THE RECEPTION
The effect of my impulse to extinguish the light in the room was much
greater than I had anticipated. It proved to be the happiest thought I
had ever had; for I am convinced that it saved my life, and probably
that of my companion.
The average Portuguese of the lower class is too plugged with
superstition ever to feel very happy in the dark. He is quick to people
it with all sorts of impalpable terrors. And these fellows were soon in
a bad scare.
For a few moments the wildest confusion prevailed. Execrations,
threats, cries of anger, and prayers were mingled in about equal
proportions; and every man who had a pistol fired it off. At least,
that appeared to be the case, judging by the number of shots.
As they aimed at the corner where they had seen us, however, nothing
resulted except a waste of ammunition.
The darkness was all in my favour. I knew that any man who touched me
in the dark must be an enemy; while they could not tell, when they ran
against any one, whether it was friend or foe. More than one struggle
among them told me this, and showed me further what was of at least
equal importance--that they were afraid to advance farther into the
room.
When a lull came in the racket, therefore, I adopted another ruse. I
crept toward the corner where they had seen us, and, stamping heavily,
cried out that I would shoot the first man I touched.
Another volley of shots followed; but I was back out of range again,
and soon had very welcome proof that the trick was successful. Each man
appeared to mistake his neighbour for me, and some of them were pretty
roughly handled by their friends before the blunders were discovered.
Some one shouted for a light; and in the lull that succeeded we had
a great stroke of luck. The wounded man, who lay in a corner near to
them, began to move his feet restlessly, and they immediately jumped to
the conclusion that I was going to attack them from there.
I backed this idea promptly. Letting out a fierce yell of rage, I
fired a shot at random. This filled to overflowing the cup of their
cowardice, and in another moment they had bolted like rabbits out of
the room and locked the door again.
I lost no time in relighting the candles, and set to work to pile the
furniture against the door to prevent them taking us again by surprise,
and to give me time to see if we couldn’t get away by the window.
Opening it as quietly as possible I had a good look at the bars, and
saw that it would be possible to force them sufficiently apart with
wedges for us to squeeze through.
“We can reach the street this way, madame?” I asked my companion, who
was now very badly scared.
“It is useless,” she replied despairingly.
“Not so useless as stopping here. We can’t expect such luck a second
time as we have just had.” I spoke sharply, wishing to rouse her.
But she only shook her head and tossed up her hands. So I began to
break up some of the furniture to make some wedges, when she jumped to
her feet with a cry of surprise and delight.
“It is his voice,” she exclaimed, her eyes shining and her face
radiant with delight. Whoever “he” might be, it was easy to see what
she felt about him.
Then the key was turned once more and an attempt made to force away my
impromptu barricade.
I closed the window instantly and blew out one of the candles.
“Open the door. It is I, Barosa,” called a voice.
“Let him in, monsieur. Let him in at once. We are safe now.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, suspecting a trick.
Again the rich colour flooded her face. “Do you think I do not know his
voice, or that he would harm me? Let him in. Let him in, I say,” she
cried excitedly.
I pulled away enough of the barricade to admit one man at a time. I
reckoned that no one man of the crowd I had seen would have the pluck
to come in alone.
A dark, handsome, well-dressed man squeezed his way through the opening
with an impatient exclamation on the score of my precaution. And the
instant she saw his face, my companion sprang toward him uttering his
name impetuously.
“Manoel! Manoel! Thank the Holy Virgin you have come.”
His appearance excited me also, for I recognized him at a glance.
He had been pointed out to me in Paris some time before by my
brother-in-law as one of the chief agents of Dom Miguel, the Pretender
to the Portuguese Throne. His real name was Luis Beriardos. His
presence in Lisbon at such a time and his connexion with a section of
the revolutionaries gave me a clue to the whole business.
The two stood speaking together for a time in whispers, and then he
went out to the others. I heard him explain that they had made a
blunder in regard to madame and that he was ready to vouch for her as
one of their best friends and a leader of their movements.
Some further murmur of talk followed, and when he returned, one or two
of the rest tried to follow. But I stopped that move. One man was all I
meant to have in the room at a time; and when I told the others to get
out they went. I had managed to make them understand that it was safer
to obey.
“What does this mean, sir?” asked Barosa, indignantly.
“You need have no fear now, Mr. Donnington,” added madame.
