THE PRISONER.
To know and fully realize the bitter severity exercised in the Spanish
prisons, both at Madrid and in Havana, one must have witnessed it.
Cold, dark and dreary cells, fit only to act as supports to the upper
and better lighted portions of the dismal structure, are filled by
those persons who have incurred in any way the displeasure of the
military board of commission. Here, in one of the dampest and most
dreary cells, immured with lizards, tarantulas, and other vile and
unwholesome reptiles, Captain Bezan, but so very recently-risen from a
sick bed, and yet smarting under his wounds, found himself. He could
now easily see the great mistake he had made in thus addressing General
Harero as he had done, and also, as he knew very well the rigor of the
service to which he was attached when he considered for a moment, he
had not the least possible doubt that his sentence would be death.
As a soldier he feared not death; his profession and experience, which
had already made him familiar with the fell destroyer in every possible
form and shape, had taught him a fearlessness in this matter; but to
leave the air that Isabella Gonzales breathed, to be thus torn away
from the bright hopes that she had given rise to in his breast, was
indeed agony of soul to him now. In the horizon of his love, for the
first time since his heart had known the passion, the sun had risen,
and the genial rays of hope, like young spring, had commended to warm
and vivify his soul.
Until within a very short time she whom he loved was to him as some
distant star, that might be worshipped in silence, but not approached;
but now, by a series of circumstances that looked like providential
interference in his behalf, immense barriers had been removed. Thinking
over these matters, he doubly realized the misstep he had taken, and
the heart of the lone prisoner was sad in the depths of his dreary
dungeon.
Many days passed on, and Lorenzo Bezan counted each hour as one less
that he should have to live upon the earth. At first all intercourse
was strictly denied him with any person outside the prison walls, but
one afternoon he was delighted as the door of his cell was thrown open,
and in the next moment Ruez sprang into his arms.
“My dear, dear friend!” said the boy, with big tears starting from his
eyes, and his voice trembling with mingled emotions of pleasure and of
grief.
“Why, Ruez,” said the prisoner, no less delighted than was the boy,
“how was it possible for you to gain admittance to me? You are the
first person I have seen, except the turnkey, in my prison.”
“Everybody refused me; General Harero refused father, who desired that
I might come and see if he could not in some way serve you. At last I
went to Tacon himself. O, I do love that man! Well, I told him General
Harero would not admit me, and when I told him all—”
“All of what, Ruez?”
“Why, about you and me, and sister and father. He said, ‘Boy, you are
worthy of confidence and love; here, take this, it will pass you to the
prison, and to Captain Bezan’s cell;’ and he wrote me this on a card,
and said I could come and see you by presenting it to the guard, when I
pleased.”
“Tacon is just, always just,” said Lorenzo Bezan, “and you, Ruez, are a
dear and true friend.” As the soldier said this, he turned to dash away
a tear-confinement and late sickness had rendered him still weak.
“Captain?”
“Master Ruez.”
“I hate General Harero.”
“Why so?”
“Because sister says it is by his influence that you are here.”
“Did Isabella say that?”
“Yes.”
“Well, tell me of your father and sister, Ruez. You know I am a hermit
here.”
Lorenzo Bezan had already been in prison for more than ten days, when
Ruez thus visited him, and the boy had much to tell him: how General
Harero had called repeatedly at the house, and Isabella had totally
refused to see him; and how his father had tried to reason with General
Harero about Captain Bezan, and how the general had declared that
nothing but blood could wash out the stain of insubordination.
With the pass that the governor-general had given him, Ruez Gonzales
came often to visit the imprisoned soldier, but as the day appointed
for the trial drew near, Ruez grew more and more sad and thoughtful at
each visit, for, boy though he was, he felt certain of Lorenzo Bezan’s
fate. He was not himself unfamiliar with military examinations, for he
was born and brought up within earshot of the spot where these scenes
were so often enacted by order of the military commission, and he
trembled for his dearly loved friend.
At length the trial came; trial! we might with more propriety call it a
farce, such being the actual character of an examination before the
military commission of Havana, where but one side is heard, and
condemnation is sure to follow, as was the case so lately with one of
our own countrymen (Mr. Thrasher), and before him the murder by this
same tribunal of fifty Americans in cold blood! Trial, indeed! Spanish
courts do not try people; they condemn them to suffer—that is their
business.
But let us confine ourselves to our own case; and suffice it to say,
that Captain Bezan was found guilty, and at once condemned to die. His
offence was rank insubordination, or mutiny, as it was designated in
the charge; but in consideration of former services, and his undoubted
gallantry and bravery, the sentence read to the effect, as a matter of
extraordinary leniency to him, that it should be permitted for him to
choose the mode of his own death-that is, between the garote and being
shot by his comrades.
