HOW THE GOOD PRIEST FRA ANTONIO DE LAS CASAS TOLD THE TRUTH, TO THE
GREAT RELIEF OF CAPTAIN ALVARADO AND DONNA MERCEDES, AND THE
DISCOMFITURE OF MASTER BENJAMIN HORNIGOLD AND SIR HENRY MORGAN
[Illustration]
"Ay, strike, Alvarado," cried the Viceroy, filled with shame and
surprise at the sight of his daughter's extraordinary boldness, "for
though I love her, I'd rather see her dead than married to the son of
such as he. Drive home your weapon!" he cried in bitter scorn. "Why stay
your hand? Only blood can wash out the shame she hath put upon me before
you all this day. Thou hast a dagger. Use it, I say!"
"Do you hear my father's words, Alvarado?" cried Mercedes sinking on her
knees and stretching up her hands to him. "'Tis a sharp weapon. One
touch will end it all, and you can follow."
"God help me!" cried the unhappy young Captain, throwing aside the
poniard and clasping his hands to his eyes. "I cannot! Hath no one here
a point for me? If I have deserved well of you or the State, sir, bid
them strike home."
"Live, young sir," interrupted Morgan, "there are other women in the
world. Come with me and----"
"If you are my father, you have but little time in this world,"
interrupted the Spaniard, turning to Morgan and gnashing his teeth at
him. "I doubt not but you were cruel to my mother. I hate you! I loathe
you! I despise you for all your crimes! And most of all for bringing me
into the world. I swear to you, had I the power, I'd not add another
moment to your life. The world were better rid of you."
"You have been well trained by your Spanish nurses," cried Morgan
resolutely, although with sneering mockery and hate in his voice, "and
well you seem to know the duty owed by son to sire."
"You have done nothing for me," returned the young soldier, "you
abandoned me. Such as you are you were my father. You cast me away to
shift for myself. Had it not been for these friends here----"
"Nay," said Morgan, "I thought you dead. That cursed one-eyed traitor
there told me so, else I'd sought you out."
[Illustration: "God help me!" cried Alvarado, throwing aside the
poniard, "I cannot!"]
"Glad am I that you did not, for I have passed my life where no child of
yours could hope to be--among honorable men, winning their respect,
which I now forfeit because of thee."
"Alvarado," said the Viceroy, "this much will I do for thee. He shall be
shot like a soldier instead of undergoing the punishment we had designed
for him. This much for his fatherhood."
"My lord, I ask it not," answered the young man.
"Sir," exclaimed Morgan, a gleam of relief passing across his features,
for he knew, of course, that death was his only expectation, and he had
greatly feared that his taking off would be accompanied by the most
horrible tortures that could be devised by people who were not the least
expert in the practice of the unmentionable cruelties of the age, "you,
at least, are a father, and I thank you."
"Yes, I am a father and a most unhappy one," groaned de Lara, turning
toward Alvarado. "Perhaps it is well you did not accomplish your purpose
of self-destruction after all, my poor friend. As I said before, Spain
hath need of you. You may go back to the old country beyond the great
sea. All here will keep your secret; my favor will be of service to you
even there. You can make a new career with a new name."
"And Mercedes?" asked Alvarado.
"You have no longer any right to question. Ah, well, it is just that you
should hear. The girl goes to a convent; the only cloak for her is in
our Holy Religion--and so ends the great race of de Laras!"
"No, no," pleaded Mercedes, "send me not there! Let me go with him!" She
stepped nearer to him, beautiful and beseeching. "My father," she urged,
"you love me." She threw her arms around his neck and laid her head upon
his breast. Upon it her father tenderly pressed his hand. "You loved my
mother, did you not?" she continued. "Think of her. Condemn me not to
the living death of a convent--away from him. If that man be his
father--and I can not believe it, there is some mistake, 'tis impossible
that anything so foul should bring into the world a man so noble--yet I
love him! You know him. You have tried him a thousand times. He has no
qualities of his base ancestry. His mother at least died like a Spanish
gentlewoman. My lords, gentlemen, some of you have known me from my
childhood. You have lived in our house and have followed the fortunes of
my father--you have grown gray in our service. Intercede for me!"