I replied to Barosa. “Those men have been telling you that I am a spy
and you have come in to question me. This lady has assured me that I
have nothing to fear from you. You will therefore have the goodness to
get the key of that door and lock it on this side. Then we can talk,
but not till then.”
“I shall not do anything of the sort,” he replied hotly.
“Then I shall shove these things back in position;” and I began.
“Dr. Barosa will get the key, Mr. Donnington,” put in madame; and she
appealed to him with a look. “He has saved my life, doctor,” she said
in an undertone.
I noticed that she did not now call him by his Christian name as in the
first flush of her relief.
He hesitated a second or two and then with an angry shrug of the
shoulders complied.
“I’ll take the key, doctor,” I said quietly; and when he stood
irresolute, I pushed past him and drew it out of the lock. “Now we can
talk, and I’m ready to answer any questions, in reason, which you like
to ask.”
“Your conduct is very extraordinary, sir.”
“Not a bit of it. These friends of yours take me for a spy. You may
come to the same conclusion. They tried to take my life; and you
may wish to do the same. I am simply taking precautions. I have told
this lady enough about myself to satisfy her that I am no spy; but if
you are not equally satisfied, I prefer to remain here with no other
company than ourselves until a chance of getting away offers.”
He was going to reply when madame interposed. To do her justice she
took up my cause with a right good will. She repeated all I had
previously told her, gave him a graphic account of what had passed,
lauded me to the skies, and ended by declaring her absolute conviction
that every word I had spoken was the truth.
Feeling that my case was in safe hands, I let them have it out
together. He was suspicious, and at every proof of this, her anger and
indignation increased.
“I have accepted Mr. Donnington’s word, Dr. Barosa,” she said hotly,
when he declared that I ought not to be allowed to leave the house;
“and I have given him a pledge for his safety. You know me, and that I
will keep my word. Very well, I declare to you on my honour that if any
harm comes to him now, I will abandon the cause and reveal everything I
know about it and all concerned in it.”
That shook all the opposition out of him on the spot.
“You are at liberty to go, Mr. Donnington,” he said at once.
“Thank you; but what about your friends out there?”
“I will leave the house with you,” declared madame. “And we will see if
any one will dare to try and stop you.”
“It might be simpler if they were to go first,” I suggested.
“I will answer for them,” said Barosa. “We have your word that you will
not speak of anything you have learned here to-night?”
“Yes, I pledge my word,” I replied.
“Let me thank you once more, Mr. Donnington----” began madame.
But I stopped her. “We can call the account between us squared, madame.
If I helped you out of one mess you have got me out of this. And for
the rest, silence for silence. We shall not meet again.”
“Are you staying long in the city, sir?” asked Barosa with a suggestion
of eagerness in his tone.
“Not an hour longer than my business here renders necessary. I am not
so delighted with my experiences so far as to wish to remain.”
He left the room then and after a hurried conference with the fellows
outside he called to us and we left the house.
With what relief I drew the first breath of the fresh night air will
be readily understood; but I do not think I fully realized how narrow
an escape I had had until I was safe in my rooms and sat recalling the
incidents of the strange adventure.
Who was the woman I had helped? Not a hint had been dropped of her
name; but that she was a person of as much importance in the world
outside as in the ranks of the revolutionary party of which she was a
leader, I could not doubt. That the conspiracy was being carried on
in the interest of the Pretender was fairly certain, seeing that this
Beriardos, or Barosa, as he now called himself, was mixed up in it; and
I resolved to write at once to Madrillo to send me everything he knew
about him.
What had he meant, too, by that eager question as to the length of
my stay in the city? He was certainly not satisfied that I was not a
spy. Should I have to be on the look-out for further trouble from him
and the scum of the city joined with him? It was a more probable than
pleasant prospect.
As that exceedingly handsome creature had reminded me, I had gained
some information which made me dangerous to these people; and however
willing she might be to accept my promise of secrecy, it was all
Portugal to a bunch of grapes that the others would not be so content.
And the irritating part of it was that I had got into the mess
through my own blundering stupidity. If I hadn’t been ass enough to
go wandering about the city when I had been warned to stop indoors, I
shouldn’t have had this bother. But the world is full of asses; and
many of them with a heap more brains than I. And with a chuckle, as if
that silly cynicism were both an excuse and a consolation, I tossed
away my cigar and went to bed.
A night’s sound sleep put me on much better terms with myself, and I
scouted the thought of troublesome personal consequences following my
adventure. The thing was over and done with and I was well out of the
mess.
