The Spanish dancer : being a translation from the original French by Henry L. Williams of Don Caesar de Bazan (22 page)

"Oh, no, I have no curiosity!" but his tremulous lips helied him.

"Can you recall the caballero, a. little pale but with grand manners, who used to call at my private house in the royal road ?"

"For once or twice I saw him, despite a mask. I can, no doubt, recall him—he had a lofty air, though cold!"

"Besides, he will bear a token. He will say 'seven' to your challenge of 'Carlos.' "

"Joy," thought the boy. "It is the king, our master! Oh, my good lord is going to reconcile the king with the queen—this is some lady of hers who is to conduct the reunion!"

"You seem merry ?"

"Master, I am like the poacher's boy—he begins to laugh when his master prepares the springs and traps—• he knows there will be a feast when the capture is made!"

"You are the lad after my own heart! Good! It is a trap! But the game steps in willingly!"

"I am to admit the pale gentleman?"

"And no other."

"If they present themselves?"

"Use, to good advantage, the -fine arquebus with which I see you are supplied. You understand it?"

"I was a gunsmith by trade, sir!"

"Good! Yet you may tell the lady that I have called."

He lingered at the door after he had dismissed his followers to a little distance to await him. While so engaged, he heard a peculiar blast on a hunting-horn at a distance. The notes were those sounded when a royal stag is sighted in a chase.

"Aha!" said he, joyously, "all flourishes famously! It is my king—^my dupe !"

In the hall the porter bowed to him; on the stairs two footmen holding candles bowed. On the landing a third

servant, also with a' candle, indicated in silence the entrance to the lady's rooms.

Maritana must have been waiting, for what was to come, with impatience no longer to be controlled. For at the sound she opened the door with her own hand.

She receded and showed her disappointment, though what more desirable visitor she could expect is a puzzle.

Love hopes the impossible will come; thus it is that it is never surprised.

"Ah," said she, curtesying to conceal her vexation, "the Marquis of Santarem!"

"Only the marquis. I am happy to see that you are luxuriously lodged, but it is but a hovel to the casket which should comprise such a jevv^el. Is there anything lacking?"

"Nothing, nothing, I thank your lordship!" she formally returned, as if to abridge this interview.

"So your brilliant visions are realized?"

She bowed.

"Y'ou have a title .not surpassed, an entourage of splendor, and the homage of all who near you! I think I have kept my promises as the wizards of your early acquaintance seldom do!"

"You have done so, my lord marquis. Do to the state, which longs for peace, what you have done for poor Maritana, and the country will long bless such a premier 1"

"Ah, d

Maritana surprised him by weeping.

At this unexpected mourning he felt not only that he had a heart, but that she owned it. She had continued to spell him>, although expediency told him that he must not be the king's rival—not because he feared him, but be-

cause to love another than the queen would hurl Jose from his elevation, only to be fortified by her.

"Do you think, then, that I am ungrateful to the queen, whose faithful agent you are?" sobbed she. "But I sigh amid all this gaud and glitter for the hours when I was free and happy!"

"I doubt you, lady; you sigh for the hour when you first assumed the trammels of matrimony! But I do not read your heart to cross its impulses! I have come to usher in one who will dry your eyes and exhilarate your dwindling heart! Farewell—I cap your dreams—I present your beloved mate!"

Maritana wiped her eyes. In that brief interval when, the cambric passed over her sight a change took place: where the minister had stood another figure replaced him.

Maritana was under the eyes of Carlos of Spain.

This time, confused and oppressed, because it was not Csesar who faced her^ he had the leisure to contemplate so much loveliness, which the transient grief only enhanced, as a veil of spray redoubles the vivid gleam of the waterfall.

Carlos had a bright side to his passion, not commonly seen on his prematurely grave visage. He was handsome of his saturnine kind and equal to the ideal which many women as fair as she worshiped.

"Maritana!" said he, in his sweetest voice, such as his queen had not recently heard at that pitch.

Incensed by the fleeting view at the Castello-Rotondo's he was ravished by this uninterrupted meeting.

