WANDERINGS.
"A priest!--for the love of the Virgin, bring a priest!" groaned forth
the wretched Chico, for it was he who had fallen under the murderer's
steel. Lucius knelt beside him, and raised the head of Chico. Ghastly
looked his face in the moonlight, which streamed upon it from an
opening between the trees; the stamp of death already was there, seen
in the livid hue and the glazing eye. The betrayer had been betrayed,
the robber had been robbed, the false servant had been murdered for
the sake of the gold to obtain which he had bartered his soul. Yet
superstition still retained some hold on the dying wretch. Though his
dull ear could not take in the words of Holy Writ uttered by Lucius in
the faint hope that even at the last moment the sinner might find
grace, Chico's dying breath was expended in calling for a priest to
save him from the worst penalty of his crimes! But conscience was not
to be soothed by fatal opiates in the moment of spirit and body's
parting; Chico was not to be given that false comfort which has
deluded so many at the solemn hour of death. Without a priest near him
to hear confession or pronounce absolution, the soul of the murdered
man passed forth to its dread account.
Chico was dead,--no one could look on the face of the corpse and doubt
that all was over. Lucius gently laid down on the turf the head that
he had been supporting, and spread Chico's mantle over his mangled
body. The Englishman then rose from his knees, and went up to the
mule, which lay stiff and dead. Lucius could but conjecture that, in
the struggle between Chico and those who had slain him, the robber's
carbine might accidentally have been discharged and have killed the
beast of burden, as it seemed to have but one wound, and that from a
bullet. Lucius, with a strange sensation, as if he were robbing the
dead, examined the load which was still on the back of the mule. He
removed the sacking in which it was wrapped, and then, even by the
uncertain light of the moon, easily recognized the treasure-box, with
its hinges and bands of metal, by the description of it which he had
received from Inez.
"The treasure is then actually in my possession!" thought Lepine,
scarcely able at first to realize that success in his difficult search
had indeed been obtained. "But my difficulties are by no means over.
The robbers may return to this spot--they will not readily abandon so
rich a booty." Lucius put down the box on the ground, and took the
precaution of reloading his pistol, that, should the murderers come
back to seize the fruit of their crime, they at least should not find
him unarmed. Conquering a strong feeling of repugnance, Lucius also
went to the corpse of Chico, and possessed himself of the large
clasp-knife which was stuck in the dead man's belt. It was unopened
and unstained; the assailants of the miserable man had given him no
time to draw forth his weapon.
Lucius was now at least armed for any encounter; but the more he
thought over his position, the more difficulties appeared to surround
it.
"I cannot carry so heavy a box as this back to Seville on my shoulder;
and even had I the strength to do so, how could I hope to pass
unchallenged through the city at night, bearing so suspicious-looking
a burden? It is likely enough that I should be arrested as guilty of
robbery, perhaps of murder besides, for the blood of that wretched
Chico now stains my garments!" Lucius flushed at the mere thought of
being thrown into prison as a criminal, and under circumstances which
might render it difficult--nay, almost impossible--for him, a
foreigner, to make his innocence clear. He could produce no witnesses
in his defence; he would, he feared, have interested accusers, and
prejudiced judges.
The result of the young man's anxious reflections was a resolve to
bury the treasure which he could not remove. Lucius at once began his
search for some favourable spot in which the box might be thoroughly
hidden from view. It must not be too near the scene of the murder,
lest the robbers, recovering from their alarm, should return and find
it; and it must be in some locality which Lucius himself should be
able to recognize when he should revisit the spot. The young
Englishman searched for some time before he could satisfy himself in
regard to these necessary points.
Lucius fixed at last on a spot just outside the thicket, where in a
rough bank there appeared a hole, probably the burrow of some wild
creature. A neighbouring palm, towering high above the other trees of
the wood, formed a natural landmark. Lucius, with the knife which he
had taken, began to enlarge the hole, that it might be wide and deep
enough to conceal the box of treasure.
Perhaps even the firm nerves of the young man had been somewhat shaken
by the horrors of that night, for never before had Lucius found any
task so tedious, nor felt such fear from the slightest sound. Often
did he interrupt himself to listen, when the wind shook the branches
or rustled the leaves, almost certain that he could detect the noise
of footsteps, and in constant expectation of being assailed from
behind, while his hands were engaged with his work.
"I am ashamed of my weakness. Where is the boasted courage of an
Englishman?--I am like a nervous girl!" muttered Lucius, when for the
twentieth time he had turned his head to look round, that a foe might
not take him unawares. "It is harder to await the approach of danger
alone, and in the dead hours of night, with the brain excited by a
scene of murder such as I have just witnessed, than it would be to
encounter any open danger under the clear light of day.
There!--happily my task is over at last!" exclaimed Lepine, as he
covered in the entrance of the hole in which he had buried the box.
"The plate and jewels of Alcala are safe, and nothing remains for me
to do but to find my way back to the city."
But again difficulties beset the young stranger, who had never before
traversed the cross-country way along which his pursuit of the
robbers had led him. It would perhaps have been easy to Lucius to have
retraced his steps if he had had daylight to guide him, but the beams
of the moon were not sufficient to direct his course through that wild
and desolate tract. Lucius wearied himself in vain attempts to regain
the highroad to Seville. Seen by the uncertain light, one clump of
trees so much resembled another that none could serve as a landmark.
Of dwellings there seemed to be none.
Lucius came at last to a stream, on whose sluggish current the
moonshine faintly glimmered. He was at least certain that he had
crossed no brook when following the track of the thieves, therefore he
must have diverged from the way. The weary wanderer was glad to slake
his thirst by the stream, and he then, by means of its water, removed
as completely as he could the dark red stains from his dress.
"There is no use in my wandering further till day dawn and show me the
way," said the youth to himself. "I will lie down and try to sleep.
There is little hardship in passing a night on the ground in such a
climate as this, and under such a glorious sky."
Before Lucius gave way to the drowsiness which now overpowered him, he
repeated, with the simple faith of a child, the prayer which he had
first learned at his mother's knee, at the close of it returning
fervent thanks for preservation in great danger, and almost
unhoped-for success in a difficult quest. With Lucius and Aguilera
religion showed its power over the soul in somewhat different ways.
Lucius had not the impetuosity of character, the passion which, under
the veil of reserve, animated the Spaniard born under more southern
skies. Alcala's devotion had all the fervour of a first love. Had he
continued to be a Romanist when his deepest feelings were stirred by
religion, he would probably have become a missionary or a monk--have
been a Dominic in asceticism, or a Xavier in active zeal. Alcala's
love for his newly-found Lord was like a glorious stream bursting from
mountain snows, springing over every obstacle, throwing up diamond
spray, and wearing its own bright rainbow as a jewelled tiara. The
religion of Lucius was a current, quiet but deep, which had flowed on
through childhood, so that not even his mother could have told where
it had first risen to light. Lucius would not, like Alcala, have begun
his work of ministering to souls by reading aloud in a sick-room or
preaching in a prison, no more than he would, like Alcala when yet
unconverted, have dared death in the Plaza de Toros from an
overstrained sense of honour. The one man was an Englishman, the
other a Spaniard, and each showed national characteristics; but both
had given themselves heart and soul to the Saviour, sought to live to
His glory, and would have died for His sake.