“Let me die like a soldier,” replied the young officer, as the question
was thus put to him, before the open court, as to the mode of death
which he chose.
“You are condemned, then, Lorenzo Bezan,” said the advocate of the
court, “to be shot by the first file of your own company, upon the
execution field.”
This sentence was received with a murmur of disapprobation from the few
spectators in the court, for the condemned was one of the most beloved
men in the service. But the young officer bowed his head calmly to the
sentence, though at close observer might have seen a slight quiver of
his handsome lips, as he struggled for an instant with a single inward
thought. What that thought was, the reader can easily guess,—it was the
last link that bound him to happiness.
Lorenzo Bezan had no fear of death, and perhaps estimated his life
quite as lightly as any other person who made a soldier’s calling his
profession; but since his heart had known the tender promptings of
love, life had discovered new charms for him; he lived and breathed in
a new atmosphere. Before he had received the kind considerations of the
peerless daughter of Don Gonzales, he could have parted the thread of
his existence with little regret. But now, alas! it was very different;
life was most sweet to him, because it was so fully imbued with love
and hope in the future.
Wild as the idea might have seemed to any one else, the young officer
had promised his own heart, that with ordinary success, and provided no
extraordinary difficulty should present itself in his path, to win the
heart and love of the proud and beautiful Isabella Gonzales. He had
made her character and disposition his constant study, was more
familiar, perhaps, with her strong and her weak points than was she
herself, and believed that he knew how best to approach her before whom
so many, vastly higher than himself, had knelt in vain, and truth to
say, fortune seemed to have seconded his hopes.
It was the death of all these hopes, the dashing to earth of the fairy
future he had dreamed of, that caused his proud lip to tremble for a
moment. It was no fear of bodily ill.
General Harero had accomplished his object, and had triumphed over the
young officer, whose impetuosity had placed him within his power. The
sentence of death cancelled his animosity to Lorenzo Bezan, and he now
thought that a prominent cause of disagreement and want of success
between the Senorita Isabella Gonzales and himself was removed. Thus
reasoning upon the subject, and thus influenced, he called at the house
of Don Gonzales on the evening following that of Captain Bezan’s
sentence, expecting to be greeted with the usual courtesy that had been
extended to him. Ruez was the first one whom he met of the household,
on being ushered to the drawing-room by a slave.
“Ah! Master Ruez, how do you do?” said the general, pleasantly.
“Not well at all!” replied the boy, sharply, and with undisguised
dislike.
“I’m sorry to learn that. I trust nothing serious has affected you.”
“But there has, though,” said the boy, with spirit; “it is the
rascality of human nature;” at the same moment he turned his back
coldly on the general and left the room.
“Well, that’s most extraordinary,” mused the general, to himself; “the
boy meant to hit me, beyond a doubt.”
“Ah, Don Gonzales,” he said to the father, who entered the room a
moment after, “glad to see you; have had some unpleasant business on my
hands that has kept me away, you see.”
“Yes, very unpleasant,” said the old gentleman, briefly and coldly.
“Well, it’s all settled now, Don Gonzales, and I trust we shall be as
good friends as ever.”
Receiving no reply whatever to this remark, and being left to himself,
General Harero looked after Don Gonzales, who had retired to a balcony
in another part of the room, for a moment, and then summoning a slave,
sent his card to Senorita Isabella, and received as an answer that she
was engaged. Repulsed in every quarter, he found himself most awkwardly
situated, and thought it about time to beat a retreat.
As General Harero rose and took his leave in the most formal manner, he
saw that his pathway towards the Senorita Isabella’s graces was by no
means one of sunshine alone, but at that moment it presented to his
view a most cloudy horizon. The unfortunate connection of himself with
the sentence of Captain Bezan, now assumed its true bearing in his eye.
Before, he had only thought of revenge, and the object also of getting
rid of his rival. Now he fully realized that it had placed him in a
most unpleasant situation, as it regarded the lady herself. Indeed he
felt that had not the matter gone so far, he would gladly have
compromised the affair by a public reprimand to the young officer, such
as should sufficiently disgrace him publicly to satisfy the general’s
pride. But it was too late to regret now, too late for him to turn
back-the young soldier must die!
In the meantime Lorenzo Bezan was remanded to his dismal prison and
cell, and was told to prepare for the death that would soon await him.
One week only was allowed him to arrange such matters as he desired,
and then he was informed that he would be shot by his comrades in the
execution field, at the rear of the city barracks. It was a sad and
melancholy fate for so young and brave an officer; but the law was
imperative, and there was no reprieve for him.
