 | CHAPTER XXII.
THE FLIGHT OF THE AVENGER—LOVE KEEPS THE FIELD. The damsel of Darien |  |
22. CHAPTER XXII.
THE FLIGHT OF THE AVENGER—LOVE KEEPS THE FIELD.
An hour had scarcely passed from the departure of Vasco
Nunez on his course for the Pearl Islands—the brigantine in
which he sailed was hardly out of sight—when the secretary,
Pedro, was surprised by the visit of one, the last person
he expected, as it was, perhaps, the last person he desired
to see. This was no other than the damsel of Darien.
She chose a moment for her visit when the secretary was
alone. He started to his feet as he beheld her. There
was some little precipitateness in his manner, but a
solemn deliberateness about hers. He offered her a seat,
but she refused it. He would have urged it upon her
with that respectfulness of attention which he had been
ever accustomed to pay to one so distinguished by his
employer, and who, however equivocal might be her station
in a social point of view, or however inferior her
birth and connexions in the estimation of a European,
had been always with him a subject of sincere regard.
He knew that, though deceived, she was virtuous; and
though lovely and possessed of power, she was no less
gentle and complaisant than good; and at a time when his
Indian wife was a favourite topic of sneer with the meaner
enemies of Vasco Nunez, he was one of the few who
never deemed her undeserving of that high distinction.
Indeed, his own hostility to the adelantado was renewed
as he discovered the injustice of the latter to the damsel,
—as he beheld the weakness and deficiency of a mind
which could sacrifice such profound devotion and so pure
a heart because of its savage origin—giving a preference
to another, simply—as he believed—because of her European
birth,—or in compliance with a yet baser argument,
for the rescue of a forfeit life. She rejected his courtesy,
and for a few seconds contemplated his features in silence,
for the first time grew quickened on the subject
of his last night's adventure, and without being able entirely
to conceal his impatience, he desired to know of her
the purpose of her visit. He was soon answered.
“Señor Pedro, I have discovered the person who would
have slain my lord last night.”
“Ha! can it be, señora? Speak, Careta—dost thou
indeed know?”
Her eyes were riveted upon him with the piercing
keenness of fascination, as she replied—
“Ay, Señor Pedro, it is a great sorrow with me that I
do know—the more so, as the criminal is one whom my
lord greatly trusts. Señor Pedro, thou art he!”
“I,—ha!—Who! Careta, this is a strange jest. Why
should I do this thing?—why should I seek the death of
the Señor Vasco?—he who hath been so good to me ever
—who—but it is thy sport, Careta. It is thy mood to
sport with me to-day.”
“Alas! for me—it were a great sin if I could think to
sport on so dreadful a matter. I have no heart for sport,
Señor Pedro, for next to the sorrow which I have at my
lord's danger from his enemies, is the great grief at my
heart, Señor Pedro, that thou shouldst be among them—
thou whom he has ever trusted among the first, and to
whom, as thou thyself hast said, he hath ever been a
firm friend.”
“But I am not among his enemies, Careta; and as for
this strange humour of thine—if thine indeed it be—that
I have lifted weapon against him—some evil person hath
possessed thee against the truth—”
“No more, Señor Pedro,” she interrupted him with
solemn emphasis; “speak no more in denial of thy own
shame. The truth is against thee, and there is proof.”
“Ha! Proof, say'st thou—what proof?”
Without a word she unclasped one of her hands which
had been hitherto so closed as to conceal its contents,
and revealed to his eyes the fragment of a frill, such as
were commonly worn at the sleeve by the gallants of that
time and nation. His eyes instinctively fell upon the
wrist of his right hand, where the other portions of the
frill, rent and torn, were at that moment visible. Hitherto,
the injury which it had sustained in the scuffle had entirely
elsewhere to suffer his eyes to do their ordinary duties;
and though writing with the fragments continually presenting
themselves before him, he had not been in the
slightest degree conscious that they exhibited any other
than their usual appearance. This sudden revelation—
the action, look, manner of the damsel, all announced to
him that in her mind she had arrived at the fullest conviction
of his criminality—and the sudden paleness of his
cheeks, and the sinking of his eyes beneath her glance,
against which he vainly strove, and of which he felt painfully
conscious, were enough, he well knew, to confirm
her suspicions, by whatever doubts they may have been
qualified before. He stammered out a farther denial of
the accusation, though admitting what he could not deny,
that the frill was his. But his words failed utterly to
affect her convictions. She answered him calmly and
without hesitation. She forebore all language of hate
and denunciation. The enormity of his offence, indeed,
seemed to deprive her, in the consciousness of her imperfect
modes of speech, of all power of reproach.
