 | CHAPTER XIX.
VASCO NUNEZ MEETS WITH TERESA DAVILA. The damsel of Darien |  |
19. CHAPTER XIX.
VASCO NUNEZ MEETS WITH TERESA DAVILA.
The reception of Vasco Nunez by the Lady Teresa,
was such as might gratify any lover. That capricious
beauty had been sufficiently schooled by her father's
will; and the proud eminence to which the hero had attained,
whom once she regarded as a wandering visionary,
induced her now to hold him in another and a more endearing
light. She had, with all that art which seems so like instinct
in the bosom of the habitual coquette, banished from
her countenance and speech that levity which, even in
the moment of his greatest admiration, had somewhat
impaired, in his judgment, the excellence of her charms.
She appeared to him now the very perfection of modest
and unassuming grace, as she certainly was that of
imposing and commanding beauty. Her dark eye was
lowered beneath his glance—her lips scarcely parted
when they gave utterance to the trembling timid accents
with which she greeted his presence and replied
to his salutation, and none of the most endowed of
those skilled in dramatic personification could have more
ably persuaded the spectator of the absolute truth of
her portraiture, than did Teresa Davila impose upon
the love-blinded understanding of one who held among
men the highest station for mental aptness and intelligence.
Few were the first words of the hero—many
were his thoughts—strange his sensations—a mingled
anguish and delight disturbed his spirit, and rendered
uncertain for a while the true feeling which possessed
him. Long he watched her, and doubts warred in his
mind with his own hopes and the assurances which had
those vexing speeches which he had been so much accustomed
to make in San Domingo, when Vasco Nunez
was first a hopeful lover—seemed to ring in his ears
with solemn emphasis, even while he watched the maiden.
“If you are famous, and achieve the greatness which
is now a dream in the estimation of all Española, then
will the Lady Teresa receive you gladly as her lord.
Fail in this—be nothing but the wandering cavalier,
seeking service in the ranks of other captains, and she
will regard your homage as indignity, and meet your
adoration with scorn.”
“Can this be so?” was the inward question of Vasco
Nunez. “She hath surely been thus scornful in San
Domingo. Can I ever forget that night—that night
when Garabito was slain—when, in my agony of heart
and passion of supplication, she answered me with a
vain song? Ha! Am I to be laughed at thus? Shall
it be? No! She shall know me for one neither blind
to the indignity, nor insensible to the shame!—Teresa!”
“Señor.”
“Teresa, it is long, very long since we have met.”
“Yes, señor—very long.”
“Dost thou indeed feel it to be so very long, Teresa?”
“Ay, señor—wherefore dost thou ask?”
“It is no unseemly question, Teresa—it is no unwise
one. Dost thou remember that last meeting, Teresa—
that night when I came to thee with a resolution only
wrought within me by utter despair of fortune? The
seas had swallowed up my hope—and, save my own
heart, and mind, and sword, I had nothing reserved from
the overwhelming rage of the hurricane. In that hour
I turned to thee. I said to my secret soul, `It matters
little what the tempest sweeps away.' I looked on thee,
Teresa, at that moment, and I smiled at the loss, as if
nothing had been lost, but all rather had been won. I
had borne thee from the ruins in that hour. My arms
had bound thy waist. Thy cheek lay upon my bosom,
and while thy heart seemed almost to cease its beatings,
mine throbbed with the convulsive pulses that seemed
only proper to thine. It throbbed with no fear, Teresa,
with no fear for myself, though there might have been
rapture, because thy own was pressed against it.”
“Ah, señor, I have been too long ungrateful. It is to
thee I owe it that I now live.”
“Nay, my strife to save thee was a selfish one. I had
known no greater pang than to behold thy death. But
I should not speak of this. I have brought back to
thee that fearful hour, to show thee that it was only
in the utter desperation of my fortunes that I dared to
hope. I sought thee—thou know'st the night!—I sought
thee with the devoted fervour of a heart that beheld nothing
but perfection in thine, as in thy form and face
my eye beheld, as did the eyes of all others, a like perfection.
Teresa!—Dost thou remember that night—dost
thou remember thy answer to my prayer?”
