University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.

Maria had thus secured a second agent, and
made a large step toward the attainment of her
object. But the days passed, and the nights followed,
and still nothing decisive, on the part of Juan, tended

to confirm the assurances which he had made to his
wily confederate. She became anxious and apprehensive,
particularly as the passion of the youth
seemed to be cooling toward her. He was no longer
communicative—no longer sought her as frequently as
before. His manner was now hesitating, his brow
clouded, and his whole appearance that of a man who
was brooding over wild suspicions. But Maria was
too much an adept to suffer her own anxieties to be
perceptible, while she watched his with apprehension.
Her doubts put on the appearance of womanly reserve,
of dignified pride, of feminine sensibility, solicitous to
avoid exposure. But she was equally studious not to forego
the exercise of any, the meanest of her attractions.
Her dress was carefully studied, and with the happiest
effect; and if her brow was clouded, it was with sadness,
the sweeter for the shade. She sang too—
never with more exquisite freedom, or with more voluptuous
sensibility, than when she sat alone, in the
darkness of night, upon the deck of the slowly moving
vessel. This was the third night after the last interview,
which we have described, with Linares. She
was suddenly joined by Juan de Silva. She knew of
his approach, but started with well-feigned surprise,
as his whisper reached her ears.

“Thou hast thought me a laggard, Maria?”

“Nay, I have suffered no disappointment. I had
no hopes of thee, Juan!”

He was piqued.

“That was because thou didst not know me. But

I have been busy in my task. It is not because I am
irresolute that I am slow. It is because I would be
sure. It is not known to thee, perhaps, that Velasquez
hath valuable possessions in Spain. These will serve
us hereafter, my Maria, when we shall tire of the sea.
I have secured the papers which conduct to these.
The key of his coffers is at my girdle. And now—
but, hark thee—continue thy ballad. It has beguiled
his fancies, and he is about to join us to be nearer
thee. There! His bell sounds. I will bring him
forth, and—dost thou heed me, Maria?”

His hand trembled with an icy chillness, as he laid
it upon her wrist. Her own grew chilled with a
sympathetic consciousness of what he designed.

“Thy song! Thy ballad!” he muttered convulsively
as he left her, and, almost unconscious of what
she did, she resumed, in accents that slightly faltered,
the ballad of `Belerma,' one of her favorite songs,
which she had probably learned from a purer source
than that of the Zingali camp.

Which may be thus freely rendered:—
The voice of Velasquez—a voice that had once been
equally rich and powerful—now feebly joined its
accents with hers, as he tottered forth from the cabin,
supported on the arm of his nephew, and sank into a
seat which had been prepared beside her. Her tones
subsided into silence as he approached.

“Nay, stop not,” said he; “let me hear thee—I
come out only to hear thee, for I feel not so well to-night—not
well, not happy, Maria, mine. Thy voice
will persuade me to a better spirit, though it sounds
more sadly than is thy wont to-night; and that ballad—methinks,
beauty, mine, thou wouldst never
grieve over my heart, as the lovely damsel, Belerma,
mourned over that of Durandarte.” And he sang
feebly—

She continued silent.

“Sing for me, Maria—deny me not;” he said entreatingly.
“I know not that I shall ever ask it of
thee again. I feel as if a sentence had gone forth
upon me. I feel as if I had done thee wrong! My
heart tells me that I have wronged thee. If thou
wilt sing for me now, I know that thou forgivest
me!”

“Thou shouldst not give way to such fancies,
uncle, mine,” said the nephew; “methinks, thou art
looking better to-day than thou hast done for months
past; and know I not that thou hast always been
fond of Donna Maria, even as the good knight, Durandarte,
was fond of the true maiden, Belerma.”

“Ah! Juan; but Velasquez is no Durandarte, to
find his way to the heart of a fair maiden. These
days bring forth no knighthood such as his. Who is
it walks behind us? Methought I heard a footstep!”

“It is none but the page, Gomez,” said the nephew,
in somewhat hurried accents.

A thrill ran through the veins of Maria, as she remembered
that the page, Gomez, was the creature of
Juan, and the person who, as a spy upon her actions,
first discovered the strong intimacy between herself
and Lopez de Levya. The tones of Juan betrayed
to her something of his purpose, and she gathered
from them the conclusion, that he meditated the performance
of his crime that very night. Her heart
smote her. She felt her own criminality; but she
loathed the tyranny of Velasquez, as much as she did
the cold and cruel selfishness of Juan; and it was
only in the death of both that she could possibly hope
to extricate from his desolate condition the unhappy
Lopez, whom, if she did not actually love, she did
not loathe, and for whom every sentiment of humanity
required that she should suffer the bloody game of
Juan to go on. But she looked round, at the inquiry
of Velasquez, and while she detected Gomez near
them, she was also enabled to discover another and a
taller form among the shadows beyond him. In this
person she fancied she saw Linares, and suddenly she
commenced the Hymn to the Virgin, plaintive and
touching, of the dying knight, Baldwin:—

Which in an English idiom we may render thus:—