University of Virginia Library

29. CHAPTER XXIX.

It required, in fact, no effort on the part of Don Balthazar to
procure the pardon of Mateo, the outlaw, from the hands of the
Adelantado. He had only to place the paper before him, with
a crowd of other papers, for signature, and the sign-manual was
set down without scruple or examination. This was the usual
process. It was thus that, at the entreaty of Olivia, the Lady
Isabella had already procured the pardon of the mestizo; and
thus it was that the affair had escaped the knowledge of the
knight. In neither instance had De Soto been made aware of
what he had done, and Don Balthazar was thus naturally kept
ignorant of the peculiar interest which his niece had manifested
in the outlaw, and of her intimacy with him. He was utterly
without suspicion in this quarter; the consequence of his impression
of her ignorance of affairs, and of her utter indifference and
apathy upon most subjects. The pardon procured, the Don prepared
the legal discharge of Mateo, and his sister, from the service
of his ward. He signed the latter papers as her guardian,
and, as usual, without consulting her. The deed of emancipation
which she had prepared was, in fact, void, in consequence
of her minority; and this was quite as well known to Mateo as
to herself. But it was understood between them that he was to
keep aloof until she should reach maturity, when he could boldly
defy the uncle. The parties did not deceive themselves, or one
another; and though the discharge of Olivia was, for the present,
of less value than that of Don Balthazar, still Mateo much
preferred to receive the boon at her hands, though of questionable
validity, than to incur any obligation at the hands of a person
whom he meditated to murder at the first decent opportunity.
Armed with the desired papers, Mateo did not think proper to
keep his engagement with the Don. He was to have met him
in the thicket, where we have already beheld their interview,
but the knight waited for him in vain; and, after lingering
for an hour, becoming impatient, he took his way towards
the summer-house, and thence proceeded to the dwelling. He
little dreamed that the person he hoped to see was closely

following and observing all his movements. So was Juana.
Mateo had counselled the latter carefully on certain points,
and the watch maintained by one or the other of them left
no single proceeding of Don Balthazar, when at home, unnoticed!
While at the summer-house, the Don had divested himself
of the papers with which he had proposed to meet the outlaw.
As it was in this neighborhood that he still calculated to
encounter him, he thought to have them always ready by leaving
them there. He fastened them up securely in a huge chest
which he kept in a closet. But Mateo, who watched all his steps,
soon wormed his way into the closet and the chest. He was
armed with a bit of iron wire, his machete, and a small drill and
mallet; and it was surprising with what rapidity he persuaded
locks to give up their secrets. Such is the advantage of being in
high practice, wherever the arts are concerned. The worthy outlaw,
however, did not immediately possess himself of the documents
of the Don. For the present, he was content to know where
they were hidden. He preferred that their loss should not be
discovered until the last moment, when the Don should be
ready for departure to Florida, and he to his native mountains.
He had much yet to do in Havana, and did not care to
be disturbed again by the alguazils, while pursuing his pleasant
occupations. He continued in the employment of Olivia; and
her present purposes, steadily pursued, with a mind now profoundly
concentrated on the one object, found him enough to do.
But there was a slight interruption to their intercourse. In carrying
out his purposes, Don Balthazar, as we have seen, had resolved
to send his niece to the plantation,—the hacienda, or
country-seat of his ward at Matelos,—where her large estates
chiefly lay. This was in order to his own security. Here, he
might best practise against her peace—perhaps her life. Here,
she would be removed from frequent association with the Lady
Isabella, who had taken a greater interest in her happiness than
Don Balthazar cared to see, or to encourage. She was to proceed
thither under the conduct of De Sinolar, whose hacienda was
contiguous, and whom Don Balthazar was not unwilling that
Olivia should marry. De Sinolar was his creature,—silly creature,
as we have seen,—vain and weak,—who feared the Don,
and whom the latter regarded as a useful mask to shelter his
own proceedings. If she would wed with De Sinolar, she might
live; and the latter was to be allowed every opportunity of
winning his way to her favor. Don Balthazar, however, had now
but little hope of this, unless through her utter despair of the
knight of Portugal, and the desperation of soul which his own
cruel conduct had occasioned. The expedition once departed,
carrying with it Don Philip, and the uncle was satisfied to trust
somewhat to time. Time might effect his object, and if not—
the dagger! This latter remedy was to be entrusted to Mateo;
unless, indeed, Sylvia should prove herself as expert with the
bowl as her predecessor, Anita, had been.