"Your Excellency," said old Don Caesar de Agramonte, a man, who, as
Mercedes had said, had literally grown gray in the service of the
Viceroy, and who was man of birth scarcely inferior to his own, "the
words of the Lady Mercedes move me profoundly. By your grace's leave, I
venture to say that she hath spoken well and nobly, and that the young
Alvarado, whom we have seen in places that try men's souls to the
extreme, hath always comported himself as a Spanish gentleman should.
This may be a lie. But if it is true, his old association with you and
yours, and some humor of courage and fidelity and gentleness that I
doubt not his mother gave him, have washed out the taint. Will you not
reconsider your words? Give the maiden to the man. I am an old soldier,
sir, and have done you some service. I would cheerfully stake my life to
maintain his honor and his gentleness at the sword's point."
"He speaks well, Don Alvaro," cried Captain Gayoso, another veteran
soldier. "I join my plea to that of my comrade, Don Caesar."
"And I add my word, sir."
"And I, mine."
"And I, too," came from the other men of the suite.
"Gentlemen, I thank you," said Alvarado, gratefully looking at the
little group; "this is one sweet use of my adversity. I knew not I was
so befriended----"
"You hear, you hear, my father, what these noble gentlemen say?"
interrupted Mercedes.
"But," continued Alvarado sadly, "it is not meet that the blood of the
princely de Laras should be mingled with mine. Rather the ancient house
should fall with all its honors upon it than be kept alive by
degradation. I thank you, but it can not be."
"Your Excellency, we humbly press you for an answer," persisted
Agramonte.
"Gentlemen--and you have indeed proven yourselves generous and gentle
soldiers--I appreciate what you say. Your words touch me profoundly. I
know how you feel, but Alvarado is right. I swear to you that I would
rather let my line perish than keep it in existence by such means.
Rather anything than that my daughter should marry--forgive me, lad--the
bastard son of a pirate and buccaneer, a wicked monster, like that man!"
"Sir," exclaimed a thin, faint old voice from the outskirts of the room,
"no base blood runs in the veins of that young man. You are all
mistaken."
"Death and fury!" shouted Morgan, who was nearer to him, "it is the
priest! Art alive? Scuttle me, I struck you down--I do not usually need
to give a second blow."
"Who is this?" asked de Lara. "Back, gentlemen, and give him access to
our person."
The excited men made way for a tall, pale, gaunt figure of a man clad in
the habit of a Dominican. As he crossed his thin hands on his breast and
bowed low before the Viceroy, the men marked a deeply scarred wound upon
his shaven crown, a wound recently made, for it was still raw and open.
The man tottered as he stood there.
"'Tis the priest!" exclaimed Hornigold, who had been a silent and
disappointed spectator of the scene at last. "He lives then?"
"The good father!" said Mercedes, stepping from her father's side and
scanning the man eagerly. "He faints! A chair for him, gentlemen, and
wine!"
"Now, sir," said the Viceroy as the priest seated himself on a stool
which willing hands had placed for him, after he had partaken of a
generous draught of wine, which greatly refreshed him, "your name?"
"Fra Antonio de Las Casas, your Excellency, a Dominican, from Peru,
bound for Spain on the plate galleon, the _Almirante Recalde_, captured
by that man. I was stricken down by his blow as I administered
absolution to the mother of the young captain. I recovered and crawled
into the woods for concealment, and when I saw your soldiers, your
Excellency, I followed, but slowly, for I am an old man and sore
wounded."
"Would that my blow had bit deeper, thou false priest!" roared Morgan in
furious rage.
"Be still!" commanded the old Viceroy sternly. "Speak but another word
until I give you leave and I'll have you gagged! You said strange words,
Holy Father, when you came into the hall."
"I did, my lord."
"You heard----"
"Some of the conversation, sir, from which I gathered that this
unfortunate man"--pointing to Morgan, who as one of the chief actors in
the transaction had been placed in the front rank of the circle,
although tightly bound and guarded by the grim soldiers--"claimed to be
the father of the brave young soldier."
"Ay, and he hath established the claim," answered de Lara.
"Nay, my lord, that can not be."
"Why not, sir," interrupted Alvarado, stepping forward.
"Because it is not true."
"Thank God, thank God!" cried Alvarado. Indeed, he almost shouted in his
relief.
"How know you this?" asked Mercedes.
