The Spanish dancer : being a translation from the original French by Henry L. Williams of Don Caesar de Bazan (11 page)

"The name of the queen brings smiles to my cheek, sir."

"Yes, you may consider yourself rich in her favor. Rely on her—confide in me, whom she honors with her trust, and ere long the most dazzling of the court beauties will be eclipsed by your splendor."

Her eyes flashed, but instantly repelling the picture his words conjured up, she firmly said:

"I am not going to listen to such 'flummery!' I dare not! My brothers here would stab me to the death if they thought I was to be allured from their midst—my sisters would rend me to shreds if they saw me forsaking them to live in your palace! I do not dispute that my longings are for an easier, a less worrying life, but I was-born to it; I have lived it and I must, I suppose, die in it!"

"Never! Does the pearl pray not to be drawn up out ■of the mud; the diamond that it shall evermore remain in the casing of worthless rock ? Trust to your aspirations —to the queen—to him who beseeches you to rise;—ito try your wings."

"They will not carry me far or high in golden bands! Oh, yoM cannot deceive me with glozing speech! My roving life has taught me truths above my years! These, my eyes, have seen the plaything of the munificent become the broken doll in the dust next day! No, no, I should be a poor fortune-teller if I did not foresee my destiny!"

"You do not beh'eve your own prophecies!" declared the marquis, energetically. "You may gull the fools who bribe you to promise them the boons they do not

deserve, but you know that you are " he lowered his

voice, for one must not fling at the ho'sts on their own hearth, "you are cheats! Now, I will show you that I learned the black arts as well as the spotless ones at my

university—^the Moors left their hidden lore there, my gentle maid. That tells me that you fail to> tell the truth 'because you are not a daughter of the stars "

"Ah!"

"I will show my skill—unerring, studied, to be der pended upon. Give me your hand."

She obeyed him, somewhat impressed by his gravity and fervency.

He dandled it adoringly. He smoothed it, pretended to examine the palm, and cried, as if inspired;

"It is clear! You will rise out of the fog and miasma of this bog; from among these lepers and toads, to be among the wearers of crowns—or, at least, the coronet!"

"Crowns—coronets!" she murmured, and he felt her hand start with a bounding of her heart.

"You will become a peeress of the reallm!" said he, ^earnestly, watching the effect of his pledge.

"A peeress?"

"Countess, marchioness—some such rank!"

She shook her head; she withdrew her hand, 'Whfdi turned cold.

"You mislead as we do; a gypsy, a peeress? a pagan, a disbeliever, blessed by the bishops as a countess? You are a dreamer or a deceiver! The queen did not send you to play such tricks!"

"The queen sent me to buoy up your sou'l, to feed your flame, to encourage you in your hopes!" said the tempter, energetically, to back his own falsity. "She would not Ihold out to you a mockery, but an honorable elevation. Become a Christian by the rites, and you will be a countess with the Church's benediction!"

"The queen could do this, no doubt!" said Maritana, faltering.

"And I!" proudly added the noble. "You see you do not guess my position or you would not doubt that here

speaks a potent friend. Yea, I can realize all the expectations you hlarbor and which I have multiplied'. What is wanted to make you a countess ?"

"Too many needs! First, I should require noble birth!"

"Oh, we will arrange that!" said he, lightly. "I hinted at that!"

"My parents, found as you say, would Wave to bo prince and princess, I suppose?"

"We will provide the aristocratic parents," returned the marquis, confidently.

"Or I should be raised to the dignity by marriage "

"That is a good way!" approved Jose, smiling paternally.

"To find a count?" said she, meditating.

"Do not look afar when you have one under your hand!"

"You! you are a count?"

"Oh, better than that, but—hodd! how happy! One would not seek in a gypsy camp for a true peer of Spain, but poverty, waste and recklessness makes a man fellow with the lowest!"

"Oh, you speak of Don Caesar de Bazan—^poor gallant!"

"Poor? A man with his title cannot be poor if he brings his hand to the rig-ht market! With that hand he can lift any of his present companions to his level! A ruined spendthrift, his losses can be repaired—his noble lineage will replace him in his seat!"

"I should like him to be restored, sir," said the girl, sympathetically, "for he is indeed noble—he has saved me from insults worse than death! I owe him much! 'He has taught me what a gentleman is like!"

"He shall place you w'here you shall learn what a lady

'Hoes! In a word, I am not only messenger of our queen, Ijut intermediary of my cousin, Caesar! He loves you!"

"Don Caesar loves me?"