“This, Señor Pedro, is from your sleeve. I found it in
the tent of my lord, and beside his couch where he slept
last night. It lay in the very spot where I struggled with
the person who came to slay him. Oh, Señor Pedro, how
you have deceived my lord! How will he hear—how
will he believe that you, whom he so much trusted, have
been the person to seek his life!”
The secretary went to the entrance of the tent, which
he carefully examined before answering; then returning,
he prepared for a conference, the details of which might
have moved a hardier villain, yet were inadequate to disturb
to any great degree the fixed and fanatical resolution
of his mind. He saw that the circumstance which had apprised
Careta of his guilt was one that, once known, must
be almost equally conclusive to all other persons. Feeling
assured that any attempt at denial would be vain, he resolved
upon a bolder, and, perhaps, more manly course.
“Wherefore should he hear it, Careta—why shouldst
thou tell him of this?”
“How! Wouldst thou have me take part with his
enemy?”
“Ay, if his enemy is your friend. If his enemy, doing
me, Careta,”—seeing she was about to interrupt him with
a very natural expression of indignation—“Vasco Nunez
has deceived you. He told you that you were his wife
according to the Christian law, but the Christians regard
you not as his wife, nor does he himself give you
such a title, nor have you such a claim. Ere long he will
tell you otherwise—ere long he will give that title to another.
Know from me—I spoke the words in your ear
last night, but you would not hear and would not believe
—he is sworn to wed Teresa Davila, the daughter of
Pedrarias, and his late visit to Darien, when he left thee
behind him at Acla, was to meet with and to see her.”
“I believe thee not—I believe thee not now, no more
than I did last night. My lord is ever good and honourable.
He took me from my father at Coyba as his wife,
according to the law among the Christians, and such I
am, and such he will make me ever. He can make no
other his wife. He hath ever called me such, and if it be
as thou say'st, that he went to Darien to see this lady,
wherefore is it that he hath left her—wherefore is it that I
lie even now within his arms?”
“Yet is all true that I tell thee, Careta. The condition
by which Don Pedrarias released him from prison in
Darien, was that he should marry with his daughter.
This he hath sworn to do—and this, Careta, I tell thee,
will he do, utterly regardless of thy affections, and the
promises which he hath made to thee and to thy father.”
“Señor Pedro, it were death and shame for me to believe
thee. It were death to me, since it were such
sad shame to my lord. I cannot believe thee. My
lord hath been ever true to me and good. He hath ever
kept his promise to the poor Indians, my people—and to
me, that, if there be truth in thy speech, am the poorest
Indian among them. It is not true, for my lord hath
never spoken to me of this.”
“Nor will he, till it may be questioned no longer. Thy
first knowledge, Careta, of the truth from him, will be
heard when the Lady Teresa stands before thee as his
wife, and commands thee as his slave.”
“Slave thyself, and liar as thou art! Leave me—fly, I
tell thee, thou bad man, that speakest of my lord such
things as belong only to thy own base thoughts! fly,
in this ship that goes to-day to Darien, for, so sure as
my heart is true to my lord's nobleness, will my lips
tell him of thy crime.”
Her lips quivered with her gradually increasing emotion,
which, swelling against restraint, now burst all
bounds, and poured itself forth in language in which
her inadequate Spanish was liberally filled out by the
rapid rushing sounds of her native tongue. The veins
upon her brow were risen into ridges, and those upon
her throat seemed cords that grasped and threatened
her with that suffocation which appeared also to be no
less threatened in her thick and choking utterance. Her
figure, which was naturally small, seemed to rise and
expand with the provocation, and her extended hand,
as she bade him fly, was lifted with a majesty which
might have furnished a lesson of united grace and dignity
to the most polished and finely tutored princess of
the royal race of Christendom. The now inflexible eye
of the secretary gazed on her with a mingled expression
of pity and admiration. In his thoughts, at that moment,
he felt no anger, and nothing but sympathy. Her scorn,
and the keen language from her lips did not vex him. He
only thought of the moment when the truth should become
known to her, no longer to be doubted, which she
now denied with such warm confidence and hostile expression.