According to these plans, Olivia was suddenly apprised that
she was to travel that very day under the escort of De Sinolar.
She was silently submissive. She was not allowed words of
parting with her friends, the Lady Isabella, or the fair, frail wife
of Nuno de Tobar. To this also she was reconciled. She had
no desire to see either. She had survived friendship. Mere
society had no attractions for her, and nothing compensative.
She lived but for a single purpose, and this was of a nature to
be rather helped than defeated by her removal from the city;—
that is to say, by her seeming or temporary removal. She was
prepared to go,—but her secret resolution was taken to return;
and that, too, before the sailing of the expedition. We shall see,
hereafter, in what manner. Don Balthazar was rather surprised
at her submission. He had expected a struggle. But she heard
his requisition with a cold indifference, and answered it with a
single word of resignation.

“I am ready now!”

He was surprised, and said something about her friends.

“Would you not desire to see and part with the Lady Isabella,—with
Leonora de Tobar?”

“No! What are friends and friendship to me?”

“It might be done in an hour. It were proper, perhaps.”

“I do not care to see them.”

“Well, as you please! You can see them as frequently as
you think proper after I am gone. Indeed, as Leonora will remain
in Cuba, you might have her as your guest.”

Olivia was silent. The uncle proceeded:

“De Sinolar has gallantly undertaken to be your escort, and
you can command his services during my absence, in any matter
in which you may need assistance. He has kindly volunteered
his good offices. I have given him instruction.”

“When does the expedition sail?” she coldly inquired.

“Within two days. We are all ready, and the wind promises
to be fair.”

She asked no more.

“When we separate, Olivia, it may be forever! I go upon
an expedition of great peril. I may never return. Do you forgive
me, child?”

A terrible scorn rose into her stony gaze.

“Forgive!” she exclaimed—“Forgive!—ask it of the ghost
of my murdered happiness;—at the grave of my wronged innocence;
of the hope which you have banished from my heart forever;
of all that I was, and might have been, and am not! Ask
it not of me, as I am, Don Balthazar, lest I curse you with a
doom!”

“We are now to part! Perhaps never again to meet. My
life is henceforth to be one of constant peril. You may hear of
me as a victim to the darts and fiery tortures of the Apalachian!
Will you not forgive me, Olivia?”

“Play the hypocrite with me no longer. Do I not know that,
in your soul, you scorn the very prayer for forgiveness which
your false lips utter? Hence! Better that we should both
forget! So long as I can remember, it is not possible to forgive!”

And little more was spoken between them, ere they separated.
De Sinolar soon made his appearance. The vehicle was packed,
and stood in readiness at the door. Don Balthazar conferred
privately with De Sinolar.

“You will have her pretty much under your own eye at the
hacienda. You will have her to yourself. Play the bold lover,
if you would succeed with such a woman. Make her your own
at every hazard. These Knights of Portugal once gone, she will
show herself less coy.”

De Sinolar curled his moustache, and grinned gratefully.

“I flatter myself, señor—”

“Pooh, pooh! Don't flatter yourself, man! Flatter her! The
man who perpetually flatters himself offends everybody. This
is your fault. It is in the way of your own successes.”

