Vasconselos :: :: University of Virginia Library

“It is all over! all blasted! The dream—the too precious
dream! Jesu! that it should end thus! How should it be so!
How should she—so fair, so gentle, so seeming pure and angelic!—Ha!
Ha! Ha! It is not wonderful! It is a truth—
an experience old as the hills! When came the tempter ever,
save in garments of an angel of light! It is the one power
which he possesses, over all others, of seeming, to mortal eyes,
the thing he is most unlike! And how nearly had I fallen into
the snare! How blind, neither to see nor to suspect! But for
this outlaw—this slave—I had been a lost man—sold to a delusion—expending
my soul upon a phantom—laying my best
affections in tribute upon an altar which devotes them all to
shame! Yet, I cannot thank him! He hath, at a word, in a moment,
by a spell, robbed me of the one glad, joyous vision of
my life! I had but one hope, and he hath destroyed it! I knew
but one desire, and he hath made it death! What now should
I live for? Of what avail that I am young, and fearless, and
skilled in arms, and all noble exercises? The motive for performance
is gone, and the life goes with it. All is a blank before

320

me; all cheerless, all bitterness; a long waste of darkness
and denial!”

And he threw himself down hopelessly by the way-side.
Darkness had settled down; but the stars were coming out, silently
and palely, looking like the spectres of past pleasures.
The distant lights of the city were present to his eyes also. There
were torches flaming upon the farthest hills, and pyres were burning
before booths and camps, from which rose faintly, at intervals,
the sounds of merriment. Gay laughter and shouts, he
heard, or fancied, rising from rustic groups engaged in the fandango;
and anon, but more faintly, he caught the tinkle of a
guitar rising from some bohio or cottage, in the contiguous hollow
of the hills.

“They laugh! they shout! they sing; as if there were not
a shadow upon the earth—as if guilt and shame had not fouled
the fairest aspect under heaven! Jesu, to be so beautiful and
sweet to the eye—to acquire such power, through sunniest charms,
over the soul, and yet to fail in the one great virtue which alone
makes all dear things precious to the heart! But, is it so? Is
it true? Have I not been deceived? Am I not betrayed by
treachery and cunning? May it not all be a delusion of the
senses? Is it sure that it was she? Did not mine eyes deceive
me; and, while there is a doubt, shall I give faith to an assurance
so terrible—so revolting—so fatal to the loveliest work of heaven!
It was dusk—the woods were thick—the sunbeams did not
pierce them—the curtains hung around, darkening the chamber!
—there was a woman, but is it certain that she was Olivia—my
Olivia! the pure, the proud, the beautiful? Was I not too ready
to believe the accursed suggestion of the outlaw; was there no
contrivance for my ruin—for her ruin? What if I return and see;
and, if it be true, what should keep me from slaying him, at
least, and looking her to stone with eyes of scornfulness and
hate!”

But he did not rise. He could not doubt. He could not delude
himself into the thought that what he had seen was a mere
delusion of the senses. It was too true—too real—and the more

321

he strove to dispel the conviction, the more it grew to strength,
and took possession of his soul; filling it with a nameless and
indescribable horror. For an hour he lay thus upon the earth,
delivered to despair. There was no refuge for hope in thought,
and he lay brooding, with an aimless mind, and an agonized
spirit. At last, he rose. The strong man rarely sinks below a
certain point. He may be overwhelmed, like the weakest, by a
shock, at once terrible, revolting, and unexpected: but the heart
gathers its forces after a season, and nature compels the proper
efforts for her own recovery and repose. The grief may remain,
but it does not overcome. It may prove a lasting blight to the
hope, the fancy, the affections; but there is a calm resolution
which enables the sufferer to live and to perform; for performance
is, beyond all other things, the natural law, and the necessity
of the true man; and even the sorrow, which wounds and
blights the heart, serves to strengthen the noble courage and the
indomitable will. Philip de Vasconselos rose from the earth
at last. He had become somewhat more composed. His will
and character were beginning to assert themselves. He was still
the master of himself! He rose and went forward, sadly, slowly,
but resolutely; endeavoring, with all the calm he could command,
to shape the course for his progress in the future. This
was soon decided in his mind.

