WARNINGS.
"I must report my return to Mr. Passmore, and procure a few
necessaries from my lodgings, before I start for the Posada de
Quesada," said Lucius to himself, as he emerged from the richly
sculptured gateway of the house of the Aguileras.
Making this detour necessarily occupied a considerable time, and took
the young Englishman through some of the most thickly populated parts
of Seville. It seemed to Lucius as if all the world were
abroad,--except, perhaps, the priests and monks, who were rather
conspicuous by their absence. Lucius had sometimes difficulty in
making his way along the narrow crowded streets. In many places knots
of people were collected together, conversing in subdued tones, but
with more animation of gesture than is common with the stately and
solemn Spaniard. The beggar seemed to forget to beg; the muleteer let
the heavily-laden beast on which he was mounted pick his own way,
unguided, over the large rough stones which paved the road, while the
rider eagerly listened to words exchanged between men who to him were
strangers. Had not the mind of Lepine been preoccupied with forming
plans, and revolving his chances of success in his coming adventure,
he must have noticed that on that Saturday afternoon in September one
topic of common interest engaged the attention of the inhabitants of
Seville, whether of high or low degree. It might be a bull-fight
announced for the morrow, or some grand ceremonial of the Romish
Church which was to come off on the following day.
The air was still sultry, though the greatest heat of the afternoon
was over. Lucius, feeling thirsty, stopped to buy a few oranges of an
old woman who sat with her basket before her at the corner of one of
the streets. Another old crone who crouched close to her neighbour,
with a covered basket on her knee, watched the Englishman, as he made
his trifling purchase, with keen black eyes which glittered like beads
from a face bronzed by sun and wind to almost African darkness.
"Will you not buy my wares too, senor?" she said in deep guttural
tones, raising the cover of her basket, in which Lucius saw several
knives. The appearance of the scimitar-shaped clasp-knife, so
commonly used among Spaniards whether for purposes peaceful or
warlike, was of course familiar to Lucius; but the knives in the
basket were of a size which he had never seen before. They were nearly
a foot in length, making allowance for the curve, and such a knife
when unclasped looked a truly formidable weapon.
"Thanks; I need not such wares," said Lucius.
"You will need one, my goodly youth, and that ere twenty-four hours be
over," muttered the dark-visaged woman, whose appearance and voice
reminded Lucius of those of the witches who met Macbeth on the blasted
heath. "Better the sharp than the sweet; better the steel at the side
than the fruit at the lip! There is wild work before thee."
The words of the old crone sounded like a prophecy of evil to come;
but Lucius, who was no Spaniard, and little troubled with
superstition, only smiled and passed on.
"Perhaps, after all, I might as well have taken the old gipsy's
advice," thought Lucius, "and had something sharper and stronger than
a pencil-case upon me before going to pass the night in that lone
Spanish posada." The young man was half disposed to retrace his steps
and make the purchase; he might have done so, had not the state of
his funds been so low that it would have inconvenienced him to expend
even a few dollars on a long Spanish knife.
Lepine found Mr. Passmore at his private residence, his business hours
closing earlier on Saturdays than on other days of the week.
"Glad to see you back, Lepine," said the manufacturer, extending to
Lucius a thick flabby hand, which never closed with a kindly pressure.
"I have returned earlier--"
"Oh, you need not explain; I know why you are at Seville instead of
Madrid," interrupted Mr. Passmore. "Tasco has been with me for an
hour, and all that affair is settled. I have never been so bothered
with business in all my life as during these two days of your absence.
As for that Miguel, whom I've got in place of the bull-fighting don,
what with his bad Spanish" (that was to say, Spanish unintelligible to
his English employer), "his stupidity, and his laziness, he has almost
driven me crazy. I don't know whether Miguel is most ignorant,
superstitious, or idle. I had determined not to have a hidalgo again
as a clerk, so was content to try the son of a barber; but I soon
found out my mistake. Don Alcala de Aguilera, though he might wear his
sombrero with the air of a prince, had at least brains under the brim.
