THE BRIEF FAREWELL.
Alcala had now reached the place where the narrow lane in which stood
the posada in which he had passed the night opened into the highway
leading directly to Seville. He was now on the road along which, ten
minutes previously, had passed the herd of fighting-bulls destined for
the arena. Alcala saw the print of their hoofs in the dust; he noticed
at no great distance the gleam of their horns above the cloud raised
by their tramping and that of their mounted conductors. Alcala had
been near enough to hear that defiant roar of the monarch of the herd
that had thrilled on the ear of Lucius. Campeador had raised his
tasselled head, and pricked up his ears at the noise.
Alcala bent down to stroke the neck of his steed. "Ah! Campeador," he
gloomily said as he did so, "does instinct tell you that there is
death in that sound? You too will suffer from my accursed folly and
pride. You deserve a better fate, my poor horse, and a far better
master!"
As Alcala slowly rode onwards, following in the track of the bulls, he
saw a muleteer approaching towards him. Lepine, after his brief and
unsatisfactory colloquy with the herdsman, had turned off in a
different direction, or he must have encountered his friend. The
figure of the muleteer was the only one visible at this point upon the
narrow road, which lay through a cutting.
Alcala, buried in his painful reflections, would scarcely have noticed
the muleteer, had not the man, when they had almost met, respectfully
greeted him by his name.
"Senor de Aguilera," said the messenger of Inez, approaching the
cavalier's stirrup, "I bear to you a letter from a senorita." And the
muleteer held up to Alcala the epistle which had been intrusted to his
charge.
Alcala stopped his horse, shifted his lance to his bridle-hand, took
the note, and with a little difficulty disengaged it from its
envelope. Only the presence of a stranger made him refrain from
groaning aloud as he read the impassioned words of his sister. Her
threat to bury herself in a convent thrilled his soul with unspeakable
anguish; for gentle and yielding as was the nature of Inez, her
brother had never yet known her fail in keeping her word, even in the
face of opposition. If anything could have added to the misery of the
young Spaniard, it was such a letter as this. For a moment it almost
shook his firm resolution to brave out the consequences of his rash
boast; for a moment Alcala thought of turning his bridle and urging
Campeador to bear him afar from Seville! But it could not be; every
drop of proud Spanish blood in the veins of an Aguilera seemed to
protest against so ignominious a flight. Alcala, whose brain was dizzy
from the violence of his emotions, was recalled to himself by the
muleteer's question,--
"Has the caballero any message for me to take back to the senorita?"
The muleteer was no stranger to Alcala, who knew him to be an honest
but ignorant man, unable even to read. The cavalier would not send a
verbal reply to the note of Inez, but had no time to return to the
posada in order to write what he could not speak. Alcala drew out a
pencil-case which he chanced to have on his person, but he carried
with him no paper, and he would not return to the unhappy Inez her own
epistle; that token of her affection he would bear with him to the
last. The muleteer guessed from his gesture that the cavalier wished
to write, and saw that he had no writing materials save the
pencil-case in his hand. The man supplied the want, in his own rough
way, by stooping and picking up from the road a dusty fragment of
paper which happened to be lying upon it. There was no opportunity of
procuring a more suitable sheet; Alcala scarcely even noticed that the
paper was part of a leaf torn from a printed book. There was room on
the margin for a few words; and resting the paper on his saddle, after
giving the muleteer charge of his spear, Alcala hastily scrawled the
brief note which was soon afterwards received by his sister. How many
bitter tears were to be shed over that leaf!
"It is I who am blighting her young life; it is I who am riveting
chains upon her whose only fault is that of loving an ungrateful
brother too well," muttered Alcala to himself, as he saw his messenger
speed on before him.
The painful task of answering the letter of Inez being over, Alcala
thrust it under his scarf, gently shook his rein, and rode on. No
prisoner condemned to suffer at an auto-da-fe had ever gone to the
stake erected in the Plaza more hopeless of deliverance than Alcala
felt at that moment. His embroidered vestments were to him as the
san-benito worn by the doomed; the horrible ordeal from which nature
shrank was before him, and he had no enthusiasm of zeal, no joy of
hope, to bear him through it.
Some stragglers, bound for the sport at the Coliseo, were overtaken by
Aguilera. They recognized him as a picador by his peculiar dress,
turned eagerly to look at him, and in loud tones made their remarks on
the horseman as he passed them.
"Brave caballero! how splendid he looks!" cried an Andalusian maiden.
"But scarcely strong enough to drive his spear deep into the tough
hide of a bull," remarked her more experienced companion.
"Tush, Tomaso, it's all skill," laughed the girl. "I warrant you the
picador knows how to manage his horse in the ring, and avoid the
thrust of the horns--"
The conclusion of the sentence did not reach the ears of Alcala; he
had urged his steed to a quicker pace, in order to get beyond
hearing.