STRANGE COMPANY.
The vehicle which conveyed Alcala to his destination stopped at the
entrance of a dark and gloomy building, situated in a narrow street.
Through a vaulted passage, dimly lighted, Alcala was conducted to a
door in which was a grating formed of thick iron bars. At this door
one of the alguazils who escorted the prisoner knocked. The face of a
jailer was dimly visible through the grating, and then there was the
sound of withdrawal of bolt and turning of key; the heavy door was
slowly swung back, and Alcala entered the prison.
Through a vestibule the cavalier was then conducted to an office-room,
in which, seated at a high desk, appeared the alcalde of the prison, a
hollow-eyed, melancholy man. He glanced at the warrant which was
formally presented to him by one of the alguazils, then rose, and with
gloomy ceremony welcomed his involuntary guest.
"Senor," said the alcalde, with a low inclination of the head, "may
your residence here be a brief one. Permit me to have the honour of
myself introducing you into your temporary abode. I regret to see that
the health of the illustrious caballero appears to be impaired."
After a ceremonious exchange of courtesy with the alcalde who had
arrested him, and who retired after delivering up his charge to the
prison authorities, Alcala followed his jailer to a huge grated door,
which was guarded by a couple of turnkeys. This barrier also was
passed, and with a heavy, echoing clang the massive door closed on the
prisoner. Alcala and his jailer were now in a corridor, lighted by
narrow barred windows, looking on a patio, in which a number of
prisoners were taking what air and exercise its confined space
permitted.
"Most noble caballero," said the jailer, who now walked by the side of
Alcala, "in this melancholy abode there is preserved a due distinction
of ranks. We have a few apartments reserved for illustrious senors
like yourself, whom misfortune may have led to visit our retreat for
awhile."
As Alcala only replied by a slight inclination of the head, the
alcalde thought that his hint had not been understood by his captive.
"Cavaliers are permitted to furnish their apartments according to
their good pleasure, senor; and they are waited on by the attendants
with the distinction becoming their rank. But, of course, this
alleviation of the trial of detention within these walls belongs only
to those who--" The alcalde hesitated, so Alcala relieved him from the
difficulty of further explaining his meaning.
"I suppose that the private apartments are reserved for those who have
the means of paying for them," said Alcala. "This, senor, I have not."
"I regret that on the present occasion every one of these rooms is
occupied, illustrious caballero," observed the jailer, still--though
disappointed of his expected gains--preserving his ceremonious
politeness, as he ushered Alcala into the large vaulted gloomy dungeon
which the cavalier was to share with the fifty or sixty criminals who
crowded the place.
The sight, the scent of the den in which he was to pass, perhaps, the
remainder of a brief life, were enough to try the fortitude of any one
who had, like Alcala, been gently nurtured. The place was dirty to a
disgusting degree, and utterly unfurnished. The brick floor, on which
some of the inmates were squatting and others reclining, served at
once for chair, table, and bed. Offensive odours poisoned the air; the
aspect of the place was revolting.
To an artist, indeed, the scene, as beheld by light struggling through
grated windows coated with dust, might not have appeared devoid of
picturesque effect. There was no clipped hair to be seen, no
prison-dress common to all the inmates; each criminal wore what he
would, and a curious variety of costumes appeared before the eyes of
Alcala. There were here and there dashes of bright colour from
waistcoats of green or blue silk, worn, uncovered by coat or jacket,
over shirts with large flowing sleeves. These gaudy articles of
costume marked the bandit race, who had probably been committed to
prison for robbery or murder on the highway. On other criminals
appeared the sheep-skin of the peasant, or the mantero of the citizen;
one man was seen in buff jerkin, with jack-boots reaching half-way up
his thigh. Most of the prisoners wore the faja, or waist-belt, so
characteristic a part of Spanish costume,--being a very long piece of
cloth, usually black or red, twisted round the middle of the person,
and forming a receptacle for the purse, and sometimes the dagger.
Of course the entrance of a new companion in misfortune awakened
curiosity, and attracted the attention of all the motley groups. A
murmur of "'Tis a caballero!" was heard from the dark recesses of the
place of confinement.