Jose shuddered: he saw that he had"chanced on a fact •which went beyond his wishes. This girl loved the wild-ling, and he was espousing the cousin whom he detested at heart, to the woman who had enthralled him more than he cared to avow.

*lt is he who loves me! it is for me that he has dwelt ^with us, liars, thieves, blood-spillers ? Ah, he must love, to suffer their lazar-house, as you see it, for his abode, their infectious oomipany for society, their fate, peradventure, to become his own! I see, I see! It is not misery which dragged him down an-d held him in the kennel— it is love—love for me!''

"I see that you make it an easy task for his advocate!"

"His advocate ?"

"Oh, my cousin is so timid—in m'atters of love! I am sure that, married to the woman of his choice, he will no longer rove—that the family will be content with him, thus happily settled down, and as they restore him the sway over his fettered estates, I will restore him his place at court!"

"How good you are! Have you the power ?"

**My lady the countess in fiituro! you are doing the honor to confer with Don Jose de Sanlarem, marquis and police minister to the king, his favorite minister! and on passing good terms likewise with the queen, your patroness 1"

Maritana bov/ed her head: the moon shone into the dirty passage and a stray reflected ray encircled her fair brow with an aureole.

"Look!" said the police chief, holding up a coquettish Venetian handglass which dangled from her 'girdle, "th«

countess is crowned! Dream no more! you 'have n!ot leaned on pihantoms I"

"No, no! his proud family will not love me because he does. They will not welcome me any more than the court! not even king and queen—not your might, however enviable, can introduce the daughter of nothing— who will be a countess but by the count's grace!"

"You forget half my promise—^you shall have noble parents to answer for you! They mig^ht not have stood sponsors at your christening—^though much may be said on that head!—^but they will reply for you at the bridal altar!"

Maritana's face shone with bliss.

"Can you leave here 'as freely as I was admitted to you?" he questioned in a guarded voice,

"Certainly! who would dare detain me? We are free, we gypsies!"

"Well, freedom's daughter," said he, gayly, holding out his 'hand as if to lead her into the dance, "let me conduct you to wear fetters of gold and silk—^but they will set light—brought to you, by lover, king and queen!"

The girl caught up a mantle, draped herself while taking the first step, and accompanied her guide out of the vile suburb, believing that she would never enter it again.

Light was 'her heart, though filled with happiness, but it was not so light as her companion's. He was already tasting a triumph.

CHAPTER VII.

AWAITING THE GALLOWS.

The city authorities, too often reproached for letting' the Jewry be the eyesore of Madrid', saw in the prisoner, Don Caesar, a type of the spendthrifts who presented a bad example and fortified the rabble by their having a noble among them, would no doubt have dealt harshly with their catch. Unfortunately for their zeal, a special order from the council removed the Count of Garofa from their jurisdiction on the ground that he could appeal to a tribunal of 'his peers, and he was transferred from the city prison to the House of Correction, one of a castellated group of buildings, together with which was the semi-private residence of the police lieutenant.

But the hapless adventurer had gained nothing much by the removal. A court of high justices, with whose degree the reduced peer could find no fault, heard the deposition by the midnight oil and, conferring merely for form's sake, decided that the king's decree was exclusive of mercy. Don Cjesar de Bazan, Count of Garofa, etc., was returned to his cell, condemned to die tlie death of felons, all within an hour.

"To a fast liver, a fast death, all in the Fast time!" cried the incorrigible jester.

Alas! the jailers were dull clods, the rust and dust had stopped up their ears; they were such stiff and stem audience that the gallant, accustomed to bad society rather than none, was rejoiced no little by a visitor w(b^ came to stay a lifetime—his!

"Lazarillo?" cried he.

"It is I, my lord."

**A fellow-prisoner ?"

"You forget—I was appointed your page, my lord! In that capacity I sued the corregidor to let me s'hare your last hour "

"You are exact as a clock—it is an hour! I thank the corregidor, since he permitted this boon!''

"Yes, he said that you might require me, since I could write."

"A sorry accomplishment 1 If, when I was implored to set my name to the back of a 'kite'—that is, a note whidh flies so high that it goes out of sight—I had been able to say: I cannot write, I should have saved ten per centum of my loose cash! You are grateful and the prison governor is kind 1"

"Perhaps not so kind," said Lazarillo, roguishly.

"How is that ?"

"He hinted that if I could inspire such confidence in you that you would tell where you had buried your share of the plunder which your friends, the gypsiesi, must have gained over the usual haul by your skillful planning and leadership in their pillaging, cloak-snatching and purse-cutting, why, he would go bail for me for quitting my prenticeship and give me a tithe of the sums, recovered."