A streak of living crimson passed over the cheek of
the maiden, then, as suddenly receded, leaving it paler
than marble; and the emotion was unaffected with which
she replied, though the reply embodied none of the feeling
which gave birth to that visible glow upon her cheek—
“Ah, señor, thou shamest me with this recollection. I
pray thee to forget that hour of my folly. Wilt thou not
forgive the wayward temper of a child—one too vain of
her power to fear its loss, and only reminded of her weakness
in the flight and scorn of the person whom she
wronged—only repenting of her folly when her repentance
seemed unavailing.”
“Was it so with thee, Teresa?” demanded Vasco Nunez
in trembling but earnest accents, approaching her
while he spoke.
“Alas, Señor Vasco, what shall I say to thee? Wouldst
thou have me confess to thee every woman weakness in
my heart?”
“No! no! no!” exclaimed the too soon forgiving and
forgetting hero. “Confess to me but one—but one!
Thou didst love me even then, Teresa—then, when thy
wilful lips drove me from thee in desperation.”
The answer of the maiden was contained in a deep
sigh, which seemed to escape her bosom unconsciously.
Her head sank still lower on her breast—her eyes were
upon the floor, and her little foot played in sight, as if free
from the watchfulness and control of its mistress. Vasco
Nunez was on his knees beside her in another instant.
“Teresa,” he said, “I believe thy silence much more
than I had ever believed thy language. Hadst thou spoken,
I had still doubted the lips that, speaking to me now of
love, had once spoken to me only of scorn. I am too
happy to receive thy sigh, thy look, thy silence, as the
sweet assuring answer, more grateful to my heart than
stronger sounds could have been, of the dear knowledge
which I seek. And yet, let me not forget. Teresa, it is
but fitting I should speak to thee with more resolution of
the man—that I should discard this weakness for awhile
—nay, more, that I should seem to doubt thee still. Thou,
perchance, dost not know the strange events which have
brought me a second time to thy feet; and, the Blessed
Virgin forbid that I should avail myself of the necessity
of the father to command the affections of the child. It
may be, thou hast constrained thy heart to favour me,
even when thy affections are elsewhere set, because of
the command or the prayer of Don Pedrarias. Fear not
that I will wrong thee, Teresa. Fear not to speak to me
if this be true; for, I tell thee here, and now, with the
solemnity of one speaking before God, that, though I
know nothing half so precious to me as thyself, yet would
I rather lose thee for ever, and lose life—nay, yield myself
back to the chains of thy father—sooner than that thou
shouldst wrong one true feeling in thy heart. I hold no
power over thee, dear Teresa, from the pledge which has
been made me by thy father in thy name:—I take no right
by what thy looks and thy sighs, rather than thy language,
have spoken. Be thou free as air, from this moment, to
love whom thou wilt, if it be that thou canst not, of thy
own free will, yield thyself to my solicitings.”
“Does the Señor Vasco desire release—would he be
free?”—
The proud, artful beauty paused in her speech, but
never did look or accent more clearly denote the dependence
of a humble heart—a heart suffering sacrifice and
utter loss, in the very moment when it declares its resignation
to its fate.
“Teresa, no! Canst thou believe me thus faithless—
thus fickle. Give thyself to me freely, and I take thee
with a joy inexpressible, as the most precious of all the
gifts of fortune.”
“Ah, Señor Vasco, I have no will opposed to thine.”
And she sank in his ready arms, as these words, tremulously
spoken, fell from her tongue, and the kiss which
his glowing lips caught that moment from hers—the seal,
as it were, of the precious bond between them—seemed no
less sweet to his heart, than if it had been taken from the
lip of truth and innocence, in the world's morning, and
in the happy garden devoted to its yet unsinning parents.
Conscience slept awhile in the sudden, passionate sway
of all-controlling love; and the poor Indian damsel, pining
at Acla, and looking forth with woful anxiety for the hour of
her lord's return, was utterly forgotten by him in the deep,
stifling sensations of those sweet embraces which he now
shared with the Spanish beauty. The hour of her misery
was yet to come. Neither doubt, nor fear, nor suspicion,
yet approached her heart. She sorrowed for delayed enjoyment,
not for its loss. Strange that love, the being of
a thousand instincts and of a wondrous prescience, should
yet lack all foreknowledge of its own desertion. It worships
and still confides—believes to the last; and only
doubts in the end, when nothing is left it but despair.
| CHAPTER XIX.
VASCO NUNEZ MEETS WITH TERESA DAVILA. The damsel of Darien | |