The Spanish Cavalier: A Story of Seville

Away hurried Teresa, leaving her young lady to do her work and think over her warning.

The first occupation was easy enough: Inez had often prepared her grandmother's meals. But while her slender fingers did their office, the mind of the poor girl was painfully revolving the words of Teresa. Might they not be only too true – might not Alcala have actually placed himself within reach of the grasp of the law? Inez was constantly turning in terror to listen for sounds that might announce the coming of alguazils to seize on her brother, and search the house. The horrors of a Spanish prison to a gentleman of refinement, who had not yet recovered from the effects of a wound, and who was too poor to bribe his jailers, might actually realize the picture drawn by Teresa. The heart of Inez sank within her.

While Donna Benita was partaking of food so delicately prepared by her grand-daughter, that not even the old lady's weak, fretful mind could find in it subject for complaint, Inez was planning a little scheme for Alcala's safety, in case a search-warrant should be issued.

"The Book must not be found in this house, at least not in my brother's possession," thought Inez. "I will not destroy, but I will conceal it. I will carefully wrap up the volume, and then bury it deep, very deep, in the earth under the orange-trees which grow round the fountain; no one will look for it there, and I will take it up again when the danger is over. Alcala will spare it for a few days when I tell him why I have buried the Book. He will miss it the less since he knows, I believe, half of its contents by heart already."

It seemed a long time to Inez before Donna Benita concluded her tedious repast; a long time before her grand-daughter could beat up her pillow, shut out the daylight, and leave the old lady to enjoy the siesta which always followed her morning meal.

Inez then hurriedly proceeded to the patio, and took, from a recess in which she kept her few garden utensils, a spud with which she was wont to weed her parterre. She noticed that her plants looked less flourishing than they had done before her brother's illness; no one had cared to water or tend them, and many a shrivelled leaf showed the lack of a mistress's care. "Alcala must not find them thus," thought Inez; "my chief joy in my garden comes from knowing that it gives pleasure to him."

In haste to accomplish the work of burying the volume during the absence of Teresa, Inez knelt down, and with her imperfect instrument began to dig a hole in the earth which surrounded the fountain. The maiden found the task more difficult than she had expected. The sod was dry and hard; Inez had to bring water to saturate the earth before she could make much impression upon it.

"A little deeper, – it will be safer to make the hole a little deeper," said Inez to herself, when she paused to take breath after labour which the heat of the day made oppressive. The lady took up her garden utensil again, and struck it, not down into deeper earth, but against something hard which returned a metallic clink to the stroke.

"What can be here?" exclaimed the maiden. She removed more of the earth, till a small pile of it was deposited on either side of the hole which she had been digging. A little more scraping then revealed to her view, as she bent over the opening, something like a wooden box with a handle of metal. Stooping yet lower, – she was still on her knees, – Inez took hold of the handle, and with an effort of her utmost strength attempted to draw out the box; but she was unable even to stir it.

"Can I help the señorita?" said Chico, who had been attracted to the patio by the slight but unusual noise made by Inez when digging out the earth. Since the death of poor Campeador, the bandy-legged groom had found more time for idling about.

Inez started at the unexpected voice, threw back the long hair which had fallen over her brow as she had stooped and laboured, and rose from her kneeling position. Her first feeling was that of annoyance at the intrusion of Chico; but as she was unable to accomplish her object without assistance, she accepted the offer of his aid. The young lady stood on the marble pavement watching while Chico, with considerable labour and difficulty, disengaged the box from the earth in which it had lain embedded, and, lifting it out of the hole, laid it heavily down at her feet.

The box was not so large as an ordinary desk, but exceedingly heavy in proportion to its size. It appeared to be made of walnut wood, with hinges, lock, and handle of steel, and it was clamped with broad bands of the same metal. But for many, many years that box had lain under the earth, and now the steel was rusted, the wood was rotten. The lock, indeed, was a good one still, but the hinges were eaten away with rust, and had no power to resist the strong wrench with which Chico, ere Inez could prevent him, tore off the lid of the box.