"So, so, it was time that I quitted this scurrilous world! To believe that a Garofa drinks with thieves only 'to thieve with them, when he wants the cup replenished! And I signed the petition in my heyday for that rascal to become corregidor! If ever I have a day to spare, I would call on him with a cane and correct the corrector!"

"A day to spare," repeated the boy, looking out ol the window at the great clock in the courtyard gilded by the rising sun. "It is less than two of the twenty-four that you can call your own, poor master!"

"Almost two hours," yawned Don Caesar, sinkinig back in the armless wooden chair, "I shall chdat the

hangman by dying bored to death in ten of such minutes. How do those life prisoners beguile the time?"

"No experience, sir," said Lazarillo, making the tour of the apartment, which was tolerable and the best that they could give a peer.

"Boy, if you were a man and you had scant two hours to while away, how would you wear them out?—heighol"

''Ay de mi!" responded Lazarillo, piously, "if I were your lordship, I would pass them in turning over the errors of my misspent career!"

"You would ! 'Out of the mouths of babes comes wisdom !' Recall my errors in a couple of hours! Balderdash ! You are forgiven for being ignorant of my career! .Sum up my past errors—no, youth; no, there is not sufficient time to head the chapters! Let me see, as you boast of your clerkship—suppose I let you draw up my will! Oh, you need not ring for a ream of paper and a quart of ink, to say nothing of a sheaf of quills—■ my estate will not take more than a line! No, that would not take up the two hours!"

Lazarillo was cut to the heart by the thoughtlessness and jocularity. He fell on his knee to the speaker and took his hand, saying, piteously:.

"Good, my master; make peace with the Church!" "Oh, I am easy on the point of the steeple! Never did I eat of a stolen porker but I dropped a coin in the begging-box for St. Anthony, because it was his pig, and to St. Matthew because 'he was a publican!"

"My lord," sobbed the boy, "I am tlie cause of this clipping of your wings—you are going to give up your life for poor little me! Tell me, is there no deed in my capacity by which I can testify to my regret and my thankfulness ?"

In his excitement, he caught the other by the dingy, raveled ruffle.

"Why, yes, you can oblige me extremelj'—^by showing^ a little more regard for my Mechlin lace! See ! you have torn it so that the dainty deathsman, rejecting it as his perquisite, will scornfully cast it aside to his assistant!"

"What a mishap! Have you, a noble of the realm, no one to intercede for you? no one who can speak face to face with our lord the king? Are all to act like heirs—• who wish you out of their way?"

"Don't harrow me by talking of heirs! If I had heirs, and being thirsty, they went down into my castle cellar, by Silenus 1 they would have to suck the staves, for sorry a drop have I left in one of them!" He smacked his lips like cracking a coach-whip,

"Will no one plead for you ?"

"Wait—only it would be too late! But perhaps already the movement in my favor is being made!"

"What movement?"

"Oh, I see—on the mental mirror, of course— a. long and multitudinous procession, venerable old men, with tears in their gummy eyes, with scrips full of protested paper, with bills a yard long, hastening out to the palace, throwing themselves, like Orientals, in the path of the royal coach and crying out in voices to crack the panels:

" 'Sire, mercy! Life for Don Caesar, Count of Garofa!' "

"Oh, you have a few friends who will do this?"

"Hum! I do not say yea to 'friends,' but creditors? creditors! my boy, who see, with my kicking away the ladder, the last tie removed which attached me to their files and ledgers!"

"But you have noble friends, exalted companions?"

"The last of my friends was that host of the Next Sovereign, who chalked up the cost of the supper with which I treated the associates in my last duel! And my last knightly companions were the Caballeros of the Hempen Collar of St. Nick! I do not malign them—I dare say they

would like to call, but there are reasons, which delicate susceptibilities will appreciate, preventing them knocking at a prison door. They might be recognized, they might, dear little Lazarillo, as still owing a part of a term of residence herein ! I forgive them! Friends—friends ?" He sang lustily, without a sad note:

"King Pandion is dead, dead, dead! All his friends are lapped in lead!"

**To die alone!" sobbed the boy, muffling his face in his flowing sleeve.

"Oh, we are a family of sensitiveness, the Garofas. When my ancestors rode over the battlefield they used to exterminate the Moors—they could not bear to see them linger in pain ! They were caused such infinite dolor when they were sued to pay a dollar that they put off the payment to the Judgment Day! They could not bear to sec me in these dumps—so they stay away, out of pure tenderness !"