“Yet, Careta, but awhile. If this should be true that
I tell thee—say that I prove it to be true—that Vasco Nunez
is to wed with Teresa Davila—”
“Thou canst not prove it—it is not true,” she replied
impetuously. He patiently repeated the words, and proceeded—
“If I can prove it to thee by the lips of Micer Codro?”
“I should sooner believe that Micer Codro had grown
false like thyself, than believe this baseness of my lord.
Let me not hear thee longer. How should I believe thee
—thou that speakest to me evil of my lord, only when
thou hast been thyself shown guilty of the worst of evil
designs against him? Thy dagger has been lifted
against his heart, even when his heart most believed in
the goodness of thine. Señor Pedro, I would not have
thee die by a cruel death. Go—leave Isla Rica ere my
him the truth.”
“Hear me, Careta—shall I prove to thee by thy lord's
own words that he is bound to wed, by his own promise,
with Teresa Davila? Look, here is his own letter to
that damsel, new written, and to be sent this day to
Balsas.”
She turned away her head in haste.
“I would not see it even if it be true, and, as thy falsehood,
I still would look away from it, as dishonouring my lord.
Thou canst not persuade me, Señor Pedro. I will believe
nothing against my lord which is spoken by his enemy.”
“Wilt thou not believe me when I swear?”
“No! How should I believe thee, when thy daily life is
a lie? Dost thou not walk beside my lord—dost thou not
smile when he speaks—and dost thou not hearken to his
secret thoughts, and counsel him as if thou wert his certain
friend, even when thou wouldst strike him with thy
weapon? Shall I believe his words, whose actions are
so false? No, no! From thy lips I will believe nothing.”
The secretary paused a moment. Rapid thoughts
rushed through his mind. It was necessary that he
should resolve quickly. He saw at a glance that there
was no relenting on the part of the Indian damsel; that
no assurance of the faithlessness of Vasco Nunez could
produce a like faithlessness in her, even if he could succeed
in persuading her to credit his own assurances.
Her resolution seemed equally certain—as, indeed, there
could be no reasonable hope on his part that it should be
otherwise—that the return of the adelantado from his
cruise would be the hour of his own exposure. A desperate
resolve passed through his mind—a horrible idea
—by which he hoped to escape this danger, and remain
at the same time in the neighbourhood of his victim.
“Shall I now,” he thought to himself, “be driven by
this woman from the revenge which I have so long
meditated—which is an oath written in heaven, and
which the spirit of the injured dead hath been invoked
to witness? No! Driven hence, I lose all present prospect
of my vengeance, and the tongue of this woman
leaves me to the hostile and destructive rage of Vasco
Nunez, who will inevitably pursue me to the death. That
were nothing, could I destroy, also, in the hour of my own
mode. Careta!”
The last word was spoken aloud, and he advanced as
he spoke towards the damsel. Without suffering his eye
to lose its immediate hold upon hers, his hand, unobserved
by her, possessed itself of a dagger, which hung with
other armour against a tree, around which his sylvan
tent had been erected. Grasped firmly in his left hand,
the blade was turned upward and concealed behind his
arm. He approached her with slow steps, and his ear as
he moved was keenly alive to the stillness of the scene
without. As if unassured, he looked once more to the
entrance of the tent. The very billows seemed sleeping
upon the shore. The hundred details of a cruel scheme
of murder and concealment went through his mind in
regular order in the short minute's space in which his
eyes were thus employed.
“A single sudden blow,” thus ran the terrible musings
of his mind, “and she is silenced for ever. This wide
waste of waters will bear her beyond sight of the keenest
eye, and there are none near to behold the stroke—to hear
the cry—to see or to speak. Careta!” he exclaimed returning;
“thou art resolved then to hear nothing—neither
thy lord's crime against me, nor that which he has meditated
against thyself. Of what avail will it be to thee
that thou shouldst tell this to Vasco Nunez, and show
that thou lovest him in spite of all his injustice, when, but
a little month shall pass, and thou wilt be doomed to behold
another in his arms?”
