THE HEART’S SECRET
Or, The Fortunes Of A Soldier.
By Lieutenant Murray Ballou
Boston
1852
PUBLISHER’S NOTE.—The following Novellette was originally published in the
PICTORIAL DRAWING-ROOM COMPANION, and is but a specimen of the many deeply
entertaining Tales, and gems of literary merit, which grace the columns of that
elegant and highly popular journal. The COMPANION embodies a corps of
contributors of rare literary excellence, and is regarded as the ne plus ultra,
by its scores of thousands of readers.
CONTENTS
PREFACE
THE HEART’S SECRET
CHAPTER I.—THE ACCIDENT
CHAPTER II.—THE BELLE AND THE SOLDIER
CHAPTER III.—A SUDDEN INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER IV.—CUBAN BANDITTI
CHAPTER V.—THE WOUNDED SOLDIER
CHAPTER VI.—THE CHALLENGE
CHAPTER VII.—THE PRISONER
CHAPTER VIII.—THE FAREWELL
CHAPTER IX.—THE EXECUTION SCENE
CHAPTER X.—THE BANISHMENT
CHAPTER XI.—THE PROMOTION
CHAPTER XII.—THE QUEEN AND THE SOLDIER
CHAPTER XIII.—UNREQUITED LOVE
CHAPTER XIV.—THE SURPRISE
CHAPTER XV.—THE SERENAPE
CHAPTER XVI.—A DISCOVERY
CHAPTER XVII.—THE ASSASSIN
CHAPTER XVIII.—THE DISGUISE
CHAPTER XIX.—THE AVOWAL
CHAPTER XX.—HAPPY FINALE
PREFACE.
The locale of the following story is that gem of the American
Archipelago; the Island of Cuba, whose lone star, now merged in the
sea, is destined yet to sparkle in liberty’s hemisphere, and radiate
the light of republicanism. Poetry cannot outdo the fairy-like
loveliness of this tropical clime, and only those who have partaken of
the aromatic sweetness of its fields and shores can fully realize the
delight that may be shared in these low latitudes. A brief residence
upon the island afforded the author the subject-matter for the
following pages, and he has been assiduous in his efforts to adhere
strictly to geographical facts and the truthful belongings of the
island. Trusting that this may prove equally popular with the author’s
other numerous tales and novelettes, he has the pleasure of signing
himself,
Very cordially,
THE PUBLIC’s HUMBLE SERVANT.
DEDICATED TO THE READERS OF GLEASON’S PICTORIAL DRAWING-ROOM COMPANION,
FOR WHICH JOURNAL THESE PAGES WERE ORIGINALLY WRITTEN, BY THEIR VERY
HUMBLE SERVANT, LIEUTENANT MURRAY.
THE HEART’S SECRET.
CHAPTER I.
THE ACCIDENT.
The soft twilight of the tropics, that loves to linger over the low
latitudes, after the departure of the long summer’s day, was breathing
in zephyrs of aromatic sweetness over the shores and plains of the
beautiful Queen of the Antilles. The noise and bustle of the day had
given place to the quiet and gentle influences of the hour; the slave
had laid by his implements of labor, and now stood at ease, while the
sunburnt overseers had put off the air of vigilance that they had worn
all day, and sat or lounged lazily with their cigars.
Here and there strolled a Montaro from the country, who, having
disposed of his load of fruit, of produce and fowls, was now preparing
to return once more inland, looking, with his long Toledo blade and
heavy spurs, more like a bandit than an honest husbandman. The evening
gun had long since boomed over the waters of the land-locked harbor
from the grim, walls of Moro Castle, the guard had been relieved at the
governor’s palace and the city walls, and now the steady martial tread
to the tap of the drum rang along the streets of Havana, as the guard
once more sought their barracks in the Plaza des Armes.
The pretty senoritas sat at their grated windows, nearly on a level
with the street, and chatted through the bars, not unlike prisoners, to
those gallants who paused to address them. And now a steady line of
pedestrians turned their way to the garden that fronts the governor’s
palace, where they might listen to the music of the band, nightly
poured forth here to rich and poor.
At this peculiar hour there was a small party walking in the broad and
very private walk that skirts the seaward side of the city, nearly
opposite the Moro, and known as the Plato. It is the only hour in which
a lady can appear outside the walls of her dwelling on foot in this
queer and picturesque capital, and then only in the Plaza, opposite to
the palace, or in some secluded and private walk like the Plato. Such
is Creole and Spanish etiquette.