The door had been opened during this pathetic lament. A man was ushered in ceremoniously by a head warder, and he and the turnkey saluted as they withdrew. The visitor wore a short cloak, and on lifting up the front of his wide hat he disclosed well-known features.

"You forget me, who does not stay away!" said this newcomer.

Caesar had heard the door close and the lock again grating under the key. He rose and returned the salute.

"If it is not my cousin, then I am in a vision!" said he, with insulting surprise.

Tlie page retired, unnoticed, into the recess where the bed stood amid hangings. He knelt and prayed.

"You wrong me, cousin, by this amaze!" said Jose, reproachfully. "Have I not always been your friend ? You do not know that since I became chief of his majesty's

police I removed the official records which would have paraded the disgrace of the Garofas to posterity! Come, do I not prove my sincerity by coming to you when you have committed a crime in the teeth of the royal mandates?"

"If you had called on me at the city prison and got them to treat me as became my rank, it would be a point in your favor!"

"I was doing better than that. I obtained your transfer to this jail—a state's prison, and imposing no stigma!"

"By the black goat of my friends, the Gitanos! This is a boon! Why, the other, rotten, dilapidated, could have been stormed by the vagabonds and I rescued, while this old fort, where a regiment is in barracks, is stout enough to be irresistible! I thank you for nothing, cousin!"

"There must be something I can do?"

*'WeIl, let your sympathy be manifested by hurrying on my execution!"

"Hurrying it on!" ejaculated Jose, astounded, while a broken-hearted sob came from the praying boy.

"To be sure! That cursed cider at the city lockup gave me a toothache, and there is no such sovereign specific to stop a jum.ping pang as the tightening of a halter."

"Ah, it is there that I may be in time to serve you."

He looked at his huge box of a watch and shook his head.

"Our clock says one and a quarter hours!" said the profligate, coolly. "You see that the reproach was unde-.served that I was a thief of time! I like to be exact when life is so short!"

"It may be lengthened in your case, so that we may understand each other."

He took a stool vv^hich the boy had used and faced his relative calmly, though he felt that the negotiation would be arduous with such a flippant debater.

"My time, my lord, is all my own—and hence, all your own !" observed Caesar, with excruciating politeness. "You will overlook my offering- no whet over this possibly dry talk, for, in fact, the steward has gone away with the cupboard key—in short, we are at the beck of the servants here. There is too much care—lock and key!"

"Don Caesar, what would be your dying request, provided that I had in my power to grant it ?"

"Don Jose, my dying request would logically be to live longer!"

"After the royal decision that the king will listen to no plea for mercy for controvening his express injunction, that I cannot engage. But I swear, as the king's premier

"Hallo! have you got your leg up ? Whew! what an honor to the Santarems, who are, after all, subsidiary Garofas! But, mark you! the premiership is a skittish horse to ride. Mind you do not get thrown in putting it through the preliminary canter!"

"Let me alone for that; I am not so weak a jockey. But as the prime minister, and as your friend and kinsman, you may have anything you state, always excepting the life."

"A Santarem a premier! Oh, that I had accepted the proposal of my friend the king of the Eg}^ptians to be bis right-hand man! Two prime ministers in our families! What honors!"

"Your desire!"

"How awkward, for I do not want anything so much as what T am about to lose—my life !"

"Nothing else—no acquaintance, no little light-of-love" —earnestly—"no dependent "

A blubbering from the alcove reminded Don Caesar of his volunteer page.

"By the dog which died, recognizing the old Ulysses!"

cried he; "you hit it! There is an attache who clinefs to me like the cat following a sprig of catm'nt! I should like to do something for my footboy, who is likely to be the world's football unless he is coated with leather!"

"That boy? It was owing to him that you are in the present quandary. You owe him—little."

"As he had served without pay, it is meet that I should leave him a pension—out of your estate!"

"Cousin, this is a trifle. I will provide for the youth."

"So kind of you!" and Caesar 'bowed low. "I pay you beforehand with a thousand thanks !"

There fell an irksome pause, during which they heard the low sobbing of the boy—whose note turned, however, from sadness of cne kind to a sad gladness of another,

"Nothing more?"

"Lord, no! I think that is all."

Jose looked perplexed, for the silence about Marltana augured ill for his plot.

"Life is a jest, and one should quit when it pleases best!" said the lively one.

Jose feared that he could not engage him in his project for so trifling a return.

"Oh," said he, abruptly, "you jest without considering the manner of your leap ofif this earth !"