THE LAST OF DON FABRIQUE.
A week or two after our return from Seville to Gibraltar, Jack
Slingsby received a note from a Spanish officer, who commanded a
detachment of the Grenadiers of Jaen, to the effect that the famous
bandit Fabrique de Urquija had been taken, and was condemned to die
by the spirited Alcalde of San Roque; that his execution was to take
place on the day after to-morrow, and that if we wished to behold the
mode of punishing such criminals in Spain, it would afford him much
pleasure if we joined his party, which was ordered to assist in
guarding the scaffold.
Though neither of us were animated by a love of cruelty or taste for
the morbid, we were somewhat curious to see how this romantic
vagabond, who so pitilessly had meted out death to so many others,
would encounter his own terrible doom, and availing ourselves of the
Spanish officer's polite offer, we procured a day's leave, rode over
to breakfast with him, and marched with his detachment to San Roque,
a little town, which lies, as I have elsewhere said, about six miles
from our garrison on the Spanish side.
As we proceeded, the Spanish capitano told us the little episode of
Don Fabrique's capture.
It happened thus.
The Alcalde of San Roque was reputed to be immensely wealthy, and to
have in a secret place a strong box full of yellow doubloons and rich
silver duros, piled up in shining pillars to its brim, like the
treasure chests which the Moors are supposed to have hidden in all
the old castles and ruined atalayas in Spain, and all of which are
occasionally visible to those who have the fortune of being born on
Good Friday, as every Spaniard knows.
The rumour of this wealth could not fail to reach the ears of Don
Fabrique, and to excite the cupidity of that enterprising gentleman;
but concealing his intentions from his band, whom he intended to
leave, as he proposed to himself a little trip to Paris or Peru, if
he relieved the Alcalde of those cares which are inseparable from the
possession of wealth, he reconnoitred the house, and found an
entrance to a room wherein he secreted himself beneath a bed, which
stood in an alcove off it. In this bed the portly alcalde and his
buxom wife were wont to take their repose; so Don Fabrique had not
been very long in this place of concealment, when the lady came in
with a lamp in her hand, and placing it on the toilet table,
proceeded to divest her charming person of her habiliments.
She threw the fag end of her cigar into the brassero; hung her wig
upon a knob of the mirror, et cetera. She then dipped a finger into
the little font of holy water which hung at the head of her bed, and
stepped in, to await the coming of her worthy spouse, who was
lingering over the 'Heraldo' and a glass of Valdepenas in the
dining-room below.
Now as the bed had a canvas bottom like a hammock, and the lady
therein was equal in size and weight to three ordinary women, Don
Fabrique, with natural consternation, reflected on what he should
have to endure, when the gorbellied alcalde was added to the
superincumbent load of the señora.
"Demonio!" thought he, "what is to be done? I shall be suffocated
before that brute the señor patron is half asleep!"
The panting robber stirred uneasily, and the stout lady above him
started.
"Madre de Dios, what is that!" she whispered to herself.
There was no response; but on Fabrique stirring again, the señora
fairly sprang in terror from her bed. Fabrique dared not breathe,
but with one hand on his stiletto and the other on his lips, he lay
still as death. The lady now obtained a glimpse of his foot. and
uttering one of those shrill cries, which most women can utter at any
time, she rushed from the chamber to seek her husband; but first she
took the precaution of double-locking the door.
Finding himself discovered, and aware that all was over now, Fabrique
hastened to escape by his place of entrance, the window. Alas! it
was now secured by a shutter crossed by iron bars on the outside, and
these resisted all his efforts. There was no chimney; again he
rushed to the door. It was firm--fast as a rock, and he might as
well have rushed against the stone wall. He heard the clank of feet
and of halberts as the hastily-summoned alguazils came into the room
below; true, he had his dagger; but what would that avail him against
so many? The perspiration burst over his brow and he cursed the
avarice which brought him on such errand unassisted by that faithful
and determined band he was about to leave for ever.
Fertile in expedients, he at last thought of one.
He threw off all his clothes and popped into the bed of the señor
alcalde, and scarcely had he tucked himself cosily in when the door
was burst open, and in marched the portly patron, his eyes dilated
with vengeance, and his paunch swollen with official dignity and
purple valdepenas, while the grim alguazils with pointed halberts and
cocked trabujas came behind, and with them was the terrified lady in
her night-dress, holding a candle in one trembling hand, her rosary
and a case of reliques in the other.