If Don Jose had demanded anything now he would have had the ready assent.

The voice, however, gentle and v/inning, made her quiver,

"Why do you not speak? Ah, each day will be a new life to me! But }^u do not approach 1"

On the contrary, she retired, slowly but =;teadily, like a peasant girl held in the bushes by a reptile's fascinating eye, moving back and praying for assistance.

He followed and took her hand; it was cold. He looked into her eyes; they were lusterless. He looked at her lips; they fluttered, and her words were scarcely audible; she could not articulate.

"What a chilling greeting! Has Don Jose given up to me one of those wax images into which the necromancers instill a passing breath of life?"

He was so angered that if his mymidon had been present, this time, he would have sent thim into a dungeon..

"Are you not happy, thanks to me ?"

"Happy!" was the hollow echo. "How can I answer you? Everything is so strange around me! My sudden discovery of parents—my still stranger marriage! I may be noble, but still something tells me that between us gapes a gulf as wide as separates the baseborn and the hidalgo. I feel that you are Don Jose's superior! I dare not raise my eyes to one who daunts me! What makes him speak to you with bated breath?"

"Fear me! your bound one! your courtier! fear?" but the haug-htiness in his accents was uncontrollable. He wished to command affection on finding that it was not spontaneously his. "Oh, girl, you are wronging love by regarding me with such feelings! Your devotee adores you, and would sacrifice so much to hear that this love is returned, hke his is ofiered, unstintedly!"

He snatched up her hand and kissed it, thouglh the coldness again repelled him.

"By all the saints who wear crowns," cried out the disconcerted monarch, "there is deceit here—^^has that Jose deceived me?"

"I believe," said Maritana, lifting 'her tearful eyes, "that it is I who have been deceived."

He looked at her, deigning to inquire and so far give his confidence.

"I have been deceived by that ceremony. That man who stood beside me was not your wraith—but one I knew! A gentleman outlawed and penniless, but ever brave and high-minded. His sword was no longer gilded, but it flew out at the call of the weak and oppressed. He might have been the king in the ghetto—he was bowed down to by the gypsy, who does not bend his head to every one, let me tell you! While his voice spoke up for the injured and friendless, it was also leader in the general mirth. An eagle with the tune of a lark—a wanderer like myself, my heart accompanied his in its erratic flights! I had no substantial reason then to suspect my birth was equal to his, but I hoped that as we met upon the level at the holy altar, he would remember that I had held my worthiness in the past, and he might expect his wife to stand as firmly in the future."

"You married to be blessed in this world. You shall ■h'ave your intention accomplished. My word on that! Every luxury shall minister to you. My love shall be so prodigal that you must return my unique ardor!"

She had retreated as he advanced, till the tapestry on the wall was flattened to it by her pressure.

"Do not touch me!" gasped she, with a beginning of loathing at his cowardice, which smote him acutely.

"I understand," said he, lowering his hand and stiffening himself with wounded pride. "You do not love me; not because I am unworthy—but because you love another! Maritana, your tribe are known to pretend v/ith unparalleled art! Your heart beat for gain, for the pleasure of beguiling, with no true passion or earnest desire! Have I raised you so high to leave you usurping an uni-

Enough th'at now you must go to your chamiber! Yoii will learn before long what duty you owe your lord and master!"

He pronounced the words so commandingly that she shuddered as when the herald announces the will of the despot.

"Sir, you have reason for your anger, if you have been deceived," returned she, gently, for she felt that she was causing sorrow, and she was compassionate to a brother-sufferer. "I obey you for methinks that is a duty, indeed! I obey the lord and the master!"

The king watched her leave the room with relentmenit.

"Has Don Jose let her know too much ? Is she yielding or defying? Why should I hesitate? I will declare myself rather than lose her!"

But he was stopped in the first step he was taking by the explosion of a firearm under the window.

It was a critical time. Autocracy was tempered with assassination. It was foolish, in the conquest of a girl, to run the fire of a regicide on whose gun depended the succession of the throne.

