GONE.
"She went," he continued, "and I thought that she was gone from me
forever, since, filibuster as I was, as I say, my oath to my
companions bound me to set her free upon payment of the ransom. Yet,
by heaven's grace, she was mine again ere long."
He paused, looking out of the snow-laden window through which there
stole now a greyness which told of the coming of the wintry day;
pointed toward it as though bidding me remember that his time with me
was growing short; then went on:
"I was ashore for the last time before we sailed for Port Royal; those
of us who were something better than brutish animals seeking for those
who were wallowing in debauchery; finding them, too, either steeped in
drink, or so overcome by their late depravity that they had to be
carried on board the ships like logs. Then, as we passed down a street
seeking our comrades, I saw her again--saw her lovely face at the
grilled window of a house that looked as though it might be a convent;
at a window no higher from the ground than my own head. And she saw me
too, made a sign that I should stop, should send on my company out of
earshot; which done, she said:
"'Save me. For God's sake, save me!'"
"'Save you, Señorita,' I whispered, for I knew not who might be
lurking near, might be, perhaps, within the dark room to which no ray
of the blazing sun seemed able to penetrate; 'save you from what, from
whom?'
"'From him who ransomed me--_Diôs!_ that you had not taken the money.
I hate him, was forced to be affianced to him, am a prisoner here in
this convent until to-morrow, when I am to become his wife.'
"'Yet, Señorita,' I murmured--'how to do it? These walls seem strong,
each window heavily grated, doubtless the house well guarded--and--and
we sail at daybreak.'
"'Yet an entrance may be made by the garden,' she whispered in reply;
'the house is defended by negroes only--my room at the top of the
stairs. Save me. Save me.'"
Again Gramont paused--again he pointed at the day-spring
outside--hurriedly he went on:
"I saved her. Twenty of us--that vile Eaton was one!--passed through
the garden at midnight--up those stairs--killing three blacks who
opposed us"--even as he spoke I remembered Eaton's ravings in _La
Mouche Noire_ as to the dead men glaring down into the passage; knew
now of what his frenzied mind had been thinking on--"bore her away.
Enough! three months later, we were married in Jamaica!"
He rose as though to go forth and seek his horse, determined to
make his way on in spite of the snow that lay upon the ground in
masses--because, as I have ever since thought, he had sworn to undergo
his self-imposed expiation of never gazing more upon his child's
face!--then he paused, and spoke once more:
"She died," and now his voice was broken, trembled, "in giving birth
to her who is above; died when I had grown rich again--so rich that
when I sailed for France, my pardon assured, my commission as
Lieutenant du Roi to Louis in my pocket, I left her with Eaton, not
even then believing how deep a villain he was; thinking, too, that I
should soon return. Left with him, also, a fortune for her, What
happened to her and that fortune you have learnt. Yet, something else
you have to learn. Her mother's name had been Belmonte, and when Juana
fled from Eaton, driven thence by his cruelty, she, knowing this,
found means to communicate with an old comrade of mine, by then turned
priest and settled at the other end of the island--at Montego. Now,
see how things fall out; how, even to one belonging to me, God
is good. 'Twas in '86 I sailed for France, my commission in my
cabin--nailed in my pride to a bulkhead--when, alas! madman as I was,
I encountered a great ship--a treasure ship, as I believed, sailing
under Spanish colours. And--and--the devil was still strong in
me--still strong the hatred of Spain--the greed and lust of plunder.
God help me! God help and pardon me!" and as he spoke he beat his
breast and paced the dreary room, now all lit up by the daylight from
without. Even as I write I see and remember him, as I see and remember
so many other things that happened in those times.
"We boarded her," he continued, a moment later; "we took her treasure;
she was full of it--yet even as we did so I knew that I was lost
forever in this world, all chance of redemption gone--my hopes of
better things passed away forever. For she was sailing under false
colours; she was a French ship, one of Louis' own, and, seeing that we
ourselves carried the Spanish flag, the better to escape the ships of
war of Spain that were all about, had herself run them up. And we
could not slay them and scuttle the ship--we had passed our word for
their safety--moreover, an we would have done so 'twas doubtful if we
should have succeeded. There were women on board, and, though the men
fought but half-heartedly to guard the treasure that was their king's,
they would have fought to the death for them. Therefore, we emptied
the vessel of all that it had--we left them their lives--let them go
free."
