University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.

Juan stood, for a moment, confounded in the presence
of his preserver; and Magdalena, gradually
exchanging her fierce expression for one more becoming
her sex, appeared at last, as he had seen
her before, pale, saddened, and subdued. As she
sank into this softened temper, her eye fell upon
the crimsoned blade; and it was curious to see
with what feminine horror, disgust, and shame, she
cast it from her, and to contrast this display of undissembled
feelings with her late Amazonian bearing
and act.

“Magdalena,” said Juan, a thousand emotions
at once contending in his bosom, “you have saved
my life. Haste now and protect that of Cortes: for,
be it dear to thee or not, yet it is not fitting he
should be left to the knife of an assassin. Acquaint
him from me—Nay, bear it not from me; for I will
not seem as if I sought to purchase my life with the
confession—Acquaint him that a dreadful conspiracy,
headed by the knave Villafana, is about to burst
upon his head. If he seize not the traitor to-night,
let him beware who approaches the banquet to-morrow.
Above all, let him be on his guard
against any one who affects to bring letters from
his father. Haste, maiden, haste! for perhaps Villafana,
wrought upon by his fears, may discharge
his train of horrors this very night.”

“Dost thou thus seek to preserve him who has
so basely compassed thine own life?” said Magdalena,
less with surprise than sorrowing admiration.

“Think not of Cortes, but of thyself: thou
hast not many hours for thought.”

“Alas, Magdalena,” said Juan, impatiently, “you
do not believe me. I swear to you, that what I say
is true: Villafana is a traitor, and is now on the
point of assassinating the Captain-General.”

“If he were about assassinating thee, and the
Captain-General knew it, what aid wouldst thou
expect from the Captain-General?” rejoined La
Monjonaza.

“Maiden!” said Juan, frowning severely, “in
this coldness of purpose, now that thou art acquainted
with the act, thou art conniving at murder!”

Apparently this reproof touched Magdalena to
the quick. She started, snuddered, and turned as
if to leave the prison; but changing her purpose,
stepping up to the light, and assuming a boldness
which she did not feel, she falteringly asked,

“Is there no case, in which such connivance
might be excusable? But a moment since,” (and
here she bent her head upon her bosom,) “I was
about to commit murder—Had I slain Villafana,
wouldst thou then have thought the act criminal?”

“Surely not, surely not,” said Juan; “for, in
this case, thou wert arresting the blow of a cut-throat,
to kill whom in the act, were but sheer justice,
and according to law. And yet I would that
the blow had been struck by another. It is not
seemly for a woman to carry a dagger, and still
more improper that she should use it.”

“What if she be attacked by a villain, and no
helper nigh?” demanded the forlorn girl. “Heaven
has given me no protector—My father, my brother,
and my friend—they all lie in this little steel;” and
as she picked up the weapon from the floor, as if
no longer ashamed to bear it, a ghastly smile

beamed from her visage, like the flash of a Medusa
amid the foam of a midnight billow.”

“Speak no more of Cortes,” she continued, observing
that Juan was about to resume the subject
of the conspiracy; “he is far better able to protect
himself than thou. Were there twenty poniards in
Villafana's hand, and were his arm as extended as
his malice, yet could he not reach even to the heel
of Don Hernan. His fate is written,—yes, more
inevitably than thine; for thou hast yet one hope
of deliverance, and Villafana has none.—Listen to
me, Juan Lerma; it is perhaps the last time on
earth that I shall speak to thee. If thou reject mine
offer this night, I call heaven to witness that I will
leave thee to thy fate.”

“Magdalena,” said Juan, firmly, “we have spoken
of this before. God protect thee, for there is
a wall of adamant between us.”

“Be it so,” said the lady; “and let it be higher
than thy wishes, deeper than thy scorn, so thou wilt
leave this land, and return to it no more.”

“On the morrow, Magdalena, I die,” said Lerma,
with unabated resolution. “Hear then the counsel
of a dying man, who can yet call himself your
friend. Do what you have recommended to me:
leave this land, and, in the gloom of a cloister, expiate—”

“Yet again?” exclaimed the maiden, with an
eye of fire. “This is to distract me! Oh, if thou
knew how unjustly thou hast planted daggers in
my bosom—daggers to which this thing of steel is
but as the thorn of a rosebud—thou wouldst kill
thyself, rather than speak them again! But it matters
not: whether thou livest or diest, still must
thou know that I am wronged.—Listen to me—I
will speak of Hilario.—”

“Let it not be so,” said Juan; and then solemnly
added, “Learn that, yesternight, the wretched
Villafana, who, by some magical science, seems acquainted

with the secrets of all in this camp, gave
me to know what I did not before dream. Magdalena,
when I plucked thee from the wreck, I dreamed,
for a moment, that I loved thee—” The maiden
trembled from head to foot, and Juan was himself
greatly agitated; “I beheld one, in whom, from
the act of giving her a life, I might fancy a tie, such
as did not exist between me and any other human
being, from the time of the death of my poor father
up to that happy hour. But had that affection
ripened even into such as Hilario avowed,”—(Here
Magdalena waved her hand impatiently;) “nay, had
I plighted with thee faith and troth, and did we
stand this moment before the altar, my passion
would be at once changed to awe and horror, to
know that I was wedding the spouse of Heaven.
Magdalena, a life of penitence can scarcely remove
the sin of broken vows!”