"My lady, gentles all, I have proof irrefutable. He is not the child of
that wicked man. His father is----"
"I care not who," cried Alvarado, having passed from death unto life in
the tremendous moments, "even though he were the meanest and poorest
peasant, so he were an honest man."
"My lord," said the priest, "he was a noble gentleman."
"I knew it, I knew it!" cried Mercedes. "I said it must be so."
"Ay, a gentleman, a gentleman!" burst from the officers in the room.
"Your Excellency," continued the old man, turning to the Viceroy. "His
blood is as noble as your own."
"His name?" said the old man, who had stood unmoved in the midst of the
tumult.
"Captain Alvarado that was," cried the Dominican, with an inborn love of
the dramatic in his tones, "stand forth. My lord and lady, and gentles
all, I present to you Don Francisco de Guzman, the son of his
excellency, the former Governor of Panama and of his wife, Isabella
Zerega, a noble and virtuous lady, though of humbler walk of life and
circumstance than her husband."
"De Guzman! De Guzman!" burst forth from the soldiers.
"It is a lie!" shouted Hornigold. "He is Morgan's son. He was given to
me as such. I left him at Cuchillo. You found him, sir----"
He appealed to the Viceroy.
"My venerable father, with due respect to you, sir, we require something
more than your unsupported statement to establish so great a fact," said
the Viceroy deliberately, although the sparkle in his eyes belied his
calm.
"Your grace speaks well," said Morgan, clutching at his hope still.
"I require nothing more. I see and believe," interrupted Mercedes.
"But I want proof," sternly said her father.
"And you shall have it," answered the priest. "That cross he wears----"
"As I am about to die!" exclaimed Morgan, "I saw his mother wear it many
a time, and she put it upon his breast."
"Not this one, sir," said Fra Antonio, "but its fellow. There were two
sisters in the family of Zerega. There were two crosses made, one for
each. In an evil hour the elder sister married you----"
"We did, indeed, go through some mockery of a ceremony," muttered
Morgan.
"You did, sir, and 'twas a legal one, for when you won her--by what
means I know not, in Maracaibo--you married her. You were forced to do
so before you received her consent. One of my brethren who performed the
service told me the tale. After you took her away from Maracaibo her old
father, broken hearted at her defection, sought asylum in Panama with
the remaining daughter, and there she met the Governor, Don Francisco de
Guzman. He loved her, he wooed and won her, and at last he married her,
but secretly. She was poor and humble by comparison with him; she had
only her beauty and her virtue for her dower, and there were reasons why
it were better the marriage should be concealed for a while.
"A child was born. You were that child, sir. Thither came this man with
his bloody marauders. In his train was his wretched wife and her own
boy, an infant, born but a short time before that of the Governor. De
Guzman sallied out to meet them and was killed at the head of his
troops. They burned Panama and turned that beautiful city into a hell
like unto La Guayra. I found means to secrete Isabella de Guzman and her
child. The plague raged in the town. This man's wife died. He gave
command to Hornigold to take the child away. He consulted me, as a
priest whose life he had spared, as to what were best to do with him,
and I advised Cuchillo, but his child died with its mother before it
could be taken away.
"Isabella de Guzman was ill. I deemed it wise to send her infant away. I
urged her to substitute her child for the dead body of the other,
intending to provide for its reception at Cuchillo, and she gave her
child to the sailor. In the confusion and terror it must have been
abandoned by the woman to whom it was delivered; she, it was supposed,
perished when the buccaneers destroyed the place out of sheer wantonness
when they left Panama. I fell sick of the fever shortly after and knew
not what happened. The poor mother was too seriously ill to do anything.
It was months ere we recovered and could make inquiries for the child,
and then it had disappeared and we found no trace of it. You, sir,"
pointing to Hornigold, "had gone away with the rest. There was none to
tell us anything. We never heard of it again and supposed it dead."
"And my child, sir priest?" cried Morgan. "What became of it?"
"I buried it in the same grave with its poor mother with the cross on
its breast. May God have mercy on their souls!"
"A pretty tale, indeed," sneered the buccaneer.
"It accounts in some measure for the situation," said the Viceroy, "but
I must have further proof."
"Patience, noble sir, and you shall have it. These crosses were of
cunning construction. They open to those who know the secret. There is
room in each for a small writing. Each maiden, so they told me, put
within her own cross her marriage lines. If this cross hath not been
tampered with it should bear within its recess the attestation of the
wedding of Francisco de Guzman and Isabella Zerega."