The party referred to consisted of a fine looking old Spanish don, a
lady who seemed to be his daughter, a little boy of some twelve or
thirteen years, who might perhaps be the lady’s brother, and a couple
of gentlemen in undress military attire, yet bearing sufficient tokens
of rank to show them to be high in command. The party was a gay though
small one, and the lady seemed to be as lively and talkative as the two
gentlemen could desire, while they, on their part, appeared most
devoted to every syllable and gesture.
There was a slight air of hauteur in the lady’s bearing; she seemed to
half disdain the homage that was so freely tendered to her, and though
she laughed loud and clear, there was a careless, not to say heartless,
accent in her tones, that betrayed her indifference to the devoted
attentions of her companions. Apparently too much accustomed to this
treatment to be disheartened by it, the two gentlemen bore themselves
most courteously, and continued as devoted as ever to the fair creature
by their side.
The boy of whom we have spoken was a noble child, frank and manly in
his bearing, and evidently deeply interested in the maritime scene
before him. Now he paused to watch the throng of craft of every nation
that lay at anchor in the harbor, or which were moored; after the
fashion here, with their stems to the quay, and now his fine blue eye
wandered off over the swift running waters of the Gulf Stream, watching
for a moment the long, heavy swoop of some distant seafowl, or the
white sail of some clipper craft bound up the Gulf to New Orleans, or
down the narrow channel through the Caribbean Sea to some South
American port. The old don seemed in the meantime to regard the boy
with an earnest pride, and scarcely heeded at all the bright sallies of
wit that his daughter was so freely and merrily bestowing upon her two
assiduous admirers.
“Yonder brigantine must be a slaver,” said the boy, pointing to a
rakish craft that seemed to be struggling against the current to the
southward.
“Most like, most like; but what does she on this side? the southern
shore is her ground, and the Isle of Pines is a hundred leagues from
here,” said the old don.
“She has lost her reckoning, probably,” said the boy, “and made the
first land to the north. Lucky she didn’t fall in with those Florida
wreckers, for though the Americans don’t carry on the African trade
nowadays, they know what to do with a cargo if it gets once hard and
fast on the reefs.”
“What know you of these matters?” asked the old don, turning a curious
eye on the boy.
“O, I hear them talk of these things, and you know I saw a cargo ‘run’
on the south side only last month,” continued the boy. “There were
three hundred or more filed off from that felucca, two by two, to the
shore.”
“It is a slaver,” said one of the officers, “a little out of her
latitude, that’s all.”
“A beautiful craft,” said the lady, earnestly; “can it be a slaver, and
so beautiful.”
“They are clipper-built, all of them,” said the old don. “Launched in
Baltimore, United States.”
Senorita Gonzales was the daughter of the proud old don of the same
name, who was of the party on the Plato at the time we describe. The
father was one of the richest as well as noblest in rank of all the
residents of the island, being of the old Castilian stock, who had come
from Spain many years before, and after holding high office, both civil
and military, under the crown, had at last retired with a princely
fortune, and devoted himself to the education of his daughter and son,
both of whom we have already introduced to the reader.
The daughter, beautiful, intelligent, and witty to a most extraordinary
degree, had absolutely broken the hearts of half the men of rank on the
island; for though yet scarcely twenty years of age, Senorita Isabella
was a confirmed coquette. It was her passion to command and enjoy a
devotion, but as to ever having in the least degree cherished or known
what it was to love, the lady was entirely void of the charge; she had
never known the tenderness of reciprocal affection, nor did it seem to
those who knew her best, that the man was born who could win her
confidence.
Men’s hearts had been Isabella Gonzales’s toys and playthings ever
since the hour that she first had realized her power over them. And yet
she was far from being heartless in reality. She was most sensitive,
and at times thoughtful and serious; but this was in her closet, and
when alone. Those who thought that the sunshine of that face was never
clouded, were mistaken. She hardly received the respect that was due to
her better understanding and naturally strong points of character,
because she hid them mainly behind an exterior of captivating
mirthfulness and never ceasing smiles.
The cool refreshing sea breeze that swept in from the water was most
delicious, after the scorching heat of a summer’s day in the West
Indies, and the party paused as they breathed in of its freshness,
leaning upon the parapet of the walk, over which they looked down upon
the glancing waves of the bay far beneath them. The moon was stealing
slowly but steadily up from behind the lofty tower of Moro Castle,
casting a dash of silvery light athwart its dark batteries and grim
walls, and silvering a long wake across the now silent harbor, making
its rippling waters of golden and silver hues, and casting, where the
Moro tower was between it and the water, a long, deep shadow to
seaward.