The sight of its contents, thus laid bare to the view, made Inez open wide her dark eyes with surprise. The box was a little treasury in itself, holding wealth packed up in the most portable shape. Rouleaus of gold pieces, cases of jewels, a golden goblet filled with chains, coins, snuff-boxes, all of the same precious metal, appeared before the eyes of the wondering girl.

"Move nothing – touch nothing!" cried Inez to Chico, who, on his knees, was gloating open-mouthed over the treasure, and about to lift the goblet out of the box to explore what lay beneath it. "The Señor Don Alcala must be the first to examine what is within."

Chico took out a piece of parchment and held it up to Inez, who read on it the following words: – "I, Don Pedro de Aguilera, before leaving Seville to join the army, being apprehensive that the French may one day possibly occupy this city, do bury this casket containing my wife's most valuable jewels, and a portion of my family plate, 1810."

"Heaven has sent help to us in our utmost need!" exclaimed Inez, clasping her hands, and looking upwards with grateful joy.

But wealth is wont to bring care, and Inez had no sooner obtained possession of the family treasure than she began uneasily to revolve in her mind how she could best secure it. Her first impulse was to bid Chico carry it at once to her brother's apartment, and place it under the care of Alcala. But a moment's reflection made Inez doubt the expediency of this course.

"Alcala is in peril already," thought Inez; "should I not greatly add to his danger by placing in his room, which has not even a key to its lock, a treasure like this? If the discovery of these rich jewels and pieces of gold were bruited abroad in Seville, it would arouse the cupidity of all the ruffians with whom this city abounds! My Alcala might be murdered as well as robbed! Would I not act more wisely if I buried the treasure again, only taking out, time by time, a few pieces of money to supply our immediate need?"

Inez glanced down at Chico, who, in spite of her prohibition, seemed unable to resist the temptation of fingering the gold with his coarse, dirty hands. "I dare not trust Chico," thought Inez, in sore perplexity; "if the treasure were buried, he at least would know the secret, and there would be nothing to hinder him from abstracting whatever he pleased from the box. I hope, I think that he is honest; but the temptation might prove too great. The gold must be kept under lock and key, – where can I place it in safety?" Inez raised her hand to her brow, and reflected for several moments. It was so new a thing to the maiden to be burdened with the care of riches! Presently an expression of satisfaction came to the anxious young face.

"There is the armoury," thought Inez; "the door is strong, and the lock is good. We will shut up the box within it, and give Alcala the key."

The place which was called the armoury, from weapons and ammunition having once been kept there, was little more than a deep recess in the wall which enclosed the patio, closed in by a low strong door, which had been so constructed as to attract little notice from without. A stranger might have resided for months in the house of the Aguileras, and have spent hours every day in the patio, without ever observing that there was a door near to the ornamental grating – indeed, under its shadow whenever the grating was thrown back. The small key of the armoury had been left in the lock, for there had been no need to use it, the place had been for many years empty of all but dust and rubbish. There could be no better place in which to secure the treasure.

"Chico," said Inez to her servant, who was still on his knees, fumbling the gold, "mention to no one – not even to Teresa – the finding of this box. You shall be well rewarded for your fidelity and your silence. Now bear the box to the armoury yonder; I will first lock it up there, and then take the key to Don Alcala, and tell him what I have done."

Inez glided across the patio, glad that the grating was closed, so that no stranger from the street could possibly see what was passing within. Followed by Chico carrying the box, the lady reached the armoury, opened the door, and tried the lock.

"Place the box there," said the maiden, pointing to the inmost corner of the recess, close to the door of which she was standing.

Chico, instead of obeying, set down the heavy box on the pavement, and then, by a movement so sudden that it took Inez completely by surprise, he pushed the lady into the armoury, shut the door, and locked it upon her!

Inez cried out aloud in her alarm, when she thus unexpectedly found herself in darkness, a prisoner in her own home. With mingled threats, entreaties, and promises she conjured the false Chico to open the door. The traitor, however, thought time far too precious to wait either to listen or to reply. He could not, indeed, pass through the grating, of which Teresa had taken the key; but he easily made his way out by the same passage as that through which he had entered, one which communicated with the now empty stable.

