. Experience and the world had tried their worst upon
him, and thus, for a time, a mere boy in years became a
bitter-hearted man, for a day dawn of a glorious ambition seemed to
be sinking prematurely into a black and stormy night.
He had seen so many new places and met such a variety of strangers;
he had been involved in so many episodes, and had experienced so much
by land and sea, and, within a very few months, so much seemed to
have happened, that a dreamy dubiety appeared to obscure the past;
and thus his former monotonous existence at Rohallion--monotonous as
compared with the stir of war--came only at times with clearness, as
it were in gleams and flashes of thought and memory. He had nothing
tangible about him--not even a lock of Flora's hair--to convince him
of past realities, or that he had ever been elsewhere than with the
25th; and yet out of this chaos Flora's face and figure, her eyes and
expression of feature, her identity, stood strongly forth. Oh! there
was neither obscurity nor indistinctness there!
And now, amid his sorrow, he felt a keen longing to write to her,
under cover to John Girvan; but then, he reflected, was such a course
honourable in him or deserved by Lord and Lady Rohallion, who hoped
to hail her one day as their daughter-in-law? And what mattered her
regard for him now--now, with the heavy doom of a court-martial
hanging over his head! And yet, if even death were to be his fate,
he felt that he would die all the more happily with the knowledge and
surety that Flora still loved him.
Deep, deep indeed were his occasional bursts of bitterness at Cosmo;
but when he remembered that Cosmo's mother had also been a mother to
himself--when all the memory of her love for him, her early kindness,
her caresses, her kisses on his infant brow, her increasing
tenderness--came rushing back upon him, his heart flew to his head,
and Quentin felt that even yet he could almost forgive all the
studied wrong and injustice the narrow spirit and furious jealousy of
her son now made him suffer. But how were the members of the
regiment or of the division to understand all this!
Amid the reverie in which he had been indulging in the dark, the door
of the upper chamber of the old tower opened, and two officers, in
long regimental cloaks, entered, accompanied by a soldier with a
parcel.
"Well, Quentin, old fellow--how goes it?" said Monkton's cheerful
voice.
"Cheer up, my boy," added Askerne; "before this time to-morrow we
shall have known the worst, and it will be past. We have brought you
a bottle of capital wine. It is a present from Ramon Campillo, the
jolly muleteer, who came in after the division, and leaves again, for
the French lines, I fear."
"A sly dog, who butters his bread on both sides, likely," said
Monkton; "my man has brought you a fowl and a loaf, so we shall make
a little supper together."
"Here, boy, drink," said Askerne, when the soldier lighted a candle,
and they all looked with commiseration upon Quentin's pale cheek and
bloodshot eyes; "I insist upon it--you seem ill and weary."
He could perceive that both Askerne and Monkton looked grave,
earnest, and anxious, for they knew more of the charges against him
than they cared to tell.
"At what hour does the court assemble to-morrow?" he asked.
"Ten, Kennedy."
"Who is the president?"
"Colonel Colquhoun Grant, of the King's Light Dragoons--a hussar
corps."
"Where does it meet?" asked Quentin, wearily.
"In one of the rooms of the Alva Palace. Now we cannot stay above
ten minutes, Quentin. We are both in orders for the court, which of
course is a mixed one, and this visit, if known, might cost us our
commissions perhaps; but I know Monkton's servant to be a sure
fellow."
"Sure, sir," repeated the soldier, "I should think so! It was to
_my_ poor wife and child that Mr. Kennedy--the Lord reward him for
it!--gave his blanket on the night we bivouacked at the Escurial,"
added the man, in a broken voice; "the night I lost them both--never
to see them again."
Askerne now asked Quentin many questions concerning his recent
wanderings; the answers to some of these he jotted down in his
note-book; and he gave much good advice for his guidance on the
morrow, adding, with a sigh of annoyance, that he feared there was a
deep scheme formed against him, and that, as several outrages had
been committed by our retreating troops, it was not improbable that
he might be sacrificed to soothe the ruffled feelings of the
Spaniards.
"What leads you to think so?" asked Quentin.
"This subpœna, which Monkton's servant picked up in a wine-house
and brought us," replied Askerne, opening a letter and reading it, as
follows:
"Head-quarters, Alva-de-Tormes,
December 4th.
