A Volunteer with Pike Part 53

I caught sight of the weal of the lash across her forehead, and I quivered with fury.

"That!" I muttered--"that mark upon your forehead! They struck you?"

"No, no!" she soothed. "Lie still, beloved. It was only an accident. It does not hurt me--nothing can hurt me, Juan, now that we have found each other!"

"Dearest one!" I whispered.

She bent close above me, with her soft round arm about my neck,--and quickly all my pain and rage died away and were forgotten under the glory of the golden love-light in her tender eyes.

Dr. Cuthbert coughed, then took snuff. At that moment we would not have heeded a cannon roaring in our ears.

At last, however, Father Rocus entered, followed closely by Captain Powers. Alisanda quietly rose to face them, but held to my hand as a mother would clasp the hand of the child she sought to defend. The captain stared at her between anger and admiration.

"Mademoiselle Vallois!" he rumbled. "What does all this mean? How dare you interfere with the discipline of my s.h.i.+p?"

"How dare you, who call yourself an officer and a Christian, torture so hideously this gentleman?" she returned.

"Gentleman?--Torture?" he echoed, taken aback.

"The gentleman I am betrothed to marry."

"Marry!--Him?"

"_Santisima Virgen!_ yes!" she cried. "And you!--you have lashed him like a slave!--the truest, most gallant gentleman in Christendom!"

He muttered something about the mad third mate of a sloop. To this Dr.

Cuthbert made hasty reply: "All a mistake, sir,--a most egregious error. Mr. Robinson is, I am certain, precisely what he claimed."

"Nevertheless," broke in the captain, his voice as hard as iron, "the man has been tried, found guilty, and sentenced to one hundred lashes.

He has received ninety-seven. There are still three strokes."

"I will bear them for him!" said Alisanda.

"Mademoiselle, do not make yourself ridiculous," he reproved.

"Better that than your cowardly cruelty in seeking to lash to death a citizen of the Republic which revolted from your brutal rule!" she thrust back at him.

He stood for some moments gazing into her scornful eyes. Despite all his harshness and arrogance, I believe he was alike pleased with her spirit and softened by her beauty.

"This man is entered in my crew as a subject of His Majesty," he at last stated, in a tone which invited argument.

"He is not a Briton," she replied. "I know he is an American. I met and travelled with him in his own land. I saw, on the bank of the Ohio, the tomb of his mother, who was slain by the red savages in the pay of your Government. He was a volunteer with an expedition under Lieutenant Pike of the Army of the United States. They crossed the western deserts of Louisiana and the lofty sierras of the West, and came far south into New Spain."

"Hold!" exclaimed the captain. "That is incredible."

"It is the truth," confirmed Father Rocus.

"You support her statement, sir?" demanded Powers.

"I am ready to swear to it, on my sacred word," replied the padre. "This gentleman upon the couch is Dr. John H. Robinson, a physician of the Louisiana Territory, who was the _compagnon du voyage_ of Lieutenant Pike in the amazing journey of which Senorita Vallois has spoken. It is as I told you before we entered."

Father Rocus spoke with no less force than suavity.

"It begins to look as though a mistake had been made," admitted the captain with obstinate reluctance.

"A mistake, sir, which has come near to costing Dr. Robinson his life,"

ventured Dr. Cuthbert, snuff-box in hand.

"A mistake which can never be rectified," added Father Rocus.

The stubborn Briton was at last convinced. "I will make such reparation as lies within my power. Dr. Robinson, I offer you my apology for this unfortunate mistake."

I closed my eyes and clung tightly to Alisanda's hand, that I might not fling his apology back in his teeth. I heard the murmur of the padre's voice, followed by the tread of feet and the opening and closing of the door. Then once more Alisanda's arm was about my neck and her fragrant lips were pressed upon my mouth.

"Dearest," she whispered, "they have gone. I alone am here now, to comfort you."

"You are here!" I repeated. "Tell me. How did you come? I sailed for Vera Cruz, but they took me by force from the sloop."

I paused, as suddenly my two memories brought together the sloop _Siren_ and the sloop which had sunk my lady's s.h.i.+p.

"Lafitte!" I exclaimed.

"Lafitte?" she asked, bewildered.

"All's well that ends well!" I cried. "After all, he brought us together."

"Who, Juan?"

"Jean Lafitte, the man who was to have landed me in Vera Cruz."

"Ah, Vera Cruz--_Santa Maria!_ that terrible city! People were dying by scores of the yellow fever. We lingered as long as we dared. But you did not come. The padre said you could not have read my message aright. We at last took s.h.i.+p for Western Florida. There was none sailing for New Orleans."

"You were coming to me! But the veil--the nun's veil?"

"It is gone--see!" She put her free hand to the silky ma.s.s of her dusky hair. "G.o.d forgive me, Juan! It was for your sake, and with the a.s.sent of the padre, that I took the novitiate vows."

"For my sake, Alisanda?"

"That I might come to you, my knight! When you left me, my uncle became all the more insistent that I should marry the Governor-General. The padre had already planned for me this way of escape. I took the vows of a novice. After that neither my uncle nor Dona Marguerite dared oppose the counsel of the padre when he told them I must go to the Convent of my Order in Vera Cruz. You see how selfish a love is mine. I could not give you up, Juan. I was not a heroine, to give myself for the saving of an oppressed people."

"No!" I rejoined. "You could not have helped the people of New Spain.

They must fight their own battles. No people are worthy of freedom who are not ready to give their lives for the ending of tyranny. Had you sacrificed yourself to Salcedo, he would either have betrayed the revolution, or he would have made himself a dictator, more tyrannous than before."

"You told me that in Chihuahua, dear. I repeated your words to the padre, and he confirmed the statement. It was well, for had he shared my uncle's faith in Don Nimesio, he also might have sought to persuade me to give myself to the cause of liberty."

"As it was," I murmured, "you attempted to come to me--alone!"

"Not alone, Juan. There were the padre and my faithful Chita."