The lights of the city grew before his eyes. The torches and
camp-fires, along the hills that skirted the city, became more
glaring, and cast their great red shadows upon his path. The
voices of merriment, the songs, the shouts, the joyous cries and
laughter, with the tinkle of pleasant instruments, became louder
and more frequent on his ear. Suddenly, his eye caught a
glimpse of the long, temporary structure, of poles, covered with
palm branches, and the broad leaves of other trees, in which the
knights were revelling at the last festivities of the Adelantado.

“What remains,” murmured Philip, “but that I go with this
expedition? What matters it to me, now that I am no favorite?
I ask no favors. There are blows and danger to be encountered
among the Apalachian, and he who is armed as I am now, against

322

all terrors, can make himself a favorite, by making himself fearful.
What better region in which to bury my sorrows, and
hide my anguish from vulgar eyes? Where can I more surely
escape from this agony of thought? In the fierce strife, there
will be forgetfulness; and forgetfulness will be the most precious
of hopes, even though it comes only through the embrace with
death. I will go with Nuno!”

Under this new impulse, he hurried forward rapidly towards
the scene of festivity, as if fearing to trust himself to think further
upon the subject of his progress. It was not long before he
reached the place; the shouts from within, the music, assailing
his ears with a sense of pain, without, however, impairing his
resolution to join the revellers,—to engage in their expedition.

The structure in which the Adelantado and his Floridian chivalry
held their feast was, as we have said, a rude, simple fabric, designed
only for the temporary purpose. It consisted of slender
shafts, green trees freshly cut, and thatched with bamboo and
fresh bushes. It was fantastically adorned in a style which the
climate and productions of the country naturally suggested to the
eye of taste. The flag of Spain, the banners of De Soto, and of
the several captains, were disposed happily around the apartment.
Green leaves and gorgeous flowers were wreathed about
the columns, declaring visibly the wealth of the delicious region
of which they were the natural tribute. Fruits in gay festoons
hung down within reach from the rafters: the luscious pine, the
mellow banana, the juicy and fragrant orange. Of the provision
for the feast, it will be much easier for the reader to imagine
than for us to describe. Enough that the Adelantado and the
knights of the expedition had done their best to requite the hospitalities
of the Islanders in a fashion worthy of their own. They
had expended no small part of the treasures remaining from their
outfit, in doing the honors gallantly and with becoming ostentation.
They not only provided, as it was the custom of the gentry
of the city and country to provide, but they studiously procured
dishes such as they had merely heard described, and fancied
others, the better to outdo description—“Exhausted cates, and then

323

imagined new.” The turtle, fresh from the sea, furnished the only
soup,—a first course, which was served up in the uncouth monster's
own shell; game and domestic poultry, including doves
from the côte; young peacocks, their plumage artfully disposed
about the birds after they were made ready by the cook for the
table, so as almost to represent the living creature, his gay
streamers of green, and purple, and gold, looking as bright and fairy
like as when he unfolds them to sight, strutting and spreading
himself abroad from court and verandah. Some dishes were prepared
formed wholly of the tongues of singing birds; and we
may add, were eaten with an appetite such as might be assumed
to originate only with a hope to win the musical powers of the
member thus hushed forever. The unripened plantain was
sliced and browned in sugar by the fire; or, roasted, was macerated
with the inspissated juices of the cane. This course, by the
way, was preceded by one consisting wholly of sea and shell-fish,
and was succeeded by fruits of more than twenty kinds, all natives
of the island. Fresh guayavas, fragrant ananas, bananas
and sapadillos, yielded themselves to delighted palates in delicious
sympathy with wines of Xeres, which had already began to
circulate with potency before Philip de Vasconselos entered the
assembly.