"SENOR PADRE,--A general court-martial having been appointed to be
held here, for the trial of Mr. Quentin Kennedy, serving with the
25th Regiment, upon sundry charges exhibited against him; and the
said Mr. Kennedy having represented that your testimony will be very
material in the investigation of some of the articles of charge, and
having requested that you may be officially summoned as a witness, I
am to desire you, and you are hereby required, to give your
attendance here to-morrow, at ten o'clock in the morning, at which
time it is conceived your evidence will become necessary.
"I have the honour to be, &c., &c.,
"LLOYD CONYERS, Staff Captain,
"Deputy Judge Advocate.
"El Senor Padre Trevino."
"This is some trickery!" exclaimed Quentin; "Trevino is the ruffian
of whom I have spoken more than once; the man's doubly my enemy.
Well, well! save myself, it matters little to any one what becomes of
me," he added bitterly. "I have no kindred--not a relation that I
know of in the wide world, and save yourselves, no friends now to
regret me or to remember me, save one of whom I cannot speak. It is
thus better as it is."
"How?" asked Askerne, who grasped him firmly by the hand.
"For if this false accusation, whatever it is, be proved against me,
then none shall blush for my dishonour or sorrow for my fall. Fools
may laugh and the wicked may jeer, but the death volley will close up
my ears for ever. It may do more," he added, in a broken voice; "it
may be the means of revealing to me who was my mother, who my father,
with the great secret of eternity after all; so, my dear Askerne, I
am, you see, reckless of the future."
"Damme, Quentin, this will never do----" Monkton was beginning, when
Askerne spoke.
"In this mingled mood of sullenness and resignation you will destroy
all chance of defeating the machinations of your enemy, for such
I--I--consider our colonel to be," said the captain of grenadiers,
after a pause. "Buckle and I will prepare your declaration for
to-morrow, and it shall be sent to you for revision and emendation
soon after reveille; but you must take courage--I insist upon it, for
your own sake!"
"I do not lack it!" replied Quentin, firmly.
"By courage, I do not mean an indifference that is the result of
misanthropy, or a boldness that is gathered from despair. At your
years, Quentin, either were unnatural," said Askerne, kindly.
"My brave lad," said Monkton, putting an arm round him as an elder
brother might have done, "have you really no fear of--of death?"
"To say that I have not," replied Quentin, with quivering lip, "would
be to state that which is false; but I know death to be the ordinance
of God--the fate of all mankind. It is but the end of the course of
time--welcome only to such as are weary of their lives. I am not
weary of mine, therefore I would indeed find it hard to die. I have
always known that I must die, but never considered where or how--how
near or how distant the day of doom might be; but I do shrink with
horror at the contemplation of dying with a disgrace upon me--a
stigma which, though I am innocent, time may never remove."
"I fear that we are but poor comforters, and that you are taking the
very blackest view of matters," said Askerne; "but be advised by me,
and take courage--a resolute and modest bearing always wins respect.
In the court to-morrow are friends who will not see you wronged, for
every member there is alike a judge and a juryman. Put your trust in
Heaven and in your own innocence; sleep well if you can----"
"And be sure to take something by way of breakfast--a broiled bone
and a glass of Valdepenas--you have a long and anxious day before
you."
"And so, till we meet again, good night--God bless you, my hearty!"
They shook him warmly by the hand, and retired.
He heard their footsteps descending the stone steps of the old tower
(erst trod by the feet of many a turbaned Moor and steel-clad
crusader), and then dying away in distance; but soothed and relieved
in mind by a visit performed at such risk by his friends, and hoping
much--he knew not what--from the notes made by Rowland Askerne,
Quentin lay down on his pallet and strove to sleep, amid a silence
broken only by the beating of his own heart, and the rush of the
Tormes in its deep and rocky bed.
"_They_ at least believe in me, and will not desert me!" he repeated
to himself again and again.
But, the brave boyish spirit and hope--the enthusiastic desire to
achieve something great and good, no matter what, by land or sea, by
flood or field--a glorious deed that present men should vaunt, and
those of future times would speak of--where were that hope and spirit
_now_?