Inez now exerted all her strength in the endeavour to force open the door, but it resisted her utmost efforts. The air in the armoury was close and confined. Inez could hardly breathe; she was faint with exhaustion and terror. Her cries for help were not heard, though she tried to call out loud enough for her voice to reach some passer-by in the street. Inez at last, finding all her exertions vain, could only await in discomfort and misery the return of Teresa, who would liberate her from her prison.

How long, how intolerably wearisome was the time of waiting! What painful companions to poor Inez in her solitude were her own reflections! She could not doubt that the family had been robbed by the worthless Chico, – robbed of their all at the very time when its possession was most sorely needed. The short-lived hopes which the sight of the treasure had raised in the mind of Inez, had vanished from her view like some mirage in the desert before the thirsty traveller's eyes. Poverty – destitution – appeared all the more dreadful from contrast with abundance beheld, but not enjoyed.

The minor cares of the moment lent their weight to add to the pressure of greater. Inez was uneasy at the thought of Donna Benita awaking from her siesta, and being frightened at finding no one beside her. Alcala, too, must need his lemonade, and would miss his Book, – the precious volume which Inez had still in her bosom. Add to all this the physical distress, the sense of suffocation consequent on confinement in a place in which there was no circulation of air, and some idea may be formed of the misery endured by Alcala's sister.

The impatience of Inez had risen to the point of agony long before, to her intense relief, she heard in the vaulted passage the heavy step of Teresa, wearily returning from her visit to the shrine of her patron saint.

"Release me – oh, release me!" cried out Inez from her place of confinement.

Teresa was so much astonished by hearing the cry for help, muffled as it came through the closed door of the armoury, that she dropped the key of the grating, which she was just about to open.

"Make haste – or I die!" gasped poor Inez.

Teresa made what haste her infirmities and her amazement would permit; but she had to stoop and pick up the key, fit it into the hole, and then push open the grating, and every moment thus employed was a moment of torture to Inez. At length, guided by the voice of her mistress, the old servant entered the patio, and turned round where the armoury door stood close behind the grating. In another second Inez, trembling and gasping for breath, was released from her terrible prison.

"In the name of all the saints, how came you to be locked up here?" exclaimed the wondering duenna.

"Chico has robbed us – I can say no more now!" faltered Inez, scarcely able to speak. "Go quickly to Donna Benita, – she may want help, – while I – " The sentence was never ended; for Inez, exhausted and faint as she felt, was already on her way to her brother's apartment.

"Chico has robbed us!" echoed the bewildered Teresa, lifting up her hands in amazement. "Robbed the house, and shut up the lady! I know not what there was in the place that the poorest thief in Seville would think it worth his while to take!"

Glancing around her, Teresa soon perceived the disordered state of the patio; the marble round the parterre encumbered with heaps of dust and earth, and in the ground under the bushes a hole large enough for an infant's grave. Something had surely been dug out, something had been carried away. Teresa was puzzling her brain to divine what could have occurred during her absence, when she was alarmed by sounds, – but the cause of these sounds must be reserved for the ensuing chapter.

CHAPTER XVII.

ARRESTED

Inez! – truant! I have lost you all the morning!" cried Alcala, as he heard the approach of his sister. Inez was surprised on entering the room to see that the wounded man had managed to rise and dress himself without assistance. "I waited for you till I had no patience for longer waiting," continued Alcala cheerfully; "you have carried away my Book, and have been so buried in its contents that you have quite forgotten your brother."

The playful rebuke was given with a smile, which, however, vanished from the face of Alcala as soon as he turned and looked on that of his sister.

"What has happened?" exclaimed Aguilera, alarmed at the appearance of Inez, who stood with pale lips apart, as if still gasping for breath; her hair, usually smooth as satin, disordered, and pushed carelessly back from a face that bore the impress of terror and suffering.

The poor girl, exhausted both by the strain on her physical endurance and the alarm which she had undergone, came forward, sank on her knees at her brother's feet, and burst into tears. Inez did not, however, long give vent to her emotions. Struggling to speak through her sobs, she gave an account of all that had happened, – the discovery of the treasure, the treachery of Chico, and the cruel means which he had taken to secure his own flight with the gold.