He entered at a moment when De Soto was addressing his
audience. The Spanish language is one of equal grandeur and
beauty; the Spanish character is necessarily one of ambition and
hyperbole. The language of a people usually declares for its
character in its best days. We know from other histories how
a language may exhibit more vitality than a people; how gloriously
it survives them. A language, known through its literature,
is perhaps the only durable monument of a people. De Soto,
as is well known, was an accomplished cavalier, greatly distinguished
at a period when Spain could claim a host of heroes. It
is not so well known that he was an accomplished speaker,
thoroughly master of the arts of language, versed in its delicacies,
and practised in all its graces. His audience listened to him
with ecstasy, and rounded his sentences with their vivas and

324

bravas. He dwelt upon that superiority of character which exulted
in adventure. The art of war, he contended, and its prosecution
in new lands, was, perhaps, the very noblest and most
god-like of all human arts. He spoke of the greatness of his
nation, as particularly renowned for the use of this art, in its most
inspiring exercises. He painted fame and glory, brightly and
purely, and grandly, as they appear always to youth and enterprise,
and dwelt upon the progresses of Cortez and Pizarro in Mexico
and Peru—subjects, in hearing the report of which, the Castilian
ear could never tire. By a natural transition he came to speak
of their present adventure in the wilds of Florida. He did not
disparage the valor of the red men of Apalachia, nor seek to lessen
the picture of danger which he drew as a necessary consequence of
the enterprise; but he insisted upon the utter impossibility of any
valor of the red-men as able to stand for a moment before such
warriors as he led to the encounter. He particularly dwelt upon the
great treasures of the country, its glorious cities hidden in the bosom
of mighty mountains; its treasures of gold and silver; its pearls
to be gathered in heaps along its shores; arguments which, he
well knew, were beyond all others, in persuading young ambition
and greedy avarice to his banners. At the close, seeing
Philip de Vasconselos enter, he took the opportunity of throwing
out a few bitter sarcasms upon the timid, the laggard, the weak,
the souls deficient in true courage and noble enterprise, who hung
back when an occasion so glorious was offered to their eyes.

The glances of the assembly followed those of the Adelantado,
and rested upon the flushed countenance of Philip. He saw the
direction given to the words of De Soto, and felt the purpose of
the latter to inflict a sting upon his pride and heart. He rose
proudly when the Adelantado had finished, and looked sternly
around the assembly. It was surprising how composed he was.
He appeared fully to have recovered himself, and though very
grave, as the occasion seemed to require, he was quite as firm
and calm as if he labored under no other provocation than that
which he had just received. Never was individual less daunted by
the circumstances in which he stood. He saw that there was dissatisfaction—certainly

325

constraint—in the faces of nearly all around
him; reflecting that in the countenance of the Adelantado, who
scarcely acknowledged, with a stately bend of the head, the
measured but courteous approach of our hero, and the deepening
shadows upon whose brow argued no friendly welcome for what
he might say. But Philip was little moved by these unfriendly auspices.
He respected De Soto as a brave and noble cavalier,
distinguished equally by talents and graces, and high in favor of
his sovereign; but his respect and admiration were not so profound
as to cause him to suffer any mortification from the loss of
his favoring countenance. He advanced towards the dais which
had been assigned to the Adelantado, raising him a little above
the rest of the assembly,—passing through the crowd with exceedingly
deliberate pace, until he stood but a few paces from the
person he addressed.