Fabrique gazed at them with well-feigned surprise, which was
reflected in the faces of all on beholding the place of his retreat,
though it soon turned to resentment in the wife of the alcalde; her
eyes flashed; her plump cheeks and bosom became crimson with anger.
"How now, señor raterillo," thundered the alcalde; "what am I to
understand by all this?"
"By what, most worthy señor," whined the robber, with affected
simplicity and shame.
"Why--your being here--here, señor--in the bed of the señora--in my
bed?" continued the alcalde, gathering courage from the loudness of
his own voice; "speak, rascal--why are you here?"
"Ask the señora, who invited me," replied Fabrique. with the coolest
assurance in the world.
"Morte de Dios, what is this I hear?" muttered the overwhelmed
alcalde.
"Yes, ask her, for I did not come here unexpected, believe me, most
worthy and much-injured Señor Patron," continued the cunning rogue as
he leaped out of bed, and assisted by the tittering alguazils, put on
his garments with all haste, while the wife of the poor alcalde gazed
upon him speechless with rage at the inference and his accusation,
while the magistrate himself was baffled and blanched by a new and
vague sense of shame and consternation.
"My dear señora," said Fabrique, in a bland tone, as he tied on his
sash and assumed his sombrero, "I regret extremely that you are weary
of me--that my company is no longer pleasing to you, as of old; but
it is very cruel of you to bring the neck of a poor lover so faithful
as I into such deadly jeopardy, and I shall treasure this lesson of
female perfidy, revenge, and caprice to my latest hour. Muchas
gracias, señora, much good may your trick do you."
The lady was choking with anger and unmerited shame, while the
cunning rogue continued,--
"Most worthy Señor Alcalde, most faithless and fickle señora, and
you, most paltry and pitiful señores alguazils, I have the honour to
wish you all a very good evening."
With a low bow and a mocking smile, he was about to depart, when one
of the alguazils exclaimed,--
"Stop--seize him; by Santiago, 'tis Fabrique de Urquija!"
The face of the robber became black with fury; he drew his stiletto
and rushed upon his discoverer, but was soon beaten down by the
halberts and clubbed blunderbusses of the officials, by whom he was
bound with cords and dragged to prison without delay.
He was soon tried in due form, and though the whole town rang with
his terrible exploits, and the women praised his handsome figure, his
reckless courage, and the great tact and skill by which he had so
nearly eluded the pot-bellied Alcalde, he was sentenced "to be
garotted at twelve o'clock to-day."
Such was the detail given to us by the Spanish officer.
As we neared San Roque, we found great crowds from remote parts of
the judicial partido, all clad in the picturesque and antique
costumes of the province, ascending the mountain on which the town is
situated, and all anxious to behold the dying demeanour of the most
famous of Spanish bandits--the greatest since Manuel Francisco was
shot at Cordova two years ago.
The mountain of San Roque stands at the head of a beautiful bay of
the same name; and on looking back as we ascended, we had a charming
view of the sea, with several large Xebecques floating like gigantic
white birds with wings outspread upon its shining azure surface.
A clear and brilliant morning sun poured a flood of light athwart the
picturesque plaza of San Roque, into which, as one may easily
imagine, the whole male population of the town--about eight
thousand--were crowded. This plaza resembled a sea of human heads
covered with black or brown sombreros; though there were many who
wore only their own coarse black hair in netted cauls, and a few had
scarlet forage caps. Above this crowd glittered the bayonets and the
glazed shakoes of a battalion of Infantry of the Spanish line, from
the adjacent barracks. These surrounded the high wooden platform of
the garotte. Within their line were the poor old ecclesiastics of
the two suppressed convents and three hospitals of San Roque, wearing
the remarkable monastic costumes of a past age.
The principal place was occupied by the commandant of the fortified
camp of San Roque, who, upon our appearing among the crowd in our
British uniform, sent his aide-de-camp, with a polite invitation for
us to join his staff, which we immediately accepted.
On the centre of the platform, which was about twenty feet square,
and covered with black cloth, sat the fallen Fabrique de Urquija upon
a little wooden stool, with his back placed against the upright post
of the garotte, the iron collar of which encircled his brawny naked
neck. His broad low brow was black as a thunder cloud; his eyes were
fierce and keen, and with a lowering glance of scornful pride, he
surveyed the masses who crowded on every inch of space that afforded
footing. His ancles were chained to an eyebolt on the floor of the
platform. Near him stood the old confessor José de Torquemada of
Medina, barefooted; his cowl thrown back; in his wrinkled hands an
ivory crucifix, which ever and anon he placed to the quivering lips
of the doomed man in the interval of prayer.