But though the den was mostly filled with miscreants who had broken
every one of the ten commandments, an Englishman must have been struck
by the absence of brutal coarseness, whether of manner or
conversation, which he would have expected amongst the lowest class of
criminals thus promiscuously thrown together. Men who had preserved no
sense of honour, no scruple of conscience, men who might have robbed a
church or murdered a brother, demeaned themselves as though they
preserved some self-respect still. It is a peculiarity of the Spanish
race that, to a certain extent, even the poorest appear to be
gentlemen born. The beggar has his dignity; the picker of pockets his
grace. Alcala had to encounter no insolent banter, no brutal jests,
when he found himself amongst the scum of Spanish society in the
common prison of Seville.
The cavalier's first feeling was one of utter disgust and repulsion,
and an intense longing for solitude, were it even only to be sought in
the darkest and most narrow of cells. Alcala had been brought up in
aristocratic seclusiveness, and his besetting sin was pride. He
reproached himself now for the selfish haughtiness which would fain
have raised an impenetrable wall between himself and his companions in
suffering.
"How is it that I, myself rescued from depths of guilt, dare to
despise my fellow-sinners?" mused Alcala. "Who hath made me to differ
from them? Wherefore should I desire to be secluded from all
opportunities of serving my kind, because my pride shrinks from
contact with those whom I deem beneath me? Here is the post which my
Lord has assigned me. May He give me strength to bear witness for Him
even in the prison, and deliver His message to some who, if they had
heard it before, might never have entered this horrible den."
Alcala had scarcely had time for these reflections, when he was
accosted by a lithe, active-looking man of very dark complexion, who
had come from the further end of the dungeon on seeing him enter.
"Most illustrious caballero, Don Alcala de Aguilera, we have met
before," said the man.
"And where, my friend?" asked Alcala.
"In the Plaza de Toros, senor. My name is Diego. I was one of the
chulos who planted a banderilla in the neck of the bull which your
worthiness met so bravely."
"I am engaged in a different contest now," said Alcala, who was
resolved not to let either the weariness of his frame, or the
repugnance of his spirit, prevent his entering into conversation with
the companions whom he hoped to influence for their good. The
cavalier seated himself on the floor, supporting his back against the
wall; and the chulo, who was inclined to be sociable, stretched
himself, resting on his elbow, beside the senor.
"Your worship finds yourself in strange company," observed this
self-constituted cicerone of the prison, lowering his tone so as not
to be overheard by the ruffians around him. "Yonder, jabbering their
Egyptian gibberish, is a party of Zingali: the worst punishment to
them is to have a roof over their heads; the Gitano would rather lie
in a ditch than a palace, boil his kettle under a hedge than feast at
the governor's table. To the left there, senor, are smugglers from
Cadiz; many a contraband bale has galled the backs of their mules as
they moved over the sierra by moonlight. He in the red faja behind
them is a highly respectable man; he merely hacked a rival to death in
a combat with knives: it is strange that the alguazils should have
thought it worth while to arrest the poor fellow for a simple affair
like that. But yon gentleman with the bright blue jacket has earned
his lodging at Her Majesty's expense; he is a brigand from the Sierra
Morena, and has, I trow, cut more throats than he has fingers upon his
two hands."
Alcala wondered silently for what crime his communicative companion
had himself been committed to prison. Diego did not long leave him in
ignorance of the cause.
"It is a shame to put me with such as these," said the talkative
chulo; "I am a political offender," he added, with something like
pride. "Not a Carlist, mind you, senor; I am locked up in this kennel
merely for saying what all the world thinks, though not all have the
courage to speak out their minds. I did but say that it is a disgrace
that such a wretch as he whom the Queen has always at her elbow should
be suffered to ride rough-shod over the necks of the Spanish nation,
and that I wished that the nun Patrocinio would keep to her cell and
leave politics alone. I did add--and I care not who knows it,"
continued the chulo, "that we shall never see good days till we have
our exiled General Prim back again! Prim is the man to make Spain once
more what she was in the glorious old times!"