“And Señorita Dona Seraphina has charged me to repeat”--he made a
stealthy sign, as if to counteract an evil influence--“the words, ‘Two
lives--one death.’ The Señor will understand.”
“Yes,” I said, looking away with a pang at my heart. He touched my
elbow. “And to trust Cesar. Señor, I dandled her when she was quite
little. Let me most earnestly urge upon your worship not to go near the
windows, especially if there is light in your worship’s room. Evil men
are gazing upon the house, and I have seen myself the glint of a musket
at the end of the street. The moon grows fast, too. The senorita begs
you to trust Cesar.”
“Are there many men?” I asked.
“Not many in sight; I have seen only one. But by signs, open to a man of
my experience, I suspect many more to be about.” Then, as I looked down
on the ground, he added parenthetically, “They are poor shots, one and
all, lacking the very firmness of manhood necessary to discharge a
piece with a good aim. Still, Señor, I am ordered to entreat you to be
cautious. Strange it is that to-night, from the great revelry at the
Aldea Bajo, one might think they had just visited an English ship
outside.”
A ship! a ship! of any sort. But how to get out of the Casa? Murder
forbade me even as much as to look out of the windows. Was there a ship
outside? Cesar was positive there was not--not since I had arrived.
Besides, the empty sea itself was unattainable, it seemed. I pressed the
seal to my lips. “Tell the senorita how I received her gift,” I said;
and the old negro inclined his head lower still. “Tell her that as the
letters of her name are graved on this, so are all the words she has
spoken graven on my heart.”
They went away busily, the lanthorns swinging about the ax-heads of the
halberds, Cesar’s staff tapping the stones.
I shut my door, and buried my face in the pillows of the state bed. My
mental anguish was excessive; action, alone, could relieve it. I had
been battling with my thoughts like a man fighting with shadows. I could
see no issue to such a struggle, and I prayed for something tangible to
encounter--something that one could overcome or go under to. I must
have fallen suddenly asleep, because there was a lion in front of me. It
lashed its tail, and beyond the indistinct agitation of the brute I saw
Seraphina. I tried to shout to her; no voice came out of my throat. And
the lion produced a strange noise; he opened his jaws like a door. I sat
up. It was like a change of dream. A glare filled my eyes. In the wide
doorway of my room, in a group of attendants, I saw a figure in a short
black cloak standing, hat on head, and an arm outstretched. It was Don
Balthasar. He held himself more erect than I had ever seen him before.
Stifled sounds of weeping, a vast, confused rumour of lamentations,
running feet and flamming doors, came from behind him; his aged, dry
voice, much firmer and very distinct, was speaking to me.
“You are summoned to attend the bedside of Don Carlos Riego at the hour
of death, to help his soul struggling on the threshold of eternity, with
your prayers--as a kinsman and a friend.”
A great draught swayed the lights about that black and courtly figure.
All the windows and doors of the palace had been flung open for the
departure of the struggling soul. Don Balthasar turned; the group of
attendants was gone in a moment, with a tramp of feet and jostling of
lights in the long gallery.
I ran out after them. A wavering glare came from under the arch, and,
through the open gate, I saw the bulky shape of the bishop’s coach
waiting outside in the moonlight. A strip of cloth fell from step
to step down the middle of the broad white stairs. The staircase was
brilliantly lighted, and quite empty. The household was crowding the
upper galleries; the sobbing murmurs of their voices fell into the
deserted _patio_. The strip of crimson cloth laid for the bishop ran
across it from the arch of the stairway to the entrance.
The door of Carlos’ room stood wide open; I saw the many candles on
a table covered with white linen, the side of the big bed, surpliced
figures moving within the room. There was the ringing of small bells,
and sighing groans from the kneeling forms in the gallery through which
I was making my way slowly.
Castro appeared at my side suddenly. “Señor,” he began, with saturnine
stoicism, “he is dead. I have seen battlefields------” His voice broke.
I saw, through the large portal of the death-chamber, Don Balthasar
and Seraphina standing at the foot of the bed; the bowed heads of
two priests; the bishop, a tiny old man, in his vestments; and Father
Antonio, burly and motionless, with his chin in his hand, as if left
behind after leading that soul to the very gate of Eternity. All about
me, women and men were crossing themselves; and Castro, who for a moment
had covered his eyes with his hand, touched my elbow.
