THE BANISHMENT.
Lorenzo Bezan had hardly reached his place of confinement, once more,
before he was waited upon by the secretary of the governor-general, who
explained to him the terms on which his reprieve was granted, viz.,
that he should leave the territory and soil of Cuba by the next
homeward bound packet to Spain, to remain there, unless otherwise
ordered by special direction of the government. His rank as captain of
infantry was secured to him, and the usual exhortation in such cases
was detailed, as to the hope that the present example might not be lost
upon him, as to the matter of a more strict adherence to the subject of
military discipline.
Repugnant as was the proposition to leave the island while life was
his, Lorenzo Bezan had no alternative but to do so; and, moreover, when
he considered the attraction that held him on the spot, how the
Senorita Isabella Gonzales had treated him, when she had every reason
to believe that it was his last meeting with her, and nearly the last
hour of his life, he saw that if she would treat him thus at such a
moment, then, when he had not the excuse of remarkable exigency and the
prospect of certain death before him, she would be no kinder. It was
while exercised by such thoughts as these that he answered the
secretary:
“Bear my thanks, with much respect, to the governor-general, and tell
him that I accept from him his noble clemency and justice, the boon of
my life, on his own terms.”
The secretary bowed low and departed.
We might tell the reader how Lorenzo Bezan threw himself upon his bed
of straw, and wept like a child-how he shed there the first tears he
had shed since his arrest, freely and without a check. His heart seemed
to bleed more at the idea of leaving the spot where Isabella lived, and
yet to live on himself, elsewhere, than his spirit had faltered at the
idea of certain death. Her last cruel words, and the proud spirit she
exhibited towards him, were constantly before his eyes.
“O,” said he, half aloud, “how I have worshipped, how adored that
fairest of God’s creatures!”
At moments he had thought that he saw through Isabella’s character-at
moments had truly believed that he might by assiduity, perhaps, if
favored by fortune, win her love, and, may be, her hand in marriage. At
any rate, with his light and buoyant heart, there was sunshine and hope
enough in the future to irradiate his soul with joy, until the last
scene in his drama of life, added to that of her last cold farewell!
He was soon informed that the vessel which was to take him to Spain
would sail on the following morning, and that no further time would be
permitted to him on the island. He resolved to write one last letter of
farewell to Isabella Gonzales, and then to depart; and calling upon the
turnkey for writing materials, which were now supplied to him, he wrote
as follows:”
“DEAR LADY: Strange circumstances, with which you are doubtless well
acquainted by this time, have changed my punishment from death to
banishment. Under ordinary circumstances it would hardly be called
banishment for any person to be sent from a foreign clime to the place
of his nativity; nor would it appear to be such to me, were it not that
I leave behind me the only being I have ever really loved-the idol
angel of my heart-she who has been to me life, soul, everything, until
now, when I am wretched beyond description; because without hope, all
things would be as darkness to the human heart.
“I need not review our brief acquaintanceship, or reiterate to you the
feelings I have already expressed. If you can judge between true love
and gallantry, you know whether I am sincere or otherwise. I could not
offer you wealth, Isabella Gonzales. I could not offer you rank. I have
no fame to share with you; but O, if it be the will of Heaven that
another should call you wife, I pray that he may love you as I have
done. I am not so selfish but that I can utter this prayer with all my
heart, and in the utmost sincerity.
“The object of this hasty scrawl is once more to say to you farewell;
for it is sweet to me even to address you. May God bless your dear
brother, who has done much to sustain me, bowed down as I have been
with misfortune, and broken in spirit; and may the especial blessing of
Heaven rest ever on and around you.
“This will ever be the nightly prayer of LORENZO BEZAN.”
When Isabella Gonzales received this note on the following day, its
author was nearly a dozen leagues at sea, bound for the port of Cadiz,
Spain! She hastily perused its contents again and again. looked off
upon the open sea, as though she might be able to recall him, threw
herself upon her couch, and wept bitter, scalding tears, until weary
nature caused her to sleep.