Alcala listened with breathless attention and burning indignation. The fiery young Spaniard bit his nether lip hard to keep himself from uttering the vow of deep vengeance which, a few weeks before, would have been, under lighter provocation, sternly spoken and ruthlessly kept. It was no easy task to Aguilera to wrestle down and keep under control the passion which he now felt to be unbecoming a Christian. Alcala, however, said not a word until Inez had finished her story. Then he spoke in a tone of suppressed indignation.

"This false – Chico must be tracked at once, and forced to yield up his ill-gotten spoil. Would that Lepine had not yesterday started for Madrid, – his intelligence, his English energy, would have been invaluable now. Give me my writing materials, Inez. If I had but strength to go myself to the minister of justice, – surely I have strength," added Alcala, rising and supporting himself by the table, "I shall be given strength to rescue my family from want, and win back the property of my grandmother. The alguazils must at once be set on the scent of the thief."

"The alguazils!" faltered Inez, who was still in her crouching position at the feet of her brother; "O Alcala, have we no reason to dread them ourselves?"

A heavy tramping in the corridor without was as an answer to the question. Inez sprang to her feet with an exclamation of terror, as the door was opened and the room entered by a body of the Spanish police.

The flush which indignation had lately brought to Alcala's pale face passed away. Still leaning on the table for support, he drew himself up to his full height, and in a calm voice demanded of the alcalde who headed the party what errand had brought him to the house of a cavalier.

"I come under a warrant from the corregidor, illustrious señor," said the alcalde, advancing towards his prisoner, and bowing low with the punctilious courtesy peculiar to Spaniards. "It is my painful duty to arrest the noble caballero."

"Upon what charge?" demanded Alcala.

"The charge of having held an unlawful meeting for the purpose of reading a forbidden Book, señor," was the answer.

"And who has preferred the charge?" asked Alcala.

"Your own servant, señor, by name Tomaso Chico, who was one of the party assembled at the meeting, and who engages to bring many other witnesses to support his accusation against you."

"Many witnesses!" murmured Inez.

"This Chico is a false villain, who has just robbed me, and who has doubtless brought the charge against his injured master to incapacitate him from pursuing the traitor, and giving him up to justice," said the indignant Alcala.

"Of that, illustrious señor, it is not my part to judge," replied the alcalde. "I have but to perform my duty, which is to search this house for any prohibited writings or books, and to bear you off – pardon me, señor – to the prison."

Resistance or expostulation would have been utterly useless. Alcala, with quiet dignity, resumed his seat, and motioned to his sister to take one beside him, while the alguazils commenced their search. It was more rigid than it probably would have been had the cavalier slipped a few dollars into the officer's hands. Aguilera might, perhaps, in that case, have been spared the personal search which made the wounded hidalgo colour both from a sense of violated dignity and actual physical pain. But the thought, "O my Lord, this humiliation is for Thy sake!" took all bitterness from the trial, and Alcala's only care was to calm and reassure his terrified sister.

The search was continued for some time, and extended all over the mansion. Even the apartment of the imbecile old lady was invaded, and Donna Benita was thrown into hysterics by the strange sight of alguazils throwing open her drawers and presses, and dragging forth and flinging on the floor even her articles of dress, notwithstanding the loud indignant remonstrances of Teresa. Every place was explored, every corner searched for the forbidden Book, which, unsuspected by the alguazils, lay under the folds of the mantle of the young señorita.

Foiled in their search for Bibles, it now only remained for the alguazils to bear off their prisoner. A close conveyance was waiting at the entrance, surrounded by a little mob that had gathered to see the officers of the law bring out their captive. Inez still clung to her brother, helping to support his feeble steps, as, with guards before and behind, Alcala traversed the long lofty corridor, and entered the patio. The cavalier paused when he reached the fountain, where he wished to bid his sister farewell. He would not expose Inez to the view of the rabble, the sound of whose voices he now heard without in the street.

"Allow me a moment, señor," he said, addressing the alcalde, who bowed assent to the trifling delay. Then bending down, Alcala imprinted one kiss on the marble-cold brow of his sister.