Even the gay and apparently thoughtless Senorita Isabella was struck
with delight at the view now presented to her gaze, and for a moment
she paused in silence to drink in of the spirit-stirring beauty of the
scene.
“How beautiful it is,” whispered the boy, who was close by her side.
“Beautiful, very beautiful,” echoed Isabella, again becoming silent.
No one who has not breathed the soft air of the south at an hour such
as we have described, can well realize the tender influence that it
exercises upon a susceptible disposition. The whole party gazed for
some minutes in silence, apparently charmed by the scene. There was a
hallowing and chastening influence in the very air, and the gay
coquette was softened into the tender woman. A tear even glistened in
Ruez’s, her brother’s eyes; but he was a thoughtful and delicate-souled
child, and would be affected thus much more quickly than his sister.
The eldest of the two gentlemen who were in attendance upon Don
Gonzales and his family, was Count Anguera, lieutenant-governor of the
island; and his companion, a fine military figure, apparently some
years the count’s junior, was General Harero of the royal infantry,
quartered at the governor’s palace. Such was the party that promenaded
on the parapet of the Plato.
As we have intimated, the two gentlemen were evidently striving to
please Isabella, and to win from her some encouraging smile or other
token that might indicate a preference for their attentions. Admiration
even from the high source that now tendered it was no new thing to her,
and with just sufficient archness to puzzle them, she waived and
replied to their conversation with most provoking indifference,
lavishing a vast deal more kindness and attention upon a noble
wolf-hound that crouched close to her feet, his big clear eye bent ever
upon his mistress’s face with a degree of intelligence that would have
formed a theme for a painter. It was a noble creature, and no wonder
the lady evinced so much regard for the hound, who ever and anon walked
close to her.
“You love the hound?” suggested General Harero, stooping to smooth its
glossy coat.
“Yes.”
“He is to be envied, then, upon my soul, lady. How could he, with no
powers of utterance, have done that for himself, which we poor gallants
so fail in doing?”
“And what may that be?” asked Isabella, archly tossing her head.
“Win thy love,” half whispered the officer, drawing closer to her side.
The answer was lost, if indeed Isabella intended one, by the father’s
calling the attention of the party to some object on the Regla shore,
opposite the city, looming up in the dim light.
Ruez had mounted the parapet, and with his feet carelessly dangling on
the other side, sat gazing off upon the sea, now straining his eye to
make out the rig of some dark hull in the distance, and now following
back the moon’s glittering wake until it met the shore. At this moment
the hound, leaving his mistress’s side, put his fore paws upon the top
of the parapet and his nose into one of the boy’s hands, causing him to
turn round suddenly to see what it was that touched him; in doing which
he lost his balance, and with a faint cry fell from the parapet far
down to the water below. Each of the gentlemen at once sprang upon the
stone work and looked over where the boy had fallen, but it would have
been madness for any one, however good a swimmer; and as they realized
this and their helpless situation, they stood for a moment dumb with
consternation.
At that moment a plunge was heard in the water from the edge of the
quay far below the parapet, and a dark form was traced making its way
through the water with that strong bold stroke that shows the effort of
a confident and powerful swimmer.
“Thank God some one has seen his fall from below, and they will rescue
him,” said Don Gonzales, springing swiftly down the Plato steps,
followed by Isabella and the officers, and seeking the street that led
to the quay below.
“O hasten, father, hasten!” exclaimed Isabella, impatiently.
“Nay, Isabella, my old limbs totter with fear for dear Ruez,” was the
hasty reply of the old don, as he hurried forward with his daughter.
“Dear, dear Ruez,” exclaimed Isabella, hysterically.
Dashing by the guard stationed on the quay, who presented arms as his
superiors passed, they reached its end in time to see, through the now
dim twilight, the efforts of some one in the water supporting the half
insensible boy with one arm, while with the other he was struggling
with almost superhuman effort against the steady set of the tide to
seaward. Already were a couple of seamen lowering a quarter-boat from
an American barque, near by, but the rope had fouled in the blocks, and
they could not loose it. A couple of infantry soldiers had also come up
to the spot, and having secured a rope were about to attempt some
assistance to the swimmer.
“Heave the line,” shouted one of the seamen. “Give me the bight of it,
and I’ll swim out to him.”
“Stand by for it,” said the soldier, coiling it in his hand and then
throwing it towards the barque. But the coil fell short of the mark,
and another minute’s delay occurred.
In the meantime he who held the boy, though evidently a man of cool
judgment, powerful frame, and steady purpose, yet now breathed so
heavily in his earnest struggle with the swift tide, that his panting
might be distinctly heard on the quay. He was evidently conscious of
the efforts now making for his succor and that of the boy, but he
uttered no words, still bending every nerve and faculty towards the
stemming of the current tint sets into the harbor from the Gulf Stream.
