The Spanish Cavalier Part 4

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"Are these bulls bound for the circus?" inquired the Englishman with interest.

The driver nodded his head. "Ay, not one of them will be alive this evening," observed the peasant. "The poor brutes would not go on so proudly towards Seville if they knew what is before them."

"Danger awaits others besides them," muttered Lucius Lepine.

"Ay, senor," observed the herdsman, misunderstanding the drift of the words; "other folk may go as blindfold as these bulls to their death, strong and gay in the morning, dragged in the dust before night.

There's my own brother, for instance, he who lives in our village under the sierra yonder. Poor Carlos was dancing the fandango one day at a bridal, the merriest of the company there; on his way home he but slipped his foot on a steep, rocky path, and down falls the strong, active man, to be picked up with a broken back, and carried to our cottage to lie, as he has done for months, groaning with pain, and helpless as a child."

It occurred to Lucius that here might be an opportunity given to him of introducing into an abode of suffering the comfort of G.o.d's holy Word. "Can your brother read?" he inquired.

"Read!--ay, almost as well as the priest. Carlos always took to the learning, whilst most of our folk know no more of letters than one of the beasts that they drive." The man rose from his seat as he spoke, for he had finished repairing his sandal with a morsel of string.

"Will you give your brother this from me?" said the Englishman, taking from his breast-pocket the Spanish Testament, and offering it to the hind with an effort to overcome the shyness which had hitherto prevented his attempting to spread gospel-knowledge in Spain.

The man took the little volume with a blank stare of surprise at the stranger who had made so extraordinary a present. The peasant then opened and glanced at the contents of the book, and the expression on his face changed to that of fanatical fierceness.

"Bad book--heretical--_muera a los Protestantes_!" (death to the Protestants!) exclaimed the peasant, tearing out several pages from the sacred volume, and then flinging it back at the face of the giver.

The fanatic would probably have added insults and imprecations, had not the necessity of making up for lost time, by rejoining the herd with all speed, obliged the driver to run on quickly in the direction of Seville.

Lucius with a sigh--for failure in an attempt to do good is always painful--picked up first the Testament, and then the scattered leaves,--all save one which escaped his notice, for a light wind had whirled it away.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] I have been informed, since writing the above, that there was an English chaplain; but we may suppose him to have been absent at this time.

CHAPTER VIII.

WITHOUT AND WITHIN.

Not long after Lucius had quitted that spot, there came to it a single horseman, slowly riding towards the city of Seville. The cavalier was richly attired in green and silver; a broad scarlet scarf was wound round his waist, and its fringed end hung gracefully over his shoulder. His feet, cased in high boots, rested on stirrups of peculiar shape, designed from their size and strength to act as a protection to the rider. A Spanish sombrero shaded the cavalier's brow, and his hand grasped a sharp spear. The horseman was Alcala de Aguilera, in full fico as a picador, bound for the Plaza de Toros.

But, save in costume, the young Spaniard had nothing in common with the bull-fighter by profession; Alcala's face and form were both in strong contrast to those of the low-bred favourite of the Coliseo. The form was tall and slight, and conveyed no impression of possessing great physical strength. The pale intellectual countenance, with its delicately-formed features, suggested the idea of a student or poet, rather than that of a bold picador as dead to fear as to mercy. The expression on those features was that of intense melancholy, and formed but too faithful an index to the feelings of the heart which beat beneath the folds of that brilliant scarf.

Alcala was sensible that he had committed an act of the greatest folly. He had ventured all--his sister's peace of mind, his family's comfort, his own life--for a bubble that was not worth the grasping, even were it within his reach. Alcala was not one to care for the applause of a mob; nay, his proud, reserved nature shrank sensitively from the idea of appearing to court it. The greatest success in the common circus would be rather a disgrace than an honour to an Aguilera; he could not raise but degrade himself by competing for popular favour with professional picadors.

Nor had Alcala the incitement of pa.s.sion to impel him onwards in his perilous career. His admiration of the governor's daughter had been but a pa.s.sing fancy, a homage paid to mere beauty; it had no strong hold on his soul. The discovery of Antonia's heartlessness and selfish pride had changed that admiration into something almost resembling contempt. Alcala contrasted Antonia with Inez, the vain selfish beauty with the loving, self-forgetting woman, and felt much as did the knight of old who scornfully flung at the feet of his lady the glove which she had bidden him bring from the arena in which wild beasts were contending.

"Were I offered the hand of Antonia de Rivadeo," mused Aguilera, "I would not now accept it, though she should bring as her dowry all Andalusia!"

Thus even in success there was nothing to attract the young Spaniard.