The carpet knight was a little discomfited by this abrupt speech,
but he contrived to conclude his sentence, and succeeded in saying
that he flattered himself he should finally succeed in flattering
her; and so they parted. It was but half a day's journey to the
hacienda. We find nothing to interest us along the route,
since the wit and humor of De Sinolar are of a sort which is too
ethereal to keep, or too heavy to be borne, and Olivia could only
listen, and did not reply to his gallantries. But we must not
forget that Juana accompanied her mistress, and that Mateo, on
a fine horse, hovered along the track, keeping the party in sight,
but being himself unseen. It was some consolation to Olivia,
that Sylvia was no longer her guardian. The poor girl never
dreamed that she was destined to follow her; having been kept
back only to receive the final instructions of her master in respect
to his victim.

The hacienda of Matelos was reached in safety about dusk.
Olivia, pleading fatigue, dismissed Don Augustin to his own
abode, which lay contiguous, on an adjoining plantation. She
retired to her chamber for awhile, but it was not long before
Mateo made his appearance. Certain signals, previously agreed
upon, announced his arrival to Juana, and he was stealthily conducted
by that damsel to the chamber of her mistress. Olivia
was sitting with hands clasped, and eyes fixed upon a picture of
the Virgin which hung upon the wall opposite, when the outlaw
entered the room. She at once rose.

“You are true, Mateo, and I thank you. You must now get
the horses ready.”

“Ah! my lady,” said the outlaw, “I have been thinking you
can never stand this trial. It is a hard life you propose to undertake.
You will never have the strength for it. You do not
know the toil, the danger. You will surely sink under it; you
will perish, and there will be no one to help you.”

“I shall need no help, Mateo; and if I perish, it is only an
end of a long and terrible struggle.”

“But why engage in this struggle, Señorita? Of what avail?”

“The easiest form of death is in the struggle, Mateo. Do not
argue with me now; I am resolved.”

“But, I must argue, dearest mistress—I, who know what are
the toils of such a life, day by day, on the back of a horse.”

“You forget, Mateo, that my father taught me how to ride;
that I have been a horse-rider from my childhood, over the ruggedest
mountain passes. I fear no steed that was ever bridled.
My poor father, you remember him, Mateo?”

“Ah! my lady, do I not? Had he lived, I should never have
been a bad fellow; never been an outlaw,—never shed human
blood.”

“Well, as he had no son, he made a boy of me, and taught me
the exercises of boyhood. He showed me the uses of the matchlock
and the cross-bow, until I ceased to fear the shock and the report
of fire-arms, and could bring down the mountain eagle with
my arrows. I have grown into the woman, but I have never lost
the spirit, nor the practice, which he taught me. Toil, trial, danger,
have no fears for me. I am bolder and braver now than ever.
Do you have no apprehensions, my good Mateo; for there is that
in my soul now which makes me laugh at danger.”

The outlaw continued to expostulate, when she abruptly and
sternly silenced him.

“Have you not sworn to serve me, Mateo, without questioning?”
she demanded, with an air of calm authority.

“And have I not done so, dearest lady? I will still do as you
require, if you command me; but I would entreat you—would
show you what it is that you propose to encounter and to undertake.”

“No more! You mean well; but you know not. You speak
in vain. I am resolved! My life is on it, Mateo! I live now
for the one object only, and this executed, I shall gladly lay down
my life. But while I do live, I must thus work, thus toil, thus
peril life, and know life only in this peril. If there be storm and
strife, and battle—ay, blood—it is even so much the better. I
can now better endure the tempest than the calm. It is in this
calm, that I can encounter a thousand terrors worse than any
which the storm may bring.”

He would have still entreated, but she spoke decidedly.

“No more! I tell you, I am resolute as death. Do as I command
you, or tell me that you will do nothing. I will then seek
some servant who thinks himself less wise, and proves more
faithful.”

“Ah! be not angry with me, dear Señorita. I am not wise,
and I am faithful. None can be more so. It is because of my
love for you—”

“Enough, Mateo; I do not doubt your fidelity; and to any
other woman,—to a woman in any less wretched case than mine,
your counsel would be sensible and proper. But—you know,
perhaps, Mateo—but mine is not the common fate of woman!
If you knew my misfortune, you must know that I am doomed
to a ceaseless agony while I live; and that toil, and physical pain,
and death itself, have no tortures such as I must inevitably endure
in life! I have resolved! Let me hear if I may hope for
further help from you?”