At last Ruez stole into her room quietly, and finding her asleep, and a
tear-drop glistening still upon her cheek, he kissed away the pearly
dew and awoke her once more to consciousness. He, too, had learned of
Captain Bezan’s sudden departure; and by the open letter in his
sister’s hand, to which he saw appended his dearly loved friend’s name,
he judged that her weeping had been caused by the knowledge that he had
left them-probably forever.
Lorenzo Bezan should have seen her then, in her almost transcendent
beauty, too proud, far too proud, to own even to herself that she loved
the poor soldier; yet her heart would thus unbidden and spontaneously
betray itself, in spite of all her proud calmness, and strong efforts
at self-control. The boy looked at her earnestly; twice he essayed to
speak, and then, as if some after thought had changed his purpose, he
kissed her again, and was silent.
“Well, brother, it seems that Captain Bezan has been liberated and
pardoned, after all,” said Isabella, with a voice of assumed
indifference.
“Yes, sister, but at a sad cost; for he has been banished to Spain.”
“How strange he was not shot, when so many fired at him.”
“Sister?”
“Well.”
“Can you keep a secret?”
“I think so, Ruez,” said Isabella, half smiling at the question of her
brother.
“Well, it’s not so very wonderful, since I drew the bullets from the
guns!”
And Ruez explained to her that he had secreted himself in the house,
with the hope that something might turn up to save his friend even yet,
and there he had found a chance to draw the bullets from the twelve
muskets. After he had told her, she threw her arms about his neck, and
said:
“You are a dear, good brother.”
“And for what, sister?”
“For saving Captain Bezan’s life; for otherwise he had been shot.”
“But why do you care so much about it, sister?” asked the boy,
seriously.
“O, nothing, only-that is, you know, Ruez, we owe Captain Bezan so much
ourselves for having hazarded his life for us all.”
Ruez turned away from his sister with an expression in his face that
made her start; for he began to read his sister’s heart, young as he
was, better than she knew it herself. He loved Lorenzo Bezan so dearly
himself-had learned to think so constantly of him, and to regard him
with such friendly consideration, that no influence of pride could in
the least affect him; and though he had sufficient penetration to
pierce through the subject so far as to realize that his dearly loved
friend regarded his sister with a most ardent and absorbing love, he
could not exactly understand the proud heart of Isabella, which, save
for its pride, would so freely return the condemned soldier’s
affection.
Well, time passed on in its ever-varying round. Lorenzo Bezan was on
his way to Spain, and Isabella and her brother filling nearly the same
round of occupation, either of amusement or self-imposed duty.
Occasionally General Harero called; but this was put a stop to, at
last, by Ruez’s pertinently asking him one evening how he came to order
the execution of Lorenzo Bezan to take place a full hour before the
period announced in the regular sentence signed by the
governor-general!
Ruez was not the first person who had put this question to him, and he
felt sore about it, for even Tacon himself had reprimanded him for the
deed. Thus realizing that his true character was known to Don Gonzales
and his family, he gave up the hope of winning Isabella Gonzales, or
rather the hope of sharing her father’s rich coffers, and quietly
withdrew himself from a field of action where he had gained nothing,
but had lost much, both as it regarded this family, and, owing to his
persecution of Captain Bezan, that of the army.
Isabella Gonzales became thoughtful and melancholy without exactly
knowing why. She avoided company, and often incurred her father’s
decided displeasure by absenting herself from the drawing-room when
there were visitors of importance. She seemed to be constantly in a
dreamy and moody state, and avoided all her former haunts and
companions. A skilful observer might have told her the cause of all
this, and yet, strange to say, so blind did her pride render her, that
she could not see, or at least never acknowledged even to herself, that
the absent soldier had aught to do with it.