“And you live,” he said, with sombre emphasis; then, warningly, “You are
in great danger now.”
I looked around, as if expecting to see an uplifted knife. I saw only a
lot of people--household negroes and the women--rising from their knees.
Below, the _patio_ was empty.
“The house is defenceless,” Castro continued. We heard tumultuous voices
under the gate. O’Brien appeared in the doorway of Carlos’ room with an
attentive and dismayed expression on his face. I do not really think he
had anything to do with what then took place. He meant to have me killed
outside; but the rabble, excited by Manuel’s inflammatory speeches,
had that night started from the villages below with the intention of
clamouring for my life. Many of their women were with them. Some of the
__Lugareños__ carried torches, others had pikes; most of them, however,
had nothing but their long knives. They came in a disorderly, shouting
mob along the beach, intending this not for an attack, but as a simple
demonstration.
The sight of the open gate struck them with wonder. The bishop’s coach
blocked the entrance, and for a time they hesitated, awed by the mystery
of the house and by the rites going on in there. Then two or three
bolder spirits stole closer. The bishop’s people, of course, did not
think of offering any resistance. The very defencelessness of the house
restrained the mob for a while. A few more men from outside ran in.
Several women began to clamour scoldingly to them to bring the _Inglez_
out. Then the men, encouraging each other in their audacity, advanced
further under the arch.
A solitary black, the only guard left at the gate, shouted at them,
“_Arria!_ Go back!” It had no effect. More of them crowded in, though,
of course, the greater part of that mob remained outside. The black
rolled big eyes. He could not stop them; he did not like to leave his
post; he dared not fire. “Go back! Go back!” he repeated.
“Not without the _Inglez_,” they answered.
The tumult we had heard arose when the _Lugareños_ suddenly fell upon
the sentry, and wrenched his musket from him.
This man, when disarmed, ran away. I saw him running across the
_patio_, on the crimson pathway, to the foot of the staircase. His
shouting, “The _Lugareños_ have risen!” broke upon the hush of mourning.
Father Antonio made a brusque movement, and Seraphina sent a startled
glance in my direction.
The cloistered court, with its marble basin and a jet of water in the
centre, remained empty for a moment after the negro had run across; a
growing clamour penetrated into it. In the midst of it I heard O’Brien’s
voice saying, “Why don’t they shut the gate?” Immediately afterwards a
woman in the gallery cried out in surprise, and I saw the _Lugareños_
pour into the _patio_.
For a time that motley group of bandits stood in the light, as if
intimidated by the great dignity of the house, by the mysterious
prestige of the Casa whose interior, probably, none of them had
ever seen before. They gazed about silently, as if surprised to find
themselves there.
It looked as if they would have retired if they had not caught sight of
me. A murmur of “the _Inglez_” arose at once. By that time the household
negroes had occupied the staircase with what weapons they could find
upstairs.
Father Antonio pushed past O’Brien out of the room, and shook his arms
over the balustrade.
“Impious men,” he cried, “begone from this house of death.” His eyes
flashed at the ruffians, who stared stupidly from below.
“Give us the _Inglez_,” they growled. Seraphina, from within, cried,
“Juan.” I was then near the door, but not within the room.
“The _Inglez!_ The heretic! The traitor!” came in sullen, subdued
mutter. A hoarse, reckless voice shouted, “Give him to us, and we shall
go!”
“You are putting in danger all the lives in this house!” O’Brien hissed
at me. “Señorita, pray do not.” He stood in the way of Seraphina, who
wished to come out.
“It is you!” she cried. “It is you! It is your voice, it is your hand,
it is your iniquity!”
He was confounded by her vehemence.
“Who brought him here?” he stammered. “Am I to find one of that accursed
brood forever in my way? I take him to witness that for your sake------”
A formidable roar, “Throw us down the _Inglez!_” filled the _patio_.
They were gaining assurance down there; and the ferocious clamouring of
the mob outside came faintly upon our ears.
O’Brien barred the way. Don Balthasar leaned on his daughter’s arm--she
very straight, with tears still on her face and indignation in her eye,
he bowed, and with his immovable fine features set in the calmness of
age. Behind that group there were two priests, one with a scared, white
face, another, black-browed, with an exalted and fanatical aspect. The
light of the candles from the improvised altar fell on the bishop’s
small, bald head, emerging with a patient droop from the wide spread of
his cope, as though he had been inclosed in a portable gold shrine. He
was ready to go.
