REMORSE.
On the morning after the ship was recaptured, while the _Hermione_
was "going free," and running steadily with her staysails set, Morley
and Bartelot visited the dying wretch in the forecastle bunks for a
few minutes. His aspect was very striking.
His sharp features were very pale; the rich olive tint they usually
wore had fled, and a tawny green replaced it; his lips were black,
and, being parted, showed the strong white teeth, clenched firmly by
an agony that was mental rather than bodily; his eyes were closed,
and his thick black hair was knotted in elf-like knots about his
forehead. Under the squalid blankets the Mexican desperado was
breathing low and heavily.
Hearing them descend through the forescuttle, he opened his eyes, and
gave them a long and sullen stare, expressive only of indifference,
for he felt that all ties and cares on earth were broken with him
now, for Heriot had not attempted to deceive, but had told him that
the hour of his departure was approaching, that mortification had set
in, that he could not survive long.
Morley lifted to the sufferer's lips the drinking cup of weak
wine-and-water, the only drink they could procure him on board.
Pedro moistened his hard-baked mouth, and muttered something
expressive of gratitude. He was very weak and quite gentle now.
"How strangely things come to pass in this world," said Tom Bartelot,
in a low voice. "So this is a son of the old hermit we buried in
that lonely islet of the South Sea."
"Strange, indeed. We should speak to him about that while he can
understand us."
"Barradas," said Bartelot, "your name is Pedro Barradas, I believe?"
"Yes," replied Pedro, opening his large, black, bloodshot eyes, and
surveying the speaker inquiringly and with a sad earnestness.
"A Mexican Spaniard?"
"Yes, senores; or Spanish Mexican, which you please," said he,
sighing wearily.
"From Orizaba, in La Vera Cruz--Orizaba, near the Rio Blanco?"
"Yes," replied Pedro, while something of native suspicion crept
suddenly over his pale face.
"And your mother?"
"Oh, my mother!" he exclaimed in an indescribable voice, "what of
her?"
"She was named Mariquita Escudero, a woman of the Puebla de Perote?"
said Morley.
A convulsive spasm passed over the features of Pedro, and with an
effort he replied, in a low voice:
"_Mia madre ha muerto_" (My mother is dead).
"We know that she died in the Barranca Secca."
"And who are you who know all this?" asked Pedro, rallying his
energies; "or how came you to know it?"
"Through him whom you killed," replied Morley.
"Cramply Hawkshaw?"
"Yes."
A gleam of malevolence flashed from Pedro's black eyes; but
remembering, perhaps, the cold hand that was already on the pulses of
his heart, he groaned, muttered, and crossed himself.
"Your father----"
"Demonio! senores, speak not of my father."
"Why, Pedro?"
"Because I never knew him; but my mother, my poor mother, who loved
her boys so well, so tenderly," he faltered, in a broken voice, while
writhing in his bed.
"From Hawkshaw I learned the terrible story of your mother's fate and
the crime of your brother Zuares, in the Barranca Secca," said
Morley, who looked with deep interest on the strange workings of the
mind exhibited by the expressive visage of the dying ruffian, whose
sole human weakness seemed to be a strong love for the memory of his
mother.
"_Mia madre! mia madre!_" said the once strong man, in a voice that
became touching, while tears welled up into his eyes, long, long
unused to such a moisture. "Oh, senores, bad, vile, cruel, wicked as
you deem me, at this terrible hour, when well-nigh under weigh
for--for--_where?_--it may be hell!--when I think of _her_--of the
only human being who ever loved me--my heart swells with the old pang
that was so keen, so very keen at first, on that awful evening in the
Barranca Secca, and my memory goes back to the happier years beyond.
I feel myself again a little boy and seem to hear her gentle voice
calling me--Pedrillo--_el muchacho Pedrillo_--the same little boy who
served at the altar of San Jago, who waked up in the winter nights
and wept for his mother, and thought her dear, dear face the fondest,
the sweetest, and the fairest under heaven--yes, fairer and kinder
even than that of the blessed Madonna which hung in San Jago de
Chili. _Mia madre ha muerto!_" he repeated, some four or five times,
with incoherent fondness.