Had not Isabella Gonzales treated Lorenzo Bezan as she did at their
last meeting, he would never have accepted the governor-general’s
pardon on the terms offered, nor life itself, if it separated him from
her he loved. But as it was, he seemed to feel that life had lost its
charm, ambition its incentive for him, and he cast himself forth upon
the troubled waters without compass or rudder. And it was precisely in
this spirit that he found himself upon the deck of the vessel, whose
white wings were wafting him now across the ocean.
He, too, was misanthropic and unhappy; he tried to reason with himself
that Isabella Gonzales was not worthy to render him thus miserable;
that she was a coquette-an unfeeling, though beautiful girl; that even
had he succeeded, and fortune favored him in his love, she would not
have loved him its his heart craved to be loved. But all this sophistry
was overthrown in a moment by the memory of one dear glance, when
Isabella, off her guard, and her usual hauteur of manner for the
instant, had looked through her eyes the whole truthfulness of her
soul; in short, when her heart, not her head, had spoken!
Alas! how few of us feel as we do; how few do as we feel!
Perhaps there is no better spot than on shipboard for a dreamer to be;
he has then plenty of time, plenty of space, plenty of theme, and every
surrounding, to turn his thoughts inward upon himself. Lorenzo Bezan
found this so. At times he looked down into the still depths of the
blue water, and longed for the repose that seemed to look up to him
from below the waves. He had thought, perhaps, too long upon this
subject one soft, calm evening, and had indeed forgotten himself, as it
were, and another moment would have seen the working of what seemed a
sort of irresistible charm to him, and he would have cast himself into
that deep, inviting oblivion!
Then a voice seemed to whisper Isabella’s name in his ear! He started,
looked about him, and awoke from the fearful charm that held him. It
was his good angel that breathed that name to him then, and saved him
from the curse of the suicide!
From that hour a strange feeling seemed to possess the young soldier.
Like him in Shakspeare’s “Seven Ages,” he passed from love to ambition.
A new charm seemed to awake to him in the future, not to the desertion
of his love, nor yet exactly to its promotion. An indefinite idea
seemed to move him that he must win fame, glory and renown; and yet he
hardly paused to think what the end of these would be; whether they
would ultimately bring him nearer to the proud girl of his hopes and
his love. Fame rang in his ears; the word seemed to fire his veins; he
was humble-he must be honored; he was poor-he must be rich; he was
unknown-he must be renowned! With such thoughts as these, his pulses
beat quicker, his eye flashed, and his check became flushed, and then
one tender thought of Isabella would change every current, and almost
moisten those bloodshot eyes with tears. Would to God that Lorenzo
Bezan could now but shed a tear-what gentle yet substantial relief it
would have afforded him.
Thus was the exiled soldier influenced; while Isabella Gonzales was, as
we have seen, still living on under the veil of her pride; unable,
apparently, for one single moment to draw the curtain, and look with
naked eye upon the real picture of her feelings, actions, and honest
affections. She felt, plain enough, that she was miserable; indeed the
flood of tears she daily shed betrayed this to her. But her proud
Castilian blood was the phase through which alone she saw, or could
see. It was impossible for her to banish Lorenzo Bezan from her mind;
but yet she stoutly refused to admit, even to herself, that she
regarded him with affection-he, a lowly soldier, a child of the camp, a
myrmidon of fortune-he a fit object for the love of Isabella Gonzales,
the belle of Havana, to whom princes had bowed? Preposterous!
Her brother, whose society she seemed to crave more than ever, said
nothing; he did not even mention the name of the absent one, but he
secretly moaned for him, until the pale color that had slightly tinged
his check began to fade, and Don Gonzales trembled for the boy’s life.
It was his second bereavement. His mother’s loss, scarcely yet
outgrown, had tried his gentle heart to its utmost tension; this new
bereavement to his sensitive mind, seemed really too much for him. A
strange sympathy existed between Isabella and the boy, who, though
Lorenzo Bezan’s name was never mentioned, yet seemed to know what each
other was thinking of.
But in the meantime, while these feelings were actuating Isabella and
her brother at Havana, Lorenzo Bezan had reached Cadiz, and was on his
way to the capital of Spain, Madrid.