Instead of bothering to write to Madrillo for details about this Dr.
Barosa, therefore, I went off to the _Stella_ for a cruise to blow the
cobwebs away and think about Miralda and the meeting with her that
evening.
We were to meet at the house of the Marquis de Pinsara, and my friend,
Volheno, had impressed upon me the importance of the gathering.
“Affairs are in a somewhat delicate condition just at present,” he
had said; “and as there is a great deal of surface discontent here
and in Oporto--although the bulk of the country is solid in our
favour--we have to exercise some care in organizing our followers.
The Marquis de Pinsara is one of M. Franco’s firmest adherents, and
this reception will really be political in character. You may have
heard of the ‘National League of Portugal?’ No? Well, it is a powerful
loyalist association, and we are doing our utmost to make the movement
fully representative and powerful;” and being a politician and
proportionately verbose, he had first inflicted upon me a long account
of the League and its merits, and from that had launched into the
reasons why he meant to take me to the reception. Put shortly these
were simply that he wished to interest the Marquis de Pinsara and many
of his loyalist friends in the concessions at Beira which I had put
forward as the object of my visit.
What this process of “interesting” the Marquis meant, I learnt within a
few minutes of my entering his house.
As Volheno sent me a line at the last moment saying he was detained,
I had to go alone and I was very glad. Not being quite certain how
Miralda would receive me, I did not wish to have any lookers-on when
me met. Moreover, I certainly did not want to fool away the evening, a
good deal of which I hoped to spend with her, in talking a lot of rot
about these concessions which I had only used as a stalking-horse for
my visit to Lisbon.
But I soon found that in choosing them, I had invested myself with a
most inconvenient amount of importance.
The Marquis received me with as much cordiality as if I were an old
friend and benefactor of his family. He grasped my hand warmly,
expressed his delight at making my acquaintance, could not find words
to describe his admiration of England and the English, and then started
upon the concessions.
I thought he would never stop, but he came to the point. Volheno had
taken as gospel all the rubbish I had talked about the prospects of
wealth offered by the concessions, and had passed it on to the marquis
through a magnifying glass until the latter, being a comparatively
poor man, was under the impression that I could make his fortune. He
was more than willing to be “interested” in the scheme; and took great
pains to convince me that without his influence I could not succeed.
And that influence was mine for a consideration.
In the desire to get free from his button-holing I gave him promises
lavish enough to send him off to his other guests with eyes positively
glittering with greed.
Unfortunately for me, however, he began to use his influence at once,
and while I was hanging about near the entrance, waiting to catch
Miralda the moment she arrived, he kept bringing up a number of his
friends--mostly titled and all tiresome bores--whom he was also
“interesting” in the scheme.
They all said the same thing. Theirs was the only influence which
could secure the concessions for me, and they all made it plain about
the consideration. I began at length to listen for the phrase and
occasionally to anticipate it; and thus in half an hour or so I had
promised enough backsheesh to have crippled the scheme ten times over.
One of these old fellows--a marquis or visconte or something of the
sort, the biggest bore of the lot anyway--was in possession of me
in a corner when Miralda arrived, and for the life of me I couldn’t
shake him off. I was worrying how to get away when the marquis came
sailing up with another of them in tow, a tall, stiff, hawk-faced,
avaricious-looking old man, with a pompous air, and more orders on his
breast than I could count.
I groaned and wished the concessions at the bottom of the Tagus, but
the next moment had to shut down a smile. It was the Visconte de Linto,
Miralda’s stepfather.
The marquis had evidently filled him up with exaggerated stories of
my wealth and the riches I had come to pour into the pockets of those
who assisted me, and his first tactic was to get rid of the bore in
possession. He did this by carrying me off to present me to his wife
and daughter.
It was the reverse of such a meeting as I had pictured or desired; for
at that moment Miralda was besieged by a crowd of men clamouring for
dances. But I could not think of an excuse, and I had barely time
to explain that I had met Miralda and her mother in Paris, when the
old man pushed his way unceremoniously through the little throng and
introduced me, stumbling over my name which he had obviously forgotten,
and adding that Miralda must save two or three dances for me.
As he garbled my name she was just taking her dance card back from a
man who had scribbled his initials on it and she turned to me with a
little impatient movement of the shoulders which I knew well.
Our eyes met, and my fear that she might have forgotten me was
dissipated on the instant.