Nevertheless, overcoming his short trepidation, he bravely proceeded to the window in order to look out and perceive the nature of the attack. But hardly had he set his hand to the frame, w*hich opened in halves, than another hand outside seconded his in the act.

The opening disclosed a manly figure, which thrust one leg over the bar, and Vv^as followed immediately by the other. From the intruder, who instantly closed the sashes, came a gay voice, saying, without his looking at his helper:

"Thanks, my boy! That is a vile way to salute visitors of importance! That marksman has carried away my new hat and feather! What the devil have I done to tiraw all shots into making me a target?'

This natural inquiry would have allowed any one acquainted with the most recent vicissitudes of Don Caesar de Bazan to recognize that gentleman.

The king passed by him, and now, with his back to the window, could only stare.

"Oh, I beg your pardon, sir!" continued the irrepressible don. "I took you for a brother to that awkward menial."

Carlos did not resent this renewed impertinence otherwise than by questioning sternly:

"A visitor—why enter by that casement?"

"Because, simply, they had double-locked the door."

"I am in no humor for jesting!"

"No?" said the other, combing his locks with his fin* gers, a la Gitanio, "what a loss! I am, always 1"

"What is your motive?"

"I was driven "

"What devil drives "

"An angel! My motive is pardonable in any gentleman's and Spaniard's eyes. The moon is just peeping out! By its ray I spied a very pretty face at the next window, through the bars. I wanted to ask my way—to heaven—of which she seemed an inmate."

"Audacious—you would speak with her?"

"Sooner than to a churl! I went up to the door where your porter, on whose rudeness I do not felicitate you! refused me admission. How was I to get in?"

"Get out!" said Carlos, testily.

"His very words—I wager he is instructed by your blunt lordship! I made the circuit of the house—^the waills are topped with broken glass, and I would not damage my clothes any more! I spied this window, to which approach was not difficult when one 'has been a sailor and has scaled the carv^ed poop of an E?.st India-man treasure ship—but never mind that! I mounted to

the breach and you, with a kindness which redeem^s your surliness, opened to me. Your lackey's shot carried away my best hat! Give me the address of your hatter in the city, and an order for a new one, and I will wear it in your honor!"

"Sir, this is an insult!"

"You are right! Hospitality, one of the saints, I believe, was grossly insulted in bombarding 'me !"

"What business have you with this 1' dy ?"

"Business! you will not press—it is private—I wish to See her—to speak her, as we say at sea! That is the kernel of it."

"Impertinent! I desire you to quit this room!"

"After having given your varlet the time to^ reload his barker? Then you, if you are the master "

"I am the master of this house!" said Carlos, haught-ily.

"Then the most complete means of your making amends for your guard's rudeness would be to walk down with me on your arm !"

"You will more probably be walked out between the arms of my servants "

"If you are master, then, I shall appeal to the mistress !"

"Do you know there is a mistress?"

"I saw a lady who is not accustomed to be the second in any house—il allude to the Countess of Garofa and Bazan."

"Do you know a real high lady like that?"

"Oh, my toilet? Oh, that is nothing—for I wore no other when I last parted with her esteemed father, the Marquis of Castello-Rotondo!"

"I say," went on the king, imperiously, "do you have the honor to know the countess?"

"Well, slightly, foj Our interview was just ten minutes

in duration. But since you are the master—may I know your name?"

The king was seized with a sudden thought as he was about to betray himself, goaded by this peerless impudence, and he replied:

"I am Don Csesar de Ba^an, Count of Garofa!" His hearer, as we have begun to know, enjoyed a coolness rarely to be found in a dozen ordinary men, but at this declaration he puckered up his lips in a whistle which he did not sound. He made the eloquent gesture of offering the boaster a hat, which, we also know, he

"Don Caesar de Bazan?" repeated he, overwhelmed, but not by the effect the speaker supposed.

He gloried in the revelation, for it was startling: two phoenixes had arisen from the ashes of the original bird.

The pause was broken by the entrance, rather rudely, of Lazarillo; he carried his still smoking gun in one hand and in the other the instruder's hat, which had a hole through it and the plume broken.