“Say not this,” exclaimed the unhappy Magdalena,
vehemently: “What knew I of earth or heaven,
when, imprisoned in a cell from childoood upwards,
I gave up the one for the other? Heaven
broke the oath which oppressors exacted; else,
wherefore was I saved of all the sisters, and thrown
upon a land where cloisters were unknown? For
these vows could I have procured a dispensation.
Hast thou never heard of such being dissolved?”

“Surely I have,” said Juan, mildly, desiring to
allay the agitation of his visitor: “It was told to
me, by Villafana, that the señor Camarga (an insane
man, who made an attempt on my life,) was
once a monk of St. Dominic and an Inquisitor, and
permitted to revoke his vows for some worldly
purpose, I know not what; and I have heard it
also said, that the sister of Don Hernan was allowed
to leave a nunnery, to wed some great
nobleman of Andalusia.”

“It is enough,” said Magdalena, calmly, “the
vow was suspended, not broken; it will be resumed,

when the purpose for which I now live, is accomplished,
and would have been before, but for the
accident which brought me to this land.—Juan
Lerma, I will not ask thee why thou refusest life
at my hands: but it is offered thee by one wronged
and defamed, not degraded. If thou live, it is well
thou shouldst know the truth, and remember me
without contempt; if thou die, the grave shall not
cover thee in ignorance. Hilario—Start not, frown
not, tremble not, for the truth must be spoken—
Hilario abused thy belief, that he might break my
heart, and perhaps, also, thine; for he hated me,
because I repelled his love with contempt, and
thee, because he knew—because he suspected,—
that thou wert the cause. You fought; he fell,—
and, with what seemed his dying lips, (for, even in
death, his spite was not diminished,) repeated the
demoniacal falsehood; boasting of the degradation
of one whose only shame was that she did not requite
his presumption with a dagger!”

Again the figure of the unhappy girl was elevated
by passion into the port of a destroying deity. But
she perceived that Juan was shocked by a display
of fire so unwomanly and, indeed, so fearful; and
this instantly transformed her into another being:

“This too, this too,” she cried, shedding tears ofhumiliation,
“this, too, is a consequence of his malice,
for it has converted me into the thing I am not,—into
what seems a fury or a demon. Dost thou believe I
am—dost thou believe I was a creature formed of
passions, that should belong only to men? No! oh
heaven, oh no! it is the madness that comes from
the viper's tooth. Stung, vilified, robbed of respect
and happiness, how even can a woman sit down in
peace, unless she can die? unless she can die? She
will have her vengeance, believe it; and well is it
for her, when it is won by the hands of a brother or
sire.—Yet, believe this, if thou wilt, for I am not
what I was; believe aught,—anything, save the

lies of Hilario. With his dying lips he defamed
me—with his dying hand he revoked the slander,
and avowed himself a villain. Behold the refutation
of calumny.”

As she spoke, she drew from her bosom, with a
trembling grasp, and put into Juan's, a scrap of
paper, on which he read, with extreme surprise, the
following words, traced with a hand feeble and
agitated, yet well known to him,—

“What I have said of Magdalena del Naufragio,”
(or Magdalena of the Wreek, for by this name she
was known at Isabela,) “is false. In malice and
folly I have laid perjury on my soul; and, as I now
speak the truth, I pray heaven to forgive me.—
Amen.

“Antonio del Milagro.”

“Good heaven!” said Juan, “is it possible Antonio
could commit this dastardly crime? Alas,
Magdalena, I have done you a grievous wrong, and
I beseech you, pardon me.—This thing was not
only wicked, but marvellous. The paper is stained
with blood—The saints acquit me of his death, for
it was I who shed it! I am glad he died penitent
—What brought him to this justice? I held my
dagger to his throat, yet he cried, with a devilish
malice and courage, `Strike, for—' But I will not
repeat his sinful and exulting falsehoods.—Alas,
that his blood should be upon my soul! the blood
of his father's son!”

Magdalena surveyed the self-accusing looks of
the prisoner, with much emotion; and twice or
thrice she opened her lips, to give him comfort, or
to continue her dark and singular story, and yet
failed, as many times, to speak. At last, she clasped
her hands upon her bosom, as if, by an effort of
physical strength, to give support and resolution to

her heart, and said, with low and interrupted accents,

“Lament no more for a sin thou hast not committed.
Thou wert deceived—Hilario died not by
thy hands.”

“Hah!” exclaimed Juan, “dost thou tell me the
truth? Is Hilario yet living? God be thanked!
God be thanked! for I am not a murderer!”

