"We will see to our beasts then."
"She tells me they are ready saddled."
"Saints! She is in a hurry, that girl! Ah, well, then let us go and ask
no questions."
We found our mare and mule, paid our reckoning, and rode forth from
Salamanca. At the bridge-end we showed the passports, and were bidden
to go in peace. As we climbed the hill beyond, I handed Fuentes Luisa's
second letter.
"She bade me deliver it here," I explained.
He read it, turned in his saddle, and looked back towards the twilit
sky. "A likely tale," said he, crushing the letter into his pocket.
* * * * *
Scarcely a year later--to be precise, on the 17th of June, 1812--the
Allied forces crossed the fords above and below Salamanca, and invested
the fortifications which still commanded the bridge. In the suburbs and
outlying quarters the inhabitants lit up their houses and, cheering and
weeping, thronged the streets to press the hands of the deliverers.
On the 27th the forts fell, and these scenes were renewed. I was
passing through the Plaza Mayor that night, about eight o'clock, when a
man plucked me by the sleeve, and, turning in the light of a bonfire, I
confronted Fuentes. I had not seen him since our return to Lisbon: and
his face, in the bonfire's glare, seemed to me to have aged woefully.
"The shells may have spared her house," said he. "Do you care to go
with me and see what remains of it?"
He linked his arm in mine. We dived into the dark streets together.
The Street of the Virgins had suffered from the Allies' artillery, and
we picked our way over fallen chimney-stacks and heaps of rubble to
the remembered door. It stood open, no porter guarding it: but a lamp
smoked in the stairway, and by the light of it we mounted together.
On the topmost landing all was dark, but here within the half-open door
a light shone. Fuentes tapped on the door and pressed it open. From a
deep armchair beside the empty fireplace a woman rose to greet us. It
was the duenna, Doña Isabel. Behind her in the open window a lamp shone
within a red shade, swaying a little in the draught.
"I give you welcome, Sirs," quavered the old lady in a voice that
seemed to flicker, too, in the draught. "By the shouting I understood
that the forts have fallen and for some while I have been expecting
you.... It is dull up here, and a poor welcome for young gentlemen
since my darling died. But on such a night as this----"
She gazed around her, resting both hands on the arms of her chair.
"Luisa! Where is Luisa?" cried Fuentes sharply.
"They come very seldom now," pursued the old woman, not hearing or not
comprehending. "It is dull, you understand. You, Sir, are Don Eugenio,
are you not?" She nodded palsywise toward the white bed, where a broken
guitar lay between two baskets of withered flowers.
"I was to tell you----" She broke off and lifted a hand half-way to
her brow, but let it drop. "I was to tell you, if you came, that her
letter was true, and always the lamp had been lit for you only. It
burns still, you see. She loved you, my little one did; and she was
good--always, though she laughed, she was good."
Fuentes stepped to the bed and took the guitar in his hands. Some blow
had broken in the sounding-board, and one of the strings had snapped.
"There is no blood upon it," went on the old woman in the same tone
that seemed pitilessly striving not to hurt. "The little one scarcely
bled at all. But Don Diego struck hard, and somehow the guitar was
broken, yet it may have been with her elbow as she fell. It was
not treachery, you understand. At first she believed that in his
jealousy he meant to betray you, but he meant only to murder. And she,
discovering this, dressed herself in your clothes and took your place
in the line that night: I heard her playing down the stairs: they were
all playing 'My love, she lives in Salamanca'--that was the tune--your
own tune, Don Eugenio--and she, with her mask on, singing bravely, the
third in the line. She was short, you remember--oh, perhaps a head and
shoulders shorter than you!--but Don Diego, outside the door in the
darkness, could not see well, or maybe he was misled by your guitar.
And, afterwards, Don Sebastian ran him through. They brought her
upstairs to me and laid her on the bed. She was breathing yet, but for
a very little while: and I was to tell you--I was to tell you----" She
broke off again, seeking to remember.
"Was it something about the lamp, Doña Isabel?"
"Yes, that was it--but I have told you already, eh? Only for you she
had ever lit it: for years, yet always and only for you...."
He crept past me, the guitar beneath his arm, and I followed. He went
like a blind man, groping between the stair-rail and the wall.
PRINTED BY
WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED
LONDON AND BECCLES.