The cold and distant reception that General Harero had received at Don
Gonzales’s house since the sentence had been publicly pronounced
against Captain Lorenzo Bezan, had afforded unmistakable evidence to
him that if his victim perished on account of the charge he had brought
against him, his welcome with Isabella and her father was at an end.
But what was to be done? As we have said, he had gone too far to
retrace his steps in the matter. Now if it were but possible to get out
of the affair in some way, he said to himself, he would give half his
fortune. Puzzling over this matter, the disappointed general paced back
and forth in his room until past midnight, and at last having tired
himself completely, both mentally and physically, he carelessly threw
off his clothes, and summoning his orderly, gave some unimportant
order, and prepared to retire for the night.
But scarcely had he locked his door and drawn the curtains of his
windows, when a gentle knock at the door caused him once more to open
it, when an orderly led in a person who was closely wrapped up in a
cloak, and after saluting respectfully left the new comer alone with
his superior.
“Well, sir, did you obtain me those keys?” asked General Harero.
“I did, and have them here, general,” was the reply.
“You say there is no need of my entering at the main postern.”
“None. This first key opens the concealed gate in the rear of the guard
house, and this the door that leads to the under range of the prison.
You will require no guide after what I have already shown you. But you
have promised me the fifty ounces.”
“I have.”
“And will hold me harmless?”
“At all hazards.”
“Then here are the keys.”
“Stay; it would be as well for you to be about at the time specified,
to avert any suspicions or immediate trouble.”
“I will be on the alert, general. You may rely upon me in this
business, since you pay for my services so liberally.”
“Good night, sir.”
“Good night, general.”
And gathering his cloak about him, the stranger vanished stealthily
through the door, which General Harero closed and locked after him.
Having consummated the preliminaries to some piece of rascality or
secret business that he did not care to make public.
More than half of the time allotted to the prisoner for preparation in
closing up his connection with life, had already transpired since his
sentence had been pronounced, and he had now but three days left him to
live. Ruez Gonzales, improving the governor-general’s pass, had visited
the young officer daily, bringing with him such luxuries and
necessities to the condemned as were not prohibited by the rules of the
prison, and which were most grateful to him. More so, because, though
this was never intimated to him, or, indeed, appeared absolutely
obvious, he thought that oftentimes Isabella had selected these gifts,
if indeed she had not prepared them with her own hands. A certain
delicacy of feeling prevented him from saying as much to her brother,
or of even questioning him upon any point, however trivial, as to any
matter of a peculiar nature concerning Isabella. Sometimes he longed to
ask the boy about the subject, but he could not bring himself to do so;
he felt that it would be indelicate and unpleasant to Isabella, and
therefore he limited himself to careful inquiries concerning her health
and such simple matters as he might touch upon, without risk of her
displeasure.
Lorenzo Bezan took the announcement of his fate calmly. He felt it his
duty to pray for strength, and he did so, and sought in the holy
silence and confidence of prayer for that abiding and inward assurance
that may carry us through the darkness and the valley of death. Ruez,
poor boy, was almost distracted at the realization of the young
soldier’s fate. Boy though he was, he had yet the feelings, in many
respects, of manhood, and though before Lorenzo Bezan he said nothing
of his coming fate, and indeed struggled to appear cheerful, and to
impart a pleasant influence to the prisoner, yet when once out of his
presence, he would cry for the hour together, and Isabella even feared
for the child’s reason, unless some change should take place ere long.
When his mother was taken from him, and their home made desolate by the
hand of death, Ruez, in the gentleness and tenderness of his heart, had
been brought so low by grief, that it was almost miraculous that he had
survived. The influence of that sorrow, as we have before observed, had
never left him. His father’s assiduous care and kindness, and
Isabella’s gentle and sisterly love for him, had in part healed the
wound, when now his young and susceptible heart was caused thus to
bleed anew. He loved Lorenzo Bezan with a strange intensity of feeling.
There was an affinity in their natures that seemed to draw them
together, and it was strange that strength of consolation and happiness
that weak and gentle boy imparted to the stern soldier!
In his association of late with Ruez, the condemned officer felt
purified and carried back to childhood and his mother’s knee; the long
vista of eventful years was blotted out from his heart, the stern
battles he had fought in, the blood he had seen flow like water, his
own deep scars and many wounds, the pride and ambition of his military
career, all were forgotten, and by Ruez’s side he was perhaps more of a
child at heart than the boy himself. How strange are our natures; how
susceptible to outward influence; how attunable to harshness or to
plaintive notes! We are but as the olian harp, and the winds of heaven
play upon us what times they will!