He fell upon his knees, and looking up to heaven
with joy, beheld not the grief and trepidation with
which his companion surveyed his raptures.

“I told thee, not that he lived, but that thou didst
not slay him,” said the nun, with an effort.—“Had
my father come to my side, and looked upon this
paper, after hearing the story of Hilario's baseness,
what think you he should have done?”

“Killed him, I must allow,” said Juan, rising to
his feet; “for even his deep penitence could
scarcely be permitted to stand as the sole penalty
of such an offence.—Alas, Magdalena, my mind is
beset with sore misgivings. How was that paper
obtained? How did Hilario die? Thou growest
pale! Heaven shield me! didst thou, didst thou—?”

He paused with terror. The maiden replied
instantly, and almost with firmness:

“Hear the truth, even to the last syllable; for
even thy good opinion I will not purchase by subterfuge.
To Villafana,—a wretch, whose manifold
villanies thou couldst not dream, (for know, that,
being a sailor in the ship that bore the unlucky
sisters, he devised and accomplished its destruction,
that he might impiously obtain the holy vessels of
silver and gold—Ay, it was Villafana, and not the
tempest, that drove us upon the rocks of Alonso—)
to Villafana, from whom I learned, the cause of the
duel and of thy flight, I committed the charge of
obtaining this recantation.—Was this wrong?”
she exclaimed, giving way to affright, for Juan's
looks of horror could not be mistaken: “they were

two fiends together,—the villain struck the villain,
—the—”

“Murderess! murderess!” cried Juan aloud, recoiling
from her.

A ghastly smile passed over her countenance,
and it grew into a faint laugh, which, to Juan's
mistaken eye, (for he thought it the merriment of
satisfaction or indifference,) seemed unnatural and
dreadful, while she replied, her voice hysterically
belying her feelings, as much as did her countenance,

“Thou dost not think I employed him to do murder?
I appeal to heaven, I did not dream he would
do aught but compel the recantation from the
wounded man.—What! bid him kill one so defenceless!
Had he been strong and well armed,
then perhaps, indeed,—then perhaps, I might have
thought it. I sought but for the paper; the rest
was the deed of Villafana.”

“Oh heaven! oh holy heaven!” cried Juan;
“speak not another word: rather let me die than
hear more. Away! avaunt! thou art not a woman,
but a fiend! and all is now as it was, and
worse.--What, blood-stained! blood-stained!”—

Magdalena strode towards him, striving to speak,
but could only utter the words, `Injustice! injustice!'
mingled with the charge, `Leave Mexico,'
that still made a part of her perturbed thoughts.
Had not Juan been entirely overwhelmed by his
horror, he must have observed, that her mind was,
at this moment, convulsed beyond the degree of
any former agitation; that she was, in fact, in a
condition both alarming and pitiable. Her countenance
was most deathlike, her accents wholly unnatural,
and there was something of delirium or
idiotcy in the manner with which, while still muttering
the broken reproof, `Injustice,' and the charge,
`Leave Mexico,' she, all the while, extended the

blood-stained paper, as if entreating him again to
receive and peruse it.

As it was, he gave utterance to his horror in
the words,—

“Miserable woman! the denial forced from the
lips of the murdered man, is of a piece with the
spirit that compelled it—False, false, all!”

At these words, the paper dropped from her
hands, another vacant smile distorted her visage,
and she turned to depart; but before she had taken
two steps, she tottered, and fell to the floor, with a
dreadful scream, that instantly brought the guards
into the prison.

The absorbind nature of their conversation had,
for the last two or three moments, rendered both
incapable of observing that some scene of altercation
had suddenly arisen at the dungeon door.
High voices might be heard, as of one alternately
entreating and demanding admittance, which was
gruffly denied by others. The shriek of Magdalena,
ringing in their ears like a cry of death, brought
the contention to an end; and all rushing in together,
they beheld Juan endeavouring to raise the
figure of his unhappy and lifeless guest from the
floor.

“Dios mio! y peccavi! I will kill him where he
stands,” exclaimed one, rushing forward.

“Not so fast, señor Camarga,” cried the hunchback,
who was at the head of all, snatching the
weapon from the hands of this individual, who
seemed peculiarly to thirst for the blood of the
young islander. “Here's work for the bastinado!
Where's Villafana, ye treacherous dogs, that let
women into the prison? He shall pay for it.—
Harkee, señor Camarga; if you have any interest
in this fair lady, you may help bear her to the palace.
Poor fool! these women love as arquebuses
shoot: if you make them any obstruction, they

burst in your hands--and this is truer still of a
musket, if you thrust it into the earth. In mine
own opinion, the young hound has scorned her.”

While Najara gave vent to these growling observations,
Magdalena was carried out of the prison.
The hunchback had reached the door, before Juan,
in the confusion of the moment, thought of calling
him back to impart to him the secret of the treachery.
But Najara replied only with a malediction,
and departed with the lantern; so that Juan was
again left to night and solitude.