"But why, why?" I asked, still not comprehending how this last attack
upon another ship--and that but one of many stretching over long
years!--should be so fateful to him, "why not still go on to France,
commence a new life under better surroundings?"
"Why?" he repeated, "why? Alas! you do not understand. I, a
commissioned officer of the French king, had made war on his ships,
taken his goods; also," and he drew a long breath now, "also
there were those on board who knew and recognised me--we had met
before--knew I was Gramont. That was enough. There was no return to
France for me; or, if once there, nothing but the block or the wheel."
"God pity you," I gasped, "to have thrown all chance away thus--thus!"
He seemed not to heed my words of sympathy, wrung from me by my swift
comprehension of all he had lost; instead, he stood there before me,
almost like those who are turned to stone, making no movement, only
speaking as one speaks who encounters a doom that has fallen on him,
as one who tells how hope and he have parted forever on wide,
diverging roads.
"There were others besides myself," he continued, "who had ruined all
by their act of madness, others of my own land who had gained their
pardon, and lost it now forever, flung away all hopes of another life,
of happier days to come, for the dross that we apportioned between
ourselves, though in our frenzy we almost cast it into the sea. As for
my share, though 'twas another fortune, I would not touch a pistole,
but sent it instead to the priest I have spoken of--sent it by a sure
hand--and bade him keep it for my child, add it to that which Eaton
held for her; told him, too, to guard it well, since neither he nor
she would ever see me more!"
"And after--after?" I asked.
"After, we disbanded--parted. I went my way, they theirs; earned my
living hardly, yet honestly, in Hispaniola; should never have left the
island had I not discovered that Eaton, who even then sometimes passed
under the name of Carstairs--that was his _honest_ name--and who had
long since disappeared from my knowledge, was having a large amount of
goods and merchandise shipped under that name in the fleet of
galleons, about to sail as soon as possible. And then--then--knowing
how he had treated the child I left in his care--the child of my dead
and lost love--I swore to sail in those galleons, to find him, to
avenge----" He paused, exclaiming, "Hark! What is that?"
Above--I heard it as soon as he--there was a footfall on the floor. We
knew that Juana was moving, had arisen.
"Go to her," he said, and I thought that his voice was changed--was
still more broken--"Go; it may be she needs something. Go."
"Is this our last farewell? Surely we shall meet again."
"Go. And--and--tell her--her father--nay. Tell her nothing. Go."
O'ermastered by his words, by, I think, too, the misery of the man who
had been my companion through the dreary night, my heart wrung with
sorrow for him who stood there so sad a figure, I went, obeying his
behest.
But ere I did so, and before I opened the door that gave on the stairs
leading to her room, I took his hand, and whispered:
"It _is_ our last farewell! Yet--oh, pause and think--she is your
child. Have you no word--no last word of love nor plea for pardon--to
send?"
For a moment his his quivered, his breast heaved and he turned toward
the other, and outer, door, so that I thought he meant to go without
another sign. But, some impulse stirring in his heart, he moved back
again to where I stood; murmuring, I heard him say:
"In all the world she has none other but you. Remember that. Farewell
forever. And--in days to come--teach her not to hate--my memory.
Farewell."
Then, his hand on the latch of the outer door, he pointed to the other
and the stairs beyond.
While I, stealing up them, knew that neither his child nor I would
ever see him more, and, so knowing, prayed that God would at last
bring ease and comfort to the erring man.
As I neared the door of the room in which she had slept she opened it
and came forth upon the bare landing--pale, as I saw in the light of
the now fully broken day, but with much of the fever gone; also with,
upon her face, that smile which ever made summer in my heart.
"You are better," I said, folding her to me, "better? Have slept well?
Is it not so?" Yet, even as I spoke, I led her back to the room whence
she had come. She must not descend _yet!_ "You have not stirred all
through the night, I know."
"I dreamt," she said, "that you came to me, bade me farewell forever.
Yet that passed, and again I dreamed that we should never part more.
Therefore, I was happy, even in my sleep." Then broke off to say:
"Hark! They are stirring in the house. Are the horses being prepared?
I hear one shaking its bridle. Can any go forth to-day?" and she moved
toward the window.