But Alcala had scarcely any hope of success; and if the brighter side of the picture was but dull, the darker was gloomy indeed. Alcala had not frequented bull-fights; the sport was little to his taste, though he did not regard it with all the horror and disgust which he would have felt had he been brought up in England. But though the cavalier had not been frequently seen at the Plaza de Toros, he had often enough been a spectator of the scenes acted in the circus to know well what dangers attend the contest with a furious bull, and how absolutely essential to the safety of a picador is skill in the use of his weapon. Such skill could only be acquired by practice, and until this time Alcala had never handled a spear. In the grasp of the young cavalier it felt unwieldy and c.u.mbrous. He was as little likely to use it effectually, as he would have been to climb to the mast-head of a vessel in the midst of a storm, having never had nautical training.

Superst.i.tion, from which Alcala was not perfectly free, although far more enlightened than most of his countrymen, tended to deepen the impression on his mind that he was riding to his destruction. When Alcala had been very young, his mother had consulted an old Gitana, famed for her skill in prognostications, as to the future fate of her boy. The child had never forgotten the weird appearance of the old wrinkled hag, nor the words of her mumbled reply: "He will die in his prime a violent death, and many shall look on at his fall." The warning recurred to Alcala's memory with almost the force of prophecy, now that he appeared so likely to meet such a fate as had been thus foretold.

Then, to think on the position in which his death would leave his family made Alcala de Aguilera writhe with mental torture. What would become of his aged parent, widowed and imbecile--what would become of his gentle loving sister, if their one prop were taken away? They had already parted with most of the relics left of his grandfather's wealth; not an acre which had once belonged to the estates of the Aguileras remained to them now. The mansion in Seville was out of repair, and situated in a now unfas.h.i.+onable quarter; should the ruined family be driven to part with their home, the sale of the house would bring but temporary relief to their need. It was not without a sharp pang that Alcala thought even of Teresa, with all her faults so loving and faithful a retainer, and revolved the probability of her ending her long life of service by becoming a beggar in Seville!

And it was his madness that had done all. He was ruthlessly sacrificing all who loved him, all whom he loved, to the Moloch of his own pride! Alcala, when tortured by such reflections, again and again almost resolved to break his fatal engagement, and make some excuse for not entering the circus. But the sneers of his acquaintance, the scoffs of his rivals, the yells of a disappointed mob, were harder to be encountered than the charge of a savage bull. Alcala had not the moral courage to face them. He could not endure to live on to be taunted as the foreign manufacturer's clerk, who with the estates of his ancestors had also lost all their courage and spirit. There was but one thing (and that thing the cavalier lacked)--the constraining power of faith and love--that could have enabled the Spaniard to throw down and trample under foot that Moloch of pride.

But worse even than fears for his family, worse than the antic.i.p.ation of a violent death for himself, was the awful darkness which to Alcala hung over the future beyond the grave! To die was to him as a leap into chaos! Alcala was, as has been observed, more enlightened than many Spaniards: he had used the taper-gleams of man's knowledge; but of clear light from Heaven he had none. Alcala had read enough to make him loosen his hold on the vain superst.i.tions of the Church in which he had been reared, but not enough to make him grasp any firm hope in their place. The Spaniard did not believe that a priest could absolve him from sin, therefore he felt that those sins were yet unforgiven.

He could not ease his conscience by repeating Latin prayers or reciting a given number of penitential psalms, therefore his conscience remained oppressed. The cavalier had no faith in prescribed penance, purchased ma.s.ses, or confessions to man, as means of propitiating One who was to him indeed an "unknown G.o.d"; where then was he to find peace? What was to a.s.sure Alcala that, if he gasped out his last breath that day in the circus, he might not be but exchanging the death agony for torments infinitely more terrible, because they would never be closed by death? The state of mind of the cavalier might, with little alteration, be described in the words of the poet:--

"Before him tortures which the soul may dare, But doubts how well the shrinking flesh may bear, Yet deeply feels a single cry would shame To valour's praise his last, his dearest claim.

The life he lost below--denied above.

A more than doubtful Paradise, his heaven Of earthly hope, his loved one from him riven.

These were the thoughts that [Spaniard] must sustain And govern pangs surpa.s.sing mortal pain, And these sustained he, boots it well or ill, Since not to sink beneath is something still."

In the anguish of his spirit the mind of Alcala reverted again and again to Lucius Lepine. The Spaniard was of course aware that his English companion held views of religion very different from those adopted by the Roman Catholic Church. Alcala had secretly wished to know more of these Protestant views, and now the wish became intense when it was too late to gratify it. Alcala thought his English friend the most upright and highminded man with whom he had ever met, and was acute enough to distinguish that highmindedness from pride. The Spaniard saw that Lepine had a loftier standard of duty than those around him, and asked himself whence had that standard been drawn.