Poor Urquija! I forgot all his atrocities and the evil he would once
have done to Slingsby and myself; and now I felt only pity for his
terrible situation.
"I saw your glance of commiseration," said Jack quietly, as he
prepared a cigarito; "but be assured, Ramble, you may as well feel
pity for a bruised wolf. I have not forgotten the Rio de Muerte, and
that night on the hills above Trohniona."
"Noble Caballeros--buenos Christianos," said a venerable Franciscan,
placing before us the wooden platter on which he was receiving the
reals and pence of the faithful; "por neustra Señora Santissima, one
little medio for the sinful soul of Fabrique de Urquija."
Jack and I--though believing but little in monk or mass--were taught
as soldiers to respect the religious prejudices of all men; thus we
were touched by the honest piety of these old pillars of a dying
creed---dying at least in Spain; and we each threw in a gold coin.
This raised an approving murmur among the people, and the prisoner
gave us a glance full of recognition and gratitude. We had paid
enough for fifty masses!
The church bell now began to toll a passing knell.
Then the alguazils, who wore the cavalier costume of other times--the
broad hat, the long locks, the white vandyke collar over a little
shoulder mantle, the short knee-breeches and buckled shoes, of the
days of Cervantes, advanced their halberts and ascended the scaffold,
accompanied by the executioner, who was dressed in the deepest black.
All present now murmured and looked round, and several officers drew
their swords, for rumours of a projected rescue were current in San
Roque and its vicinity.
The confession was ended, and if all the horrors which rumour
ascribed to the unhappy Urquija were true, what a revelation it must
have been! What a volume it would have made!
José Torquemada remained on his knees beside the penitent, who turned
to him ever and anon, anxiously and hurriedly to pour into his ear
some newly-remembered act of guilt, or perhaps to spin out the thread
of life a little--a very little longer.
Meanwhile the solemn bell continued tolling; the people around the
scaffold were nearly all upon their knees, and the grasp of the
executioner was laid upon the iron wrench or screw of the garotte.
The face of the culprit flushed as he did so, and then grew pale as
marble.
The hand of the church clock indicated the hour of noon; then a
cannon pealed from the fortifications of San Roque and the priest
pointed with his crucifix to Heaven, while the executioner, at that
instant, gave the screw a vigorous twist, and the head of Urquija
fell suddenly on his breast. It heaved a little, and all was over.
A "viva" mingled with the prayers of the people; but the dead man
remained motionless and still, under that bright sunshine of noon;
and then rose the hum of many voices as if a load had been taken off
every breast; while the bayonets flashed and the sharp brass drums
beat merrily, as the Spanish Infantry wheeled from hollow square into
open column of companies, and marched by sections through the Plaza
to the fortified camp of San Roque; then the crowd, who, up to the
last moment had foretold and expected a rescue from the band of
Urquija, who were hovering and vowing vengeance on the Sierra de
Ronda, began to disperse.
Such was the last act in the terrible career of Fabrique de Urquija,
the student of Alcala; and such was the last episode of Jack
Slingsby's Spanish adventures and mine.
We dined with the Commandant at the fortified camp of San Roque, and
in the evening rode back to Gibraltar, where we found the garrison in
a buzz of excitement.
"What is the matter?" I asked of a sentinel at the lower
fortifications as we rode in; "and for what reason was that heavy
cannon fired after sunset?"
"The Himalaya has come in, sir, with Sir Henry Slingsby and a
detachment of the Guards on board; she is at anchor in the roads, and
your regiment is ordered to embark for the Crimea by gunfire
to-morrow."
"Hurrah!" cried Jack, and we dashed at full speed to our barracks,
where the clusters of our soldiers in the square, laughing and
talking gaily, the colonel's orderly running after the adjutant, the
adjutant calling for the Serjeant major, and the evident excitement
and satisfaction visible in every face, corroborated the information
of the sentinel, and impressed upon us the necessity of immediately
packing our baggage; but before doing so, I dispatched at once to
press these little tales and episodes which have lightened and
beguiled our mess-table in old Gibraltar; and if they please my
readers, and win from them but half the praise they won from my light
hearted and brave brother officers, my task in collecting them will
be more than recompensed.
WYMAN AND SONS, PRINTERS, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LONDON.