The hound had been running back and forth on the top of the parapet,
half preparing every moment for a spring, and then deterred by the
immense distance which presented itself between the animal and the
water, it would run back and forth again with a most piteous howling
cry; but at this moment it came bounding down the street to the quay,
as though it at last realized the proper spot from which to make the
attempt, and with a leap that seemed to carry it nearly a rod into the
waters, it swam easily to the boy’s side.
An exclamation of joy escaped from both Don Gonzales and Isabella, for
they knew the hound to have saved a life before, and now prized his
sagacity highly.
As the hound swung round easily beside the struggling forms, the
swimmer placed the boy’s arm about the animal’s neck, while the noble
creature, with almost human reason, instead of struggling fiercely at
being thus entirely buried in the water, save the mere point of his
nose, worked as steadily and as calmly as though he was merely
following his young master on shore. The momentary relief was of the
utmost importance to the swimmer, who being thus partially relieved of
Ruez’s weight, once more struck out boldly for the quay. But the boy
had now lost all consciousness, and his arm slipped away from the
hound’s neck, and he rolled heavily over, carrying down the swimmer and
himself for a moment, below the surface of the water.
“Holy mother! they are both drowned!” almost screamed Isabella.
“Lost! lost!” groaned Don Gonzales, with uplifted hands and tottering
form.
“No! no!” exclaimed General Harero, “not yet, not yet.” He had jumped
on board the barque, and had cut the davit ropes with his sword, and
thus succeeded in launching the boat with himself and the two seamen in
it.
At this moment the swimmer rose once more slowly with his burthen to
the surface; but his efforts were so faintly made now, that he barely
floated, and yet with a nervous vigor he kept the boy still far above
himself. And now it was that the noble instinct of the hound stood his
young master in such importance, and led him to seize with his teeth
the boy’s clothes, while the swimmer once more fairly gained his
self-possession, and the boat with General Harero and the seamen came
alongside. In a moment more the boy with his preserver and the dog were
safe in the boat, which was rowed at once to the quay.
A shout of satisfaction rang out from twenty voices that had witnessed
the scene.
Isabella, the moment they were safely in the boat, fainted, while Count
Anguera ran for a volante for conveyance home. The swimmer soon
regained his strength, and when the boat reached the quay, he lifted
the boy from it himself. It was a most striking picture that presented
itself to the eye at that moment on the quay, in the dim twilight that
was so struggling with the moon’s brighter rays.
The father, embracing the reviving boy, looked the gratitude he could
not find words to express, while a calm, satisfied smile ornamented the
handsome features of the soldier who had saved Ruez’s life at such
imminent risk. The coat which he had hastily thrown upon the quay when
he leaped into the water, showed him to bear the rank of lieutenant of
infantry, and by the number, he belonged to General Harero’s own
division.
The child was placed with his sister and father in a volante, and borne
away from the spot with all speed, that the necessary care and
attention might be afforded to him which they could only expect in
their own home.
In the meantime a peculiar satisfaction mantled the brow and features
of the young officer who had thus signally served Don Gonzales and his
child. His fine military figure stood erect and commanding in style
while he gazed after the volante that contained the party named, nor
did he move for some moments, seeming to be exercised by some peculiar
spell; still gazing in the direction in which the volante had
disappeared, until General Harero, his superior, having at length
arranged his own attire, after the hasty efforts which he had made,
came by, and touching him lightly on the arm, said:
“Lieutenant, you seem to be dreaming; has the bath affected your
brain?”
“Not at all, general,” replied the young officer, hastening to put on
his coat once more; “I have indeed forgotten myself for a single
moment.”
“Know you the family whom you have thus served?” asked the general.
“I do; that is, I know their name, general, but nothing further.”
“He’s a clever man, and will remember your services,” said the general,
carelessly, as he walked up the quay and received the salute of the
sentinel on duty.
Some strange feeling appeared to be working in the breast of the young
officer who had just performed the gallant deed we have recorded, for
he seemed even now to be quite lost to all outward realization, and was
evidently engaged in most agreeable communion with himself mentally. He
too now walked up the quay, also, receiving the salute of the sentinel,
and not forgetting either, as did the superior officer, to touch his
cap in acknowledgement, a sign that an observant man would have marked
in the character of both; and one, too, which was not lost on the
humble private, whose duty it was to stand at his post until the middle
watch of the night. A long and weary duty is that of a sentinel on the
quay at night.