Don Balthasar, who seemed to have heard nothing, as if suddenly waking
up to his duty, left his daughter, and muttering to O’Brien, “Let me
precede the bishop,” came out, bare-headed, into the gallery. Father
Antonio had turned away, and his heavy hand fell on O’Brien’s shoulder.
“Have you no heart, no reverence, no decency?” he said. “In the name
of everything you respect, I call upon you to stop this sacrilegious
outbreak.”
O’Brien shook off the priestly hand, and fixed his eyes upon Seraphina.
I happened to be looking at his face; he seemed to be ready to go out
of his mind. His jealousy, the awful torment of soul and body, made him
motionless and speechless.
Seeing Don Balthasar appear by the balustrade, the ruffians below had
become silent for a while. His aged, mechanical voice was heard asking
distinctly:
“What do these people want?”
Seraphina, from within the room, said aloud, “They are clamouring for
the life of our guest.” She looked at O’Brien contemptuously, “They are
doing this to please you.”
“Before God, I have nothing to do with this.”
It was true enough, he had nothing to do with this outbreak; and I
believe he would have interfered, but, in his dismay at having lost
himself in the eyes of Seraphina, in his rage against myself, he did
not know how to act. No doubt he had been deceiving himself as to his
position with Seraphina. He was a man who in his wishes. His desire of
revenge on me, the downfall of his hopes (he could no longer deceive
himself), a desperate striving of thought for their regaining, his
impulse towards the impossible--all these emotions paralyzed his will.
Don Balthasar beckoned to me.
“Don’t go near him,” said O’Brien, in a thick, mumbling voice. “I
shall------I must------”
I put him aside. Don Balthasar took my arm. “Misguided populace,” he
whispered. “They have been a source of sorrow to me lately. But this
wicked folly is incredible. I shall call upon them to come to their
senses. My voice------”
The court below was strongly lighted, so that I saw the bearded,
bronzed, wild faces of the _Lugareños_ looking up. We, also, were
strongly shown by the light of the doorway behind us, and by the torches
burning in the gallery.
That morning, in my helplessness, I had come to put my trust in
accident--in some accident--I hardly knew of what nature--my own death,
perhaps--that would find a solution for my responsibilities, put an end
to my tormenting thoughts. And now the accident came with a terrible
swiftness, at which I shudder to this day.
We were looking down into the _patio_. Don Balthasar had just said,
“You are nowhere as safe as by my side,” when I noticed a _Lugareño_
withdrawing himself from the throng about the basin. His face came to me
familiarly. He was the pirate with the broken nose, who had had a taste
of my fist. He had the sentry’s musket on his shoulder, and was slinking
away towards the gate.
Don Balthasar extended his hand over the balustrade, and there was
a general movement of recoil below. I wondered why the slaves on the
stairs did not charge and clear the _patio_; but I suppose with such a
mob outside there was a natural hesitation in bringing the position to
an issue. The _Lugareños_ were muttering, “Look at the _Inglez!_” then
cried out together, “Excellency, give up this _Inglez!_”
Don Balthasar seemed ten years younger suddenly. I had never seen him so
imposingly erect.
“Insensate!” he began, without any anger.
“He is going to fire!” yelled Castro’s voice somewhere in the gallery.
I saw a red dart in the shadow of the gate. The broken-nosed pirate had
fired at me. The report, deadened in the vault, hardly reached my
ears. Don Balthazar’s arm seemed to swing me back. Then I felt him lean
heavily on my shoulder. I did not know what had happened till I heard
him say:
“Pray for me, gentlemen.”
Father Antonio received him in his arms.
For a second after the shot, the most dead silence prevailed in the
court. It was broken by an affrighted howl below: and Seraphina’s voice
cried piercingly:
“Father!”
The priest, dropping on one knee, sustained the silvery head, with its
thin features already calm in death. Don Balthasar had saved my life;
and his daughter flung herself upon the body. O’Brien pressed his hands
to his temples, and remained motionless.
I saw the bishop, in his stiff cope, creep up to the group with the
motion of a tortoise. And, for a moment, his quavering voice pronouncing
the absolution was the only sound in the house.
Then a most fiendish noise broke out below. The negroes had charged, and
the _Lugareños_, struck with terror at the unforeseen catastrophe, were
rushing helter-skelter through the gate. The screaming of the maids was
frightful. They ran up and down the galleries with their hair streaming.