It was midnight in the prison of Havana; nought could be heard by the
listening ear save the steady pace of the sentinels stationed at the
various angles of the walls and entrances of the courtyard that
surrounded the gloomy structure. It was a calm, tropical light, and the
moon shone so brightly as to light up the grim walls and heavy arches
of the building, almost as bright as if it were day. Now and then a
sentinel would pause, and resting upon his musket, look off upon the
silvery sea, and perhaps dream of his distant Castilian home, then
starting again, he would rouse himself, shoulder the weapon, and pace
his round with measured stride. Lorenzo Bezan, the condemned, had knelt
down and offered up a prayer, silent but sincere, for Heaven’s
protection in the fearful emergency that beset him; he prayed that he
might die like a brave man, yet with a right feeling and reconciled
conscience with all mankind. Then throwing himself upon his coarse
straw bed, that barely served to separate him from the damp earthen
floor, he had fallen asleep-a calm, deep, quiet sleep, so silent and
childlike as almost to resemble death itself.
He had not slept there for many minutes, before there was heard a most
curious noise under the floor of his prison. At first it did not awaken
him, but partially doing so, caused him to move slightly, and in at
half conscious, half dreamy state, to suggest some cause for the
unusual phenomenon. It evidently worked upon his brain and nervous
system, and he dreamed that the executioner had come for him, that his
time for life had already expired, and the noise he heard was that of
the officers and men, come to execute the sentence that had been
pronounced upon him by the military commission.
By degrees the noise gradually increased, and heavy bolts and bars
seemed to be removed, and a gleam of light to stream across the cell,
while the tall form of a man, wrapped in a military cloak, came up
through the floor where a stone slab gave way to the pressure applied
to it from below.
Having gained a footing, the new comer now turned the light of a dark
lantern in the direction of the corner where the prisoner was sleeping.
The figure approached the sleeping soldier, and bending over him,
muttered to himself, half aloud:
“Sleeping, by Heaven! he sleeps as quietly as though he was in his
camp-bedstead, and not even under arrest.”
As the officer thus spoke-for his cloak now falling from one shoulder,
partially exposed his person and discovered his rank-the strong light
of the lantern fell full upon the sleeper’s face, and caused him
suddenly to awake, and partially rising from the floor, he said:
“So soon! has my time already come? I thought that it was not yet.
Well, I am ready, and trust to die like a soldier!”
“Awake, Captain Bezan, awake!” said the new comer. “I have news for
you!”
“News!”
“Yes.”
“What possible news can there be that I can feel interested in?”
“Rise, and I will tell you,” replied the other, while he shaded the
lantern with his hand.
“Speak on, I am listening,” replied Lorenzo Bezan, rising to his feet.
“I would speak of your liberty.”
“My liberty? I am condemned to die, and do you come to mock me?”
“Be patient; the way is open, and you may yet escape from death.”
“And what should interest you, General Harero, in my fate? Your purpose
is gained; I am removed from your path; why do you visit me thus at
this still hour of the night, and in so extraordinary a manner by a
secret entrance to my cell?”
“All this matters nothing. I came not here to answer questions. On one
condition you are free. I have the means of your escape at hand.”
“Name the condition,” said the prisoner, though without exhibiting the
least interest.
“There is a vessel which will sail for America with the morning tide;
swear if I liberate you that you will take passage in her, and never
return to this island.”
“Never!” said the soldier, firmly. “I will never leave those I love so
dearly.”
“You refuse these terms?” continued the general, in a hoarse tone of
voice.
“I do, most unhesitatingly. Life would be nothing to me if robbed of
its brightest hope.”
“You will not consider this for a moment? it is your only chance.”
“I am resolved,” said Lorenzo Bezan; “for more than one reason I am
determined.”
“Then die for your obstinacy,” said General Harero, hoarse with rage
and disappointment.
Thus saying, General Harero descended into the secret passage from
whence he had just emerged, and replacing the stone above his head, the
prisoner heard the grating of the rusty bolts and bars as they were
closed after him. They grated, too, most harshly upon his heart, as
well as upon their own hinges, for they seemed to say, “thus perishes
your last hope of reprieve-your last possibility of escape from the
fate that awaits you.”
“No matter,” said he, to himself, at last, “life would be of little
value to me now if deprived of the presence of Isabella, and that dear
boy, Ruez, and therefore I decided none too quickly as I did. Besides,
in honor, I could hardly accept my life at his hands on any terms-he
whom I have to thank for all my misfortunes. No, no; let them do their
worst, I know my fate is sealed; but I fear it not. I will show them
that I can die as I have lived, like a soldier; they shall not triumph
in my weakness so long as the blood flows through my veins.”
With this reflection and similar thoughts upon his mind, he once more
threw himself upon the hard damp floor, and after thinking long and
tenderly of Isabella Gonzales and her brother, he once more dropped to
sleep, but not until the morning gun had relieved the sentinels, and
the drum had beat the reveille.