“Your Excellency,” said he, “has been pleased to indulge in
certain remarks of censure upon that unambitious, unperforming
and timid class, who, bred to arms, are yet reluctant to engage
in the honorable adventure to which you invite them. I cannot
deceive myself as to the fact, that certain in this assembly
are disposed to make these remarks applicable to the person
who now addresses you. I trust it is not necessary to say
here that for any one who would impute to me the want of
courage, I have but a single answer, and that lies at the point of
my weapon; be it lance, or sword, battle-axe, or dagger. I am
ready to encounter any questioner. That I have been slow in
resolving to accompany this expedition, has been no fault of
mine. I came hither from my own land for this very purpose;
and until I reached Havana, I knew no disposition to change my
determination. It will be admitted, I think, that the encouragements
offered to me for this adventure, however, have been very
few; and, perhaps, were I to say the truth, I should describe the
course taken with me as designed specially to rebuke the presumption
which had prompted me to seek a place under the
banner of Castile.”

326

“Not so, Señor, not so, by God!” exclaimed De Soto, interrupting
him energetically.

“Be this as it may, your Excellency, it is one of those things
upon which I do not dwell; for, to me, war and adventure carry
their own encouragements; and it is found, always in the time
of danger, that no one's sword is amiss that does good service
on our side. I have no fear that in the day of trial, I shall fail
to prove my right to be present where blows are given and
received. Encouragement I need not,—discouragement will
never chill my enterprise or lessen my strength. That I hesitated
to engage under your banner when I came here was due to
other influences, which —”

De Soto smiled grimly. Philip saw the smile, and his face
was suddenly flushed with crimson.

“But it matters not,” he proceeded, “to say wherefore I hesitated
to declare my purpose. It will suffice, your Excellency,
to say that I am now prepared, if permitted, to accompany your
expedition to the country of the Apalachian—a country which I
somewhat know already—a people with whom I have already
had fierce as well as amicable intercourse,—and among whom, it
may be found, that my presence shall work for good to your
Excellency's enterprise.”

This said, Philip de Vasconselos bowed courteously, and
calmly wheeling about, made his way back to the place where
he had entered the apartment. The Adelantado—the audience—
was taken completely by surprise. Nothing could have been
more unexpected to all ears. De Soto spoke in reply approvingly,
and with warm compliment. Other voices followed with
the same burden. But Philip neither heard nor listened. He
was making his way out, when his hand was suddenly seized by
that of his brother Andres.

“Brother!” was all that the latter said.

“Andres, my brother!” exclaimed Philip, throwing his arm
around the neck of the youth, while a sudden gush of tears from
overfull fountains blinded his eyes. No more was said between

327

them. Such was their reconciliation. The speech of Philip had
taught Andres—strangely enough—that the passion of his brother
for Olivia de Alvaro had proved as fruitless as his own. Why?
This was the mystery which none could solve. Philip tore himself
away from the brief embrace, and was hurrying out, when
Nuno de Tobar rushed up, and, warmed with wine, caught him
exultingly in his arms.

“But how is all this, Philip?”

At that moment Don Balthazar de Alvaro suddenly entered,
and was passing very near them. Instinctively, Philip grasped
the handle of his sword, and his eyes were fastened upon the
uncle of Olivia, with such an expression as made the latter start,
as at the approach of a famished tiger. Philip recovered himself
in a moment, turned away from the face of him whom he
longed to destroy, and was followed out by Nuno into the open
air.

“Tell me,” said the latter, “how comes this change?”

“Do not ask me, Nuno; enough that I go with you.”

“Holy Mother, but your looks, Philip —”

“Heed them not—heed me not—let me leave you, Nuno, I
am not fit for this assembly.”

“But you have been to see Olivia—you have seen her?”

“I have seen her!”

“And she refused you?”

“No!—I have not spoken with her.”

“Seen her—but not spoken!—What! Your courage failed
you at the last moment—you had not the heart?”

“I had not the heart!”

“Jesu! man! What weakness is this?”

“No weakness! No more, Nuno. There is that which puts
an eternal barrier between Olivia de Alvaro and myself—a barrier
deep as the grave, impassable as hell. I can tell you nothing.
You but distress me when you ask—ask nothing. From this
moment name her not to me, Nuno, unless you would make me
your foe for ever!”