O’Brien passed me by swiftly, muttering like a madman.
I, also, got down into the courtyard in time to strike some heavy blows
under the gateway; but I don’t know who it was that thrust into my hands
the musket which I used as a club. The sudden burst of shrieks,
the cries of terror under the vault of the gate, yells of rage and
consternation, silenced the mob outside. The _Lugareños_, appalled at
what had happened, shouted most pitifully. They squeaked like the vermin
they were. I brought down the clubbed musket; two went down. Of two I am
sure. The rush of flying feet swept through between the walls, bearing
me along. For a time a black stream of men eddied in the moonlight round
the bishop’s coach, like a torrent breaking round a boulder. The great
heavy machine rocked, mules plunged, torches swayed.
The archway had been cleared. Outside, the slaves were forming in the
open space before the Casa, while Cesar, with a few others, laboured
to swing the heavy gates to. Hats, torn cloaks, knives strewed the
flagstones, and the dim light of the lamps, fastened high up on the
walls, fell on the faces of three men stretched out on their backs.
Another, lying huddled up in a heap, got up suddenly and rushed out.
The thought of Seraphina clinging to the lifeless body of her father
upstairs came to me; it came over me in horror, and I let the musket
fall out of my hand. A silence like the silence of despair reigned in
the house. She would hate me now. I felt as if I could walk out and give
myself up, had it not been for the sight of O’Brien.
He was leaning his shoulders against the wall in the posture of a man
suddenly overcome by a deadly disease. No one was looking at us. It came
to me that he could not have many illusions left to him now. He looked
up wearily, saw me, and, waking up at once, thrust his hands into the
pockets of his breeches. I thought of his pistol. No wild hope of love
would prevent him, now, from killing me outright. The fatal shot that
had put an end to Don Balthasar’s life must have brought to him an
awakening worse than death. I made one stride, caught him by both arms
swiftly, and pinned him to the wall with all my strength. We struggled
in silence.
I found him much more vigorous than I had expected; but, at the same
time, I felt at once that I was more than a match for him. We did not
say a word. We made no noise. But, in our struggle, we got away from the
wall into the middle of the gateway I dared not let go of his arms to
take him by the throat. He only tried to jerk and wrench himself away.
Had he succeeded, it would have been death for me. We never moved our
feet from the spot, fairly in the middle of the archway but nearer to
the gate than to the _patio_. The slaves, formed outside, guarded the
bishop’s coach, and I do not know that there was anybody else actually
with us under the vault of the entrance. We glared into each other’s
faces, and the world seemed very still around us. I felt in me a
passion--not of hate, but of determination to be done with him; and from
his face it was impossible to guess his suffering, his despair, or his
rage.
In the midst of our straining I heard a sibilant sound. I detached my
eyes from his; his struggles redoubled, and, behind him, stealing in
towards us from the court, black on the strip of crimson cloth, I saw
Tomas Castro. He flung his cloak back. The light of the lanthorn under
the keystone of the arch glimmered feebly on the blade of his maimed
arm. He made a discreet and bloodcurdling gesture to me with the other.
How could I hold a man so that he should be stabbed from behind in my
arms? Castro was running up swiftly, his cloak opening like a pair of
sable wings. Collecting all my strength, I forced O’Brien round, and
we swung about in a flash. Now he had his back to the gate. My effort
seemed to have uprooted him. I felt him give way all over.
As soon as our position had changed, Castro checked himself, and stepped
aside into the shadow of the guardroom doorway. I don’t think O’Brien
had been aware of what had been going on. His strength was overborne
by mine. I drove him backwards. His eyes blinked wildly. He bared his
teeth. He resisted, as though I had been forcing him over the brink of
perdition. His feet clung to the flagstones. I shook him till his head
rolled.
“Viper brood!” he spluttered.
“Out you go!” I hissed.
I had found nothing heroic, nothing romantic to say--nothing that would
express my desperate resolve to rid the world of his presence. All I
could do was to fling him out. The Casa Riego was all my world--a World
full of great pain, great mourning, and love. I saw him pitch headlong
under the wheels of the bishop’s enormous carriage. The black coachman
who had sat aloft, unmoved through all the tumult, in his white
stockings and three-cornered hat, glanced down from his high box. And
the two parts of the gate came together with a clang of ironwork and a
heavy crash that seemed as loud as thunder under that vault.