"Nay, Juana," I said, leading her back again, although imperceptibly,
to the middle of the room, "do not go to the window. The cold is
intense--stay here by my side."
Not guessing my reason--since it was impossible she should understand
what was happening below!--I led her back. Led her back so that she
should not see one come forth from the stable whom she deemed dead and
destroyed--so that she should not be blasted by the sight of her
father passing away in actual life from her forever; then sat down by
her side and led the conversation to our future--to how we should get
away from here to England and to safety. Also, I told her not to
bewail, as she did again and again, my failure to proceed further on
my journey to Flanders and the army; demonstrated, to her that, at
least, there had been no failure in the mission I had undertaken;
that my secret service had been carried out--and well carried out,
too--and, consequently, my return mattered not very much with regard
to a week or month. The allies, I said, could fight and win their
battles very well without my aid, as I doubted not they were doing by
now, while--for the rest--had I not done my share both here and in
Spain? Proved, too--speaking a little self-vauntingly, perhaps, by
reason of my intense desire to soothe and cheer her and testify that
she had been no barrier in my path to glory--that I, also, though far
away from my comrades, had stood in the shadow of death, had been face
to face with the grim monster equally with those who braved the
bayonets, the muskets and the cannon of Louis' armies.
But all the time I spoke to her my apprehension was very great, my
nerves strung to their bitterest endurance, my fear terrible that she
would hear the man below going forth, that she might move to the
window and see him--and that, thus seeing, be crushed by the sight.
For I knew that he was moving now--that he was passing away forever
from this gloomy spot which held the one thing in all the world that
was his, and linked him to the wife he had loved so dearly; knew that,
solitary and alone, he was about to set forth into a dreary world
which held no home for him nor creature to love him in his old age. I,
too, heard the bridle jangling again; upon the rough boards of the
stable beneath the windows of the _fonda_ I heard the dead, dull thump
of a horse's hoofs; I knew that the animal was moving--that he was
setting out upon his journey of darkness and despair.
"You are sad, Mervan," she said, her cheek against mine, while her
voice murmured in my ear. "Your words are brave, yet all else belies
them."
"It is not for myself," I answered. "Not for myself."
The starry eyes gazed into mine, the long, slim hand rested on my
shoulder.
"For whom?" she whispered. "For whom? For him? My father?"
I bowed my head--from my lips no words seemed able to come--yet said
at last:
"For him. Your father." Then, for a moment, we sat there together,
saying nothing. But soon she spake again.
"My thoughts of him are those of pity only, now," she murmured
once more. "Pity, deep as a woman's heart can feel. And--and--my
love--remember, I never knew who my father was until that scene in the
inn at Lugo--thought always his, our name was in truth Belmonte. The
secret was well kept--by Eaton, for his own ends, doubtless; by my
father's friend, the priest who had once been as he was, for his past
friendship's sake. If I judged him harshly, a life of pity for his
memory shall make atonement."
As she said these words, while I kissed and tried to comfort her, she
rose from where we were sitting and went to the window, I not
endeavouring to prevent her now, feeling sure that he was gone; for
all had become very still; there was no longer any sound in the
stable, nor upon the snow, which, as I had seen as the day broke, had
frozen and lay hard as iron on the ground beneath it.
Yet something there was, I knew, that fascinated her as she gazed out
upon the open; something which--as she turned round her face to me--I
saw had startled, terrified her. For, pale as she had been since we
had met again here, and with all the rich colouring that I loved so
much gone from her cheeks, she was even whiter, paler than I had ever
known her--in her eyes, too, a stare of astonishment, terror.
"Mervan!" she panted, catching her breath, her hand upon her heart,
"Mervan, look, oh, look!" and she pointed through the window.
"See," she gasped, "see. The form of one whom I deemed dead--or is he
in truth dead, and that his spectre vanishing into the dark wood
beyond? See, the black horse, that which he bestrode that night--oh!
Mervan--Mervan--Mervan--why has his spirit returned to earth? Will it
haunt me forever--forever--punish me because of my shame of him?"
And while I saw the horseman's figure disappear now--and forever--into
the darkness of the pine forest, she lay trembling and weeping in my
arms. To calm which, and also bring ease to her troubled heart, I told
her all.