I've half a mind," continued Passmore, lolling back in his
easy-chair, "I've half a mind to ascertain whether the don is likely
soon to get over the effects of his poke from the bull, and would like
to come back to his desk. His fall may have brought down his pride a
bit, and made him more willing to do my work and pocket my pay, like a
sensible man. I'd sooner take Aguilera back to my office than endure
longer this oily-fingered, garlic-scented mule of a Miguel."
"You are not aware then," said Lucius, "that Don Alcala has unhappily
been arrested and taken to prison."
Passmore received the intelligence with a whistle of surprise.
"Arrested for debt?" he inquired.
"No; not for debt," replied Lucius.
"If not for debt, what then?" cried Passmore. "What new prank of folly
has the don managed to play when one thought him safe on a sick-bed? I
bet Aguilera has been meddling with politics and burning his fingers,
as every one must do who tries to fish raisins out of such a seething
caldron as is always fizzing and boiling over in Spain. What was
Aguilera's offence? Was it drinking in physic a health to Prim?"
"No, sir," replied the clerk; "my friend was arrested in his sick-room
for merely reading the Scriptures to his household!"
I will not say that Peter Passmore sprang to his feet, for the
manufacturer's bulky frame was never very quick in its movements, but
he rose from his easy-chair with an exclamation by no means
reverential. "He's insane, utterly insane!" cried the irritated man,
"and may as well be shut up in prison as in a lunatic asylum. Was it
not enough for this Spaniard narrowly to escape throwing away life by
acting the picador, that he must throw away liberty also by acting the
preacher?"
"I hope, sir, that you do not compare the two acts," said Lucius, with
spirit.
"Both have the same root, I warrant you; both spring out of pride, the
desire to be talked of," said Passmore. "Reading the Scriptures
indeed! Don Alcala may make a fine clerk, he may make a superb picador
(though an unlucky one, by the way), but nothing can persuade me that
he can ever make a quiet, sober, matter-of-fact Protestant, like
myself;" and Passmore subsided into his chair.
No; assuredly nothing could have transformed Alcala into the
self-complacent worshipper of Mammon, who assumed to himself the title
of a Protestant Christian.
"I cannot see why Spaniards should not be again what their fathers
were," said Lepine. "This land has had many martyrs."
"I've no doubt of it, no doubt of it, my lad. Martyrs presuppose
murderers, and Spain has never been lacking in them. I'm a Briton, and
have no fancy to be either murderer or martyr. That reminds me,"
continued Passmore, "of what Tasco has been telling me of the state of
affairs in Madrid. Clouds are gathering there pretty thick, and wise
men will get under shelter when they hear the thunder rumbling. If I
were not tied to a business like this, I'd be off to old England; but
an ironware manufactory is a pretty heavy anchor to drag. It's just as
well to be armed, however; I've to-day bought a brace of revolvers.
The proverb says that an Englishman's house is his castle, so I'll
have artillery for mine. Ho, ho, ho! And while I think of it, Lepine,
you can have my old pistol if you like, as I am provided with others."
Here Passmore opened a drawer in his table, and took out rather a
rusty-looking weapon, with gunpowder-flask, and bag of bullets. "You
go to and fro day and night through these streets of Seville, where
ruffians think no more of sticking a knife into a man than of paring a
turnip; it's just as well to have with you a friend who can speak for
you, if need be, in a language even Spaniards can understand. Take the
pistol; you may need it before twenty-four hours are over."
Lepine could not help noting as a curious coincidence that the warning
of the dark woman should be repeated in almost the same words by his
English employer. The young man, bound on a dangerous mission, gladly
accepted the proffered weapon.
"Now mind that you neither blow out your own brains nor those of any
one else without necessity," said Peter Passmore, as he handed the
pistol to Lepine. "I'd not have made such a present," he added, with
his explosive laugh, "to Don Alcala de Aguilera."
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF A SPANISH POSADA
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