"Be of good courage, my Inez; all will be well," whispered Alcala. "You know not the peace and joy that is given to those who suffer for Him." There was no time to speak more, but with a smile which said more than his words – for it was as the reflection of Heaven's sunshine upon him – Alcala pressed the hand of Inez, and so they parted. A prisoner for conscience' sake, the Spaniard quitted the home of his fathers, and passed over the threshold which he was conscious that he was not likely ever to cross again.

Inez was almost stunned at first by the suddenness of the blow which had fallen upon her. She could hardly realize that she was not in a horrible dream. Was it true – could it be true – that her brother, that Don Alcala de Aguilera had been arrested as if he were a felon, and marched off to endure, in his enfeebled state, the miseries of a Spanish prison? Alcala's danger so entirely absorbed the mind of Inez that it left no room for a thought of self; in her desolation and poverty the Spanish girl did not even ask herself, "What will become of me?"

Inez was roused from her state of half-stupefaction by Teresa, who, beating her breast, and tearing her gray hair, came up to her young mistress.

"Ah, Donna Inez! Donna Inez!" she exclaimed, "all this disgrace and misery would never have befallen the house of Aguilera had you not sold the hair of Santa Veronica!"

"Teresa, this is no time for reproaches," said Inez faintly; "we must act, we must do all in our power to aid my brother. Oh that the English señor were not absent at Madrid!"

Teresa ground her teeth at the mention of Lucius Lepine, whom she regarded as the original author of all these calamities, the villain who had corrupted the faith of her master.

"I can think of no friend to consult save Donna Maria," continued Inez, after a pause for anxious reflection. "Her husband may have some little influence with the Governor, Don Rivadeo; and she will at least give sympathy and advice. Teresa, let us go to Donna Maria at once."

"We cannot both leave the house," said Teresa sharply. "There's Donna Benita almost in fits. The wretches dared to enter the presence of a lady of the house of Aguilera, and terrify her out of her senses."

"Hasten to my grandmother, – do not leave her!" cried Inez. "How could I be so thoughtless as to forget her helpless state for a moment!" And as Teresa turned away to seek the room of Benita, Inez murmured to herself, "I will go alone to the friend of my mother."

CHAPTER XVIII.

TURNED AWAY

In an apartment of a dwelling far less spacious and picturesque in appearance than the home of the Aguileras, but much better furnished with modern comforts, sits Donna Maria de Rivas. She is engaged in serious and interesting conversation with a priest, who, as Father Bonifacio, is already known to the reader.

"I can hardly yet believe it, father!" exclaimed the lady, vibrating her large black fan as she spoke. "Don Alcala de Aguilera, one of so ancient and honourable a house, to be arrested, and on so pitiful a charge! If the caballero had been tempted by need to rob the mail (he is so desperately poor), or in a fit of passion had stabbed an enemy to the heart, it would have been quite a different thing, – one could have understood such acts; but to get himself locked up for holding a meeting for reading the Bible, such a piece of folly cannot be accounted for, – such madness exceeds all belief!"

"It is a madness, my daughter, I grieve to say it, that is by no means confined to this unhappy apostate," observed the priest. "The disease is infectious, the corruption is spreading. Unless strong and sharp measures are speedily taken, this cancer of heresy will eat deep into the very heart of society even in Seville."

"Impossible!" exclaimed Donna Maria. "I have heard, indeed, of Matamoros, and other misguided fanatics, who have happily been arrested by justice in their most wicked course; but surely the number of these wretches is few, and their example is little likely to be followed by those who see the punishment which it brings."

"Daughter, you little know the strength of this fanaticism, or the subtilty with which the poison of heresy is diffused throughout the length and breadth of our Catholic Spain!" exclaimed the ecclesiastic, warming with his subject. "So long as the vile English heretics hold Gibraltar, – would that its rock would fall and crush them! – so long will there be an open door through which all that is evil can enter our land! Secret agents of I know not how many societies distribute blasphemous tracts against the worship of the blessed Virgin, Purgatory, Intercession of Saints, and the reverence due by all the world to our holy Father the Pope!"