“Thou hast already filled my ears with this, Señor Pedro.
Have I not said to thee that I believe it not?”
“Thou art then resolved to give me up to the vengeance
of thy lord—nothing but my death will appease thee?”
“Nay, the Holy Virgin forbid that thou shouldst die.
I wish not that. Do I not tell thee to depart ere my lord
cometh? Were it not for the safety of my lord, my lips
should be sealed—he should never hear of thy crime. No,
no! Go where he may not find thee. Go, where thou
mayst turn to be sorry for thy evil thoughts. In the
country far over the waters my lord will never find thee
—nay, I promise thee I will beg that he will never seek
after thee. I will beg him to forgive thee, and to forget
thy crime.”
“Poor fool!” exclaimed the secretary half aloud; “in
a little time what will thy prayers to him avail thee—and
thy promises to me? Thou little dreamest thy own discarded
destiny. Thou little knowest thy own wrongs—
the abiding hopelessness of that heart which is so completely
the slave of another's that it will believe no evil of
its tyrant. Thou wilt yet pray for me—for thy avenger!
—I cannot strike her now. It were a blow against the
purest innocence. I am not sworn against virtue but
against evil—not against the weak but the strong—not
against the just and gentle, but the bloody-minded and
unjust. No! There is yet another mode. I will try that.
Careta! I will obey thee. See! I mean thee no evil—
this dagger was but now lifted in my hand to slay thee.
I had sworn against the life of Vasco Nunez—thou wert
in possession of my secret, and when, in thy blind devotion
to that man, thou refusedst all ear to my accusation
against him, my first thought was to silence thee, that I
might still be nigh to work out my vow of vengeance.
But I look on thee with too much admiration to strike—I
pity thee, for what the future will bring thee, too much to
heed the opposition of thy will to mine, and the scorn and
hostility which thou breathest against me. I will leave
Isla Rica, even as thou counsellest—but the hour will come,
Careta, when in thy secret thought thou wilt say, the blow
which was aimed by my hand at the breast of Vasco Nunez,
and which thy woman hand hath baffled, had been a
blow no less sweet to thy heart than its success had been
to mine.”
“Never, never! The Holy Virgin strengthen and preserve
me from such a sinful thought. It glads me, Señor
Pedro, that thou goest from Isla Rica. Thy dagger
alone could have kept me from speech to my lord of the
crime which thou hast meditated against him; and Careta
had been only too happy to have died for him, could it be
that her death had saved his life. Go!—I forgive thee for
what thou hast thought against me; but I cannot forgive
thee that which thou hast felt against my lord. Thou
mightst have slain me, Señor Pedro, but even with the
blood going out of my heart, I had told thee that my faith
in my lord is fast. Thou canst not move me in that, whether
I live or die.”
“Thou art worthy of a better faith, Careta,” replied
“and I would that my prayer might find thee a better fortune.
Alas! for thee; I shall one day see thee more desolate
than myself. I leave thee.”
“Go, señor, and let thy prayer be for thyself and not
for Careta. The Christian God hath been very kind already
to the poor Indian. I am bidden to have faith in
him, and from what he hath already shown me of his
favour, I were blind and foolish had I not. May he favour
thee, Señor Pedro, and make thy heart wise to love only
that which is good.”
“Thou wilt yet curse him and die!” exclaimed the secretary,
as he left the tent and moved towards the sea-shore.
She made him no answer, but her hands were clasped,
and her eyes lifted up to heaven, with an expression in
which the serene, relying, hope shone out with a tenderness
of aspect that looked most like love, and yet was
religion. In another hour and the brigantine left Isla
Rica for the river Balsas, bearing in her the secretary of
Vasco Nunez, no less revengeful in his mood than before,
and, perhaps even more resolved upon its execution, from
that defeat of his design which had ended in his exile
from the victim.
| CHAPTER XXII.
THE FLIGHT OF THE AVENGER—LOVE KEEPS THE FIELD. The damsel of Darien | |