Alcala had never indeed heard his friend converse on the topic of Divinity; but in many things, some of them trifling in themselves, the observant eye of the cavalier had seen that his companion was guided by a sense of religion. No profane word ever crossed the lips of Lepine; he was pure in his life; he reverenced the Sabbath in a way that appeared novel and strange to Alcala, but which the Spaniard could not but respect.

And yet this n.o.ble-hearted, conscientious Englishman was one whom the Romish priests would denounce as a heretic doomed to perdition! "How strange," mused Alcala, "that from the root of error should spring a tree bearing fruits so fair!" The Spaniard had yearned for a clearer knowledge of that faith which was branded as worse than infidelity, and which yet could produce such effects. He would fain have questioned Lucius on the subject, but pride and reserve kept him silent.

Once only had the ice been slightly broken. Lucius had been led to allude in conversation to the death of his father, who, when cruising in the Pacific, had been struck dead by a flash of lightning. It was a painful subject, and one on which he rarely touched; but the two friends were together alone under the quiet moonlight, and there had been more of interchange of thought between them than there had ever been before.

"It must have embittered your trial," Alcala had observed, "that your father had no time for preparation for death--no time to receive the last rites of his Church." Greatly had the Spaniard been struck by his companion's reply, "No; for my father had made his peace with G.o.d long before." Not a shadow of doubt had darkened the countenance of the Protestant as he uttered these words; Lepine had looked as fully a.s.sured of the happiness of his parent as if he had himself seen him carried by angels into the skies. Alcala could not utter the question which trembled on his lips, "Have you then no fear of the purgatorial pains which, as our priests tell us, are needed to purify even the good?" That question was answered, ere it was asked, by the peace--the more than peace--which shone in the eyes of Lucius.

"What would not I give," thought the unhappy Alcala, as he rode towards Seville, "to know on what basis rested that a.s.surance of hope which evidently made the Protestant look upon sudden death but as a step into glory! Lepine's father had 'made his peace with G.o.d long before!' How had he made his peace; how could he know that his sins were forgiven, and that he might stand without trembling before the awful judgment-seat of his G.o.d?"

CHAPTER IX.

THE BRIEF FAREWELL.

Alcala had now reached the place where the narrow lane in which stood the posada in which he had pa.s.sed the night opened into the highway leading directly to Seville. He was now on the road along which, ten minutes previously, had pa.s.sed the herd of fighting-bulls destined for the arena. Alcala saw the print of their hoofs in the dust; he noticed at no great distance the gleam of their horns above the cloud raised by their tramping and that of their mounted conductors. Alcala had been near enough to hear that defiant roar of the monarch of the herd that had thrilled on the ear of Lucius. Campeador had raised his ta.s.selled head, and p.r.i.c.ked up his ears at the noise.

Alcala bent down to stroke the neck of his steed. "Ah! Campeador," he gloomily said as he did so, "does instinct tell you that there is death in that sound? You too will suffer from my accursed folly and pride. You deserve a better fate, my poor horse, and a far better master!"

As Alcala slowly rode onwards, following in the track of the bulls, he saw a muleteer approaching towards him. Lepine, after his brief and unsatisfactory colloquy with the herdsman, had turned off in a different direction, or he must have encountered his friend. The figure of the muleteer was the only one visible at this point upon the narrow road, which lay through a cutting.

Alcala, buried in his painful reflections, would scarcely have noticed the muleteer, had not the man, when they had almost met, respectfully greeted him by his name.

"Senor de Aguilera," said the messenger of Inez, approaching the cavalier's stirrup, "I bear to you a letter from a senorita." And the muleteer held up to Alcala the epistle which had been intrusted to his charge.

Alcala stopped his horse, s.h.i.+fted his lance to his bridle-hand, took the note, and with a little difficulty disengaged it from its envelope. Only the presence of a stranger made him refrain from groaning aloud as he read the impa.s.sioned words of his sister. Her threat to bury herself in a convent thrilled his soul with unspeakable anguish; for gentle and yielding as was the nature of Inez, her brother had never yet known her fail in keeping her word, even in the face of opposition. If anything could have added to the misery of the young Spaniard, it was such a letter as this. For a moment it almost shook his firm resolution to brave out the consequences of his rash boast; for a moment Alcala thought of turning his bridle and urging Campeador to bear him afar from Seville! But it could not be; every drop of proud Spanish blood in the veins of an Aguilera seemed to protest against so ignominious a flight. Alcala, whose brain was dizzy from the violence of his emotions, was recalled to himself by the muleteer's question,--

"Has the caballero any message for me to take back to the senorita?"