March, the 9th day.
Doña Orosia sent for me at noon to-day. There was news to tell, and she
chose to be the one to tell it.
I found her in her favourite seat,--a great soft couch, covered with
rich Moorish stuffs, and placed under the shadow of the balcony that
overlooks the sunny garden. Up each of the light pillars from which
spring the graceful arches that support this balcony climbs a mass of
blooming vines that weave their delicate tendrils round the railing
above and then trail downward again in festoons of swaying colour.
Behind, in the luminous shadow, she lay coiled and half asleep; with a
large fan of bronze turkey-feathers in one lazy hand, the other teasing
the tawny hound which was stretched out at her feet.
She opened her great eyes as I came near.
"Ah! the little blue-eyed Margarita, the little saint who frowns when
men worship at her shrine," she said slowly. "There is news for you. The
_Virgen de la Mar_ arrived last night from Habana, bringing the
commands of the Council of Spain that the English prisoners here
detained be liberated forthwith. For it seems that there has been
presented to the Council, through our ambassador to the English Court, a
memorial, which clearly proves that these persons have given no
provocation to any subject of his Catholic Majesty, Charles the Second
of Spain, and are therefore unlawfully imprisoned. How like you that?"
The waving fan was suddenly stilled, and the brilliant eyes half veiled.
"Is this true?" I asked, for my heart misgave me.
She laughed. "It is true that the _Virgen de la Mar_ has brought those
orders to the Governor of San Augustin--and that my husband has received
them."
"Will he obey them, señora?"
"Will who obey them?" she asked; and there was a gleam of white teeth
under the red, curling lip. "My husband, or the Governor of San
Augustin?"
"Are they not the same?"
"If you think so, little fool," she cried, half rising from her couch;
"if you think so still, you would better go back to your chamber and
pray yourself and your lover out of prison!"
I made no answer; I waited, without much hope, for what she would say
next. My heart was very full, but I would not pleasure her by weeping.
"Child," she continued, sinking back among the cushions and speaking in
a slow, impressive manner, "there are _two_ Governors in San
Augustin--and they take their commands neither from the child-King, the
Queen-mother, nor any of the Spanish Council. My husband is not one; he
obeys them both by turns. His Excellency Don Pedro Melinza decrees that
these orders from Spain shall be carried out except in the case of one
Señor Rivers, who will be held here to answer for an unprovoked assault
on one of his Majesty's subjects, whom he severely wounded; also for
inciting others of his fellow prisoners to break their parole, and for
various other offences against the peace of this garrison,--all of which
charges Melinza will swear to be true."
"Is he so lost to honour? And will your husband uphold him in the lie?"
"Hear me out," she continued in the same tone. "Melinza also decides
that these orders do not include the English señorita, Doña Margaret,
whom he intends to detain here for----for reasons best known to himself;
although the other Governor of San Augustin decrees"----she started up
from her nest of pillows and continued in a wholly different tone: "_I_
say--_I_ say--that you shall quit this place with the other prisoners,
and my husband dares not oppose me! I am sick of your white face and
your saintly blue eyes; I am wearied to death of your company; but I
swear Melinza shall not have you! Therefore go you must, and speedily."
"And leave my betrothed at Don Pedro's mercy?"
"What is that to me? Let him rot in his dungeon. I care not--so I am rid
of your white face."
She shut her eyes angrily and thrust out her slippered foot at the
sleeping hound. He lifted his great head and yawned; then, gathering up
his huge bulk from the ground, he drew closer to his mistress's side and
sniffed the air with solicitude, as though seeking a cause for her
displeasure. There was a dish of cakes beside her, and she took one in
her white fingers and threw it to the dog. He let it fall to the ground,
and nosed it doubtfully, putting forth an experimental tongue,--till,
finding it to his taste, he swallowed it at a gulp. His mistress
laughed, and tossed him another, which disappeared in his great jaws. A
third met the same fate; but the fourth she extended to him in her pink
palm, and, as he would have taken it she snatched the hand away. Again
and again the poor brute strove to seize the proffered morsel, but each
time it was lifted out of his reach; till finally his lithe body was
launched upward, and he snapped both the cake and the hand that teased
him.
'Twas the merest scratch, and truly the dog meant it not in anger; but
on the instant Doña Orosia flushed crimson to her very brow, and,
drawing up her silken skirt, she snatched a jewelled dagger from her
garter and plunged it to the hilt in the poor beast's throat. The red
blood spouted, and the huge body dropped in a tawny heap.
I rushed forward and lifted the great head; but the eyes were glazed.
"Señora!" I cried, "señora! the poor brute loved you!"
She spurned the limp body with a careless foot, saying,--
"So did--once--the man who gave it me."
Then she clapped her hands, and the negro servant came and at her
command dragged away the carcass, wiped the bloody floor, and brought a
basin of clear water and a linen cloth to bathe the scratch on her hand.
When he had gone she made me bind it up with her broidered kerchief and
stamped her foot because I drew the knot over-tight.
"Doña Orosia," I said, when I had done it to her liking. "If all you
care for, in this other matter, is to get rid of my white face, I pray
you kill me with your dagger and ask your lord to let my love go free."
She looked up curiously. "Would you die for him?" she asked.
"Most willingly, an it please you to make my death his ransom."
Still she gazed at me and seemed strangely stirred. "Once I loved like
that," she said in musing tones. "I will tell thee a tale, child, for I
like not the reproach in those blue eyes. Five years ago, when I was as
young as thou art now, I lived with my parents in Valencia, where the
flowers are even sweeter and the skies bluer than here in sunny Florida.
I had a lover in those days, who followed me like my shadow, and, in
spite of my old duenna, found many a moment to pour his passion in my
ears. He was a brave man and a handsome, and he won my heart from me.
Though he had no great fortune I would have wed him willingly and
followed him over land and sea. I never doubted him for a day; and when
he came to my father's house with an old nobleman, his uncle and the
head of his family, I was well content; for my mother told me they had
asked for my hand and it had been promised. But when my father called me
in at last to see my future husband, it was the old man who met me with
a simper on his wrinkled face. I turned to the nephew; but he was gazing
out of the window----"
She broke off with a fierce laugh and then added bitterly,--"And so I
came to marry my husband, the Governor of San Augustin!"
"The other was Don Pedro?"
"Has thy baby wit compassed that much? Yes, the other was Melinza."
"But if you once loved him why should there be hate between you now?"
"Why? thou little fool! Why?"--she put out one hand and drew me closer,
so that she could look deep into my eyes. "Why does a woman ever hate a
man? Canst tell me that?"
We gazed at each other so until I saw--I scarce know what I saw! My head
swam, and of a sudden it came over me that when the angels fell from
heaven there must have been an awful beauty in their eyes!