"And your father?" resumed Bartelot, after a pause, for they could
not but respect this grief.
"I tell you, senores, I never knew my father," said Pedro, almost
with a frown.
"Why?"
"He was Don Pedro Zuares de Barradas, a Spanish cavalier of high
family, possessing great estates on the table land of Anahuac, and
who was captain of the castle of San Juan de Ulloa, for the
Government of the Free United States of South America. He is said to
have perished at sea, by falling overboard in a gale when being
conveyed to Spain to be tried and executed as a traitor to the king."
"All that we know; but he did not perish as you suppose," said Morley.
"How, senor, how then?" asked Pedro, looking up with surprise.
"He escaped drowning and became a hermit on an island near Tristan
d'Acunha."
"My father--a hermit!"
"Yes."
"And this is truth?"
"Truth as we live and now address you," said Bartelot; "what could we
gain by any fabrication?"
"And--and he died----"
"After a long life of devotion and repentance."
"Oh that his life and death may atone for mine and for Zuares! But
how know you all this, senores?"
"By a strange chance--a singular coincidence--Pedro Barradas," said
Morley.
"Bad as I am, fallen though I be, you would not, I am assured, trifle
with the agonies of a dying wretch," said Pedro, in a low, moaning
voice.
"No," replied Tom Bartelot, gravely; "neither of us are capable of
doing so."
"But tell me how you came by the knowledge of these things?'
"Landing on that solitary isle by chance, we found an old recluse at
the point of death, and discovered his name by means of a written
confession which he left behind him."
"And--and this confession, senores," said Pedro, raising himself on
his elbow, and looking at Morley and Bartelot alternately, as if he
would read their very souls; "this confession--where is it?"
"It was written on the blank leaves of a Spanish missal, and was lost
when my ship foundered at sea. By that confession, however, we
learned his name and history, and also that he was a knight of the
Military Order of Santiago de Compostella," added Tom Bartelot, as
Morley drew from his pocket-book the red enamelled cross of that
famous old Spanish confraternity, and gave it to Pedro, who pressed
it to his lips again and again with his only remaining hand.
"I feel now, senores, that you speak truth," said, he, while the
tears that flowed down his cheek relieved his emotion, and cleared
his utterance. "When I am dead, senores, you will bury this cross
with me. And he died in your hands?"
"Yes; and we buried him near his hut, setting up a little wooden
cross to mark his grave."
"_Ave Madre de Dios!_ no cross will ever mark mine; no prayer, or
blessing, can accompany the departure of me!" groaned Pedro, in a low
voice, as if communing with himself.
"From that written confession, taken in connection with the
revelations of Hawkshaw" (at this name something of the old devilish
gleam passed over Pedro's features) "we recognised both you and your
brother; and we learned that your mother, Mariquita Escudero, had
marked each of you, in infancy, with a cross on the left shoulder."
"Yes, senor--dyed, tattooed redly on the skin, with the juice of a
plant that grows on the warm slopes of the volcano at Orizaba. See,"
added Pedro, as he drew back his blue shirt, and displayed his brawny
shoulder, on which there was distinctly traced a cross like that of
St. James. "Our poor mother punctured that mark on each of her
little boys, in the hope that Santiago would take us under his
protection; but, alas! from infancy we were the peculiar care of the
infernal spirit."
With all the impulsiveness of his race, Pedro behaved at times in a
very frantic manner, and these paroxysms induced a subsequent
weakness and lethargy, that seemed the precursor of dissolution; but
he was a man of a powerful frame, and the instinct of life was strong
within him. He expressed great satisfaction, almost joy, to learn
that Mr. Basset had survived the outrage contemplated by him and the
mutineers; and thus, that, thanks to Dr. Heriot's skill, he had one
sin less to atone for.
Then he entreated that Ethel would come, that he might implore her
pardon. This the poor creature sought in terms so touching that
Ethel was deeply moved, and ventured to speak with him in terms of
consolation.