"The cross hath never left my person," said Alvarado, "since I can
remember."
"And I can bear testimony," said the Viceroy, "that he hath worn it
constantly since a child. Though it was large and heavy I had a
superstition that it should never leave his person. Know you the secret
of the cross?"
"I do, for it was shown me by the woman herself."
"Step nearer, Alvarado," said de Lara.
"Nay, sir," said the aged priest, as Alvarado came nearer him and made
to take the cross from his breast, "thou hast worn it ever there. Wear
it to the end. I can open it as thou standest."
He reached up to the carven cross depending from the breast of the young
man bending over him.
"A pretty story," sneered Morgan again, "but had I aught to wager, I'd
offer it with heavy odds that that cross holds the marriage lines of my
wife."
"Thou wouldst lose, sir, for see, gentlemen," cried the priest,
manipulating the crucifix with his long, slender fingers and finally
opening it, "the opening! And here is a bit of parchment! Read it, sir."
He handed it to the Viceroy. The old noble, lifting it to the light,
scanned the closely-written, faded lines on the tiny scrap of delicate
parchment.
"'Tis a certificate of marriage of----" He paused.
"Maria Zerega," said Morgan, triumphantly.
"Nay," answered the old man, and his triumph rung in his voice, "of
Isabella Zerega and Francisco de Guzman."
"Hell and fury!" shouted the buccaneer, "'tis a trick!"
"And signed by----"
He stopped again, peering at the faded, almost illegible signature.
"By whom, your Excellency?" interrupted the priest smiling.
"'Tis a bit faded," said the old man, holding it nearer.
"Fra--An--tonio! Was it thou?"
"Even so, sir. I married the mother, as I buried her yester eve upon the
sand."
"'Tis a fact established," said the Viceroy, satisfied at last. "Don
Francisco de Guzman, Alvarado that was, thy birth and legitimacy are
clear and undoubted. There by your side stands the woman you have loved.
If you wish her now I shall be honored to call you my son."
"My lord," answered Alvarado, "that I am the son of an honorable
gentleman were joy enough, but when thou givest me Donna Mercedes----"
He turned, and with a low cry the girl fled to his arms. He drew her
close to him and laid his hand upon her head, and then he kissed her
before the assembled cavaliers, who broke into enthusiastic shouts and
cries of happy approbation.
"There's more evidence yet," cried the priest, thrusting his hand into
the bosom of his habit and drawing forth a glittering object. "Sir, I
took this from the body of Sister Maria Christina, for upon my advice
she entered upon the service of the Holy Church after her bereavement,
keeping her secret, for there was naught to be gained by its
publication. That Church she served long and well. Many sufferers there
be to whom she ministered who will rise up and call her blessed. She
killed herself upon the sands rather than give aid and comfort to this
man and his men, or submit herself to the evil desires of his band.
Sirs, I have lived long and suffered much, and done some little service
for Christ, His Church, and His children, but I take more comfort from
the absolution that I gave her when she cried for mercy against the sin
of self-slaughter than for any other act in my career. Here, young sir,"
said the priest, opening the locket, "are the pictures of your father
and mother. See, cavaliers, some of you knew Don Francisco de Guzman and
can recognize him. That is his wife. She was young and had golden hair
like thine, my son, in those days. You are the express image of her
person as I recall it."
"My father! My mother!" cried Alvarado. "Look, Mercedes, look your
Excellency, and gentlemen, all! But her body, worthy father?"
"Even as her soul hath gone out into the new life beyond, her body was
drawn out into the great deep at the call of God--but not unblessed,
senors, even as she went not unshriven, for I knelt alone by her side,
unable by my wounds and weakness to do more service, and said the office
of our Holy Church."
"May God bless thee, as I bless thee!" answered Alvarado, to give him
the familiar name.
As he spoke he sank on his knees and pressed a long and fervent kiss
upon the worn and withered hand of the aged man.
"It is not meet," said the priest, withdrawing his hand and laying it
in blessing upon the bowed fair head. "That which was lost is found
again. Let us rejoice and praise God for His mercy. Donna Mercedes,
gentlemen, my blessing on Senor de Guzman and upon ye all. Benedicite!"
he said, making the sign of the cross.