But there was ever the same reply from Pedro--there was no priest on
board, and he was beyond being consoled. So Ethel proved his only
soother, and read to him at times from the Bible--her mother's
Bible--the same that had fallen from her unconscious hand on the
night when Pedro so daringly carried her off; and a striking little
group they formed--the black-haired and black-bearded Spanish
ruffian, his tawny visage, already pale and pinched by the touch of
death, pressing to his lips the red cross of Santiago again and
again, while striving to follow her words and understand them, as
they fell softly and distinctly from the lips of that fair-skinned
and delicate English girl, who sat by the side of his bed, in the
squalid and noisome forecastle, with the half dim daylight struggling
through the square scuttle above, and, perhaps, Morley, with his
loving smile, or Tom Bartelot, with his sun-burned face, listening
near.
Sometimes, in Pedro's paroxysms, his voice rose almost to a shriek.
"Oh! senora," he would exclaim to poor shrinking Ethel, "pray for
me--pray for me. You are good--you are kind--you are pure--while
I--I--what am I? Heaven will hear you when Heaven will not hear me!"
"Oh, do not speak thus," implored Ethel.
"I must, senora--I dare not pray for myself. To me the ear of God
will be deaf, or turn from me."
"Oh! Pedro, why?"
"I have been so wicked, so bad! I have committed many sins, and _one
most awful deed_, for which I cannot hope for pardon from Him whom I
outraged, and whose altar I desecrated--never, oh never!"
His voice died away in low moans; but Pedro seemed no longer the same
piratical ruffian, for, when speaking, his voice, manner, and diction
were all changed and improved.
This scene, with his mental suffering and terror of death, proved all
too much for Ethel's nervous system, and Morley wished to remove her;
but Pedro implored her to remain with him yet a little while, and
even caught her skirt as she rose to withdraw.
"Great though your sins may be, my poor man, be assured that the
mercy of God is greater still," said Ethel, weeping. "Like the sea
we traverse, it is boundless."
"But so may be God's vengeance, and I have shed blood--the blood of
many," he replied in a low, concentrated voice, through his clenched
teeth.
Ethel grew very, very pale on hearing this, and drew back again, lest
he might clutch her dress once more.
"Well, even those whose blood you shed may be praying for you,
if--if----"
"What--what?" asked Pedro, huskily.
"If you sincerely repent."
"I do repent--I do repent, and sincerely too," he said, impetuously;
"but without a priest to absolve me--to give me the last sacraments
of that church in whose belief my mother reared me--what matters my
repentance?"
Then he howled and gnashed his strong white teeth, while tearing his
black glossy hair with his only remaining hand.
"Let hope for the future find a place in your heart, Pedro, and grow
there with repentance for the past," urged Ethel, while shrinking
close to Morley, for the appearance of the patient terrified her.
"And then, senora, you say nothing of penance?"
"Because I know nothing of it," replied Ethel.
"A priest! a priest! Oh, that the sea would give up its dead, for I
know there is one, at least there; but could I face _him_?" he added,
wildly; "oh! that night of horrors at Santiago--I see the flames yet,
and feel them in my soul!"
"Oh, Pedro Barradas," said Ethel, as this paroxysm induced weakness,
and nothing was heard but his deep and heavy breathing; "whatever be
the sins you have committed, remember that this book tells us 'there
is more joy in heaven over one sinner who truly repents than over
ninety-nine just men who do it not.'"
"Hear her, O Lord, who created heaven and earth, who divided light
from darkness, and the sea from the land!" prayed the poor wretch,
while crossing himself again and again, with his left hand, "and who
formed me out of dust, to which I shall never return, because I must
be buried in the sea," he added with something of simplicity; then,
as his mind seemed to wander, he said, "_Mi madre_, listen to me, am
I praying aright?"
"Yes, yes, Pedro, you pray aright," replied Ethel, covering her face
with her handkerchief, and taking Morley's arm, "lead me away,
dearest," she whispered, "I must return to papa. Pray on, Pedro, it
is proper, it is good for you."
"_Ave Maria purissima!_" he said, "my own mother is at your feet
interceding for me. Oh, she loved her little Pedrillo so well--and
Zuares too--could she have foreseen this end!"
His voice completely failed him now, and Morley led Ethel on deck.