The big tear gathered in the eye of the Mestizo, as he looked
into her sad, wan face. She was tearless; and the intense spiritual
gleam from her eyes almost filled him with terror. How
should such a glare,— such an expression—gleam forth from such
beautiful, such childlike eyes! How should such a resolution
inform so delicate a creature!

“I'd sooner fight for you, a thousand times,” he exclaimed:
“but I'm ready to do what you ask, and what I promised.”

“Do it, then! We have little time to lose. Leave me, and
procure the horses.”

He obeyed sadly, and in silence. The horses were soon ready,
and she was apprised of it. She did not delay. One moment in
silent prayer she sank down before the image of the Madonna,
then rose with a step of firmness and walked forth into the grove

where the saddled steed was in waiting. It was an hour short of
midnight. The stars were few in heaven. The gusts swept, with
a sad soughing, through the woods, and seemed filled with mournful
and warning voices. The ear of the outlaw was sensible to
the sounds, and his more superstitious nature held them to be
ominous. But Olivia seemed not to hear or heed them. She
wrung the hand of Juana in silence, leapt into the saddle, and, followed
by Mateo on horseback also, she turned once more in the
direction of Havana. Juana remained behind to plead the indisposition
of her mistress, and baffle, for awhile, the curiosity of De
Sinolar.

The wayfarers rode hard and fast. In a low and seemingly unoccupied
hovel in the suburbs of the city, we find Olivia safely
housed before daylight. The place had been selected and procured
for her by Mateo, agreeably to previous instructions. There
was a rude couch, upon which she rested for awhile. But not long.
She was soon up and busy. Mateo was summoned, and was
promptly in attendance.

“Are all the things here, Mateo?”

“You will find them in that box, my lady.”

“Have you prepared—”

“Every thing, Señorita. I have done all; I am ready for all
things: but O! my lady, it is not yet too late.”

“What do you fear, Mateo?”

“Every thing for you, Señorita—nothing for myself. Nay,
if you will believe me, I would sooner cut for you the throats of
a dozen such villains as Don Balthazar, than see you go on this
fearful business.”

“Nay, Mateo, I wish no throats cut for me! Still less that
of—”

“Oh! if you would only listen to me, Señorita.”

She answered with a strange smile, and so calmly, that he was
disturbed by the very repose of her voice and manner, as it argued
a resolution so utterly immovable.

“Well,—what would you say, Mateo?”

The poor fellow could only repeat what he had so idly urged
already.

“Say, my lady, say?—Why, I would say that you know not
what it is you are about to undertake and undergo! That you
are not fit—not strong enough!—”

“Is it fatigue, pain, peril, loss of life, the agony of wounds?
I am prepared for all these! Must I repeat to you that I should
gladly welcome either, or all, of these, if I could lose those horrors
which oppress me now! Horrors! but if you know not—”

“But if you are discovered?”

“Ah! that is the terror! that!”—after a pause: “But I must
brave it! I tell you, Mateo, I cannot remain here! I cannot survive
thus! I must extort from new griefs, troubles, privations
and dangers, such excitement as shall obliterate the past! I
know not what you know, of my cause of agony; but I suspect,
Mateo, that you know enough to understand that I can fly to
nothing worse, in the shape of woe, than I have already had to
meet! If you know this, be silent! If you are prepared to
serve me faithfully, be submissive! Let me have no further entreaty.”

“The Virgin be with you, my dear lady, and bring you help and
succor! I go to do all as you have commanded.”

With these words he left her. She closed and fastened the
door behind him; and, for a while, stood where she had been
speaking; wholly absorbed in thought; looking like a statue rather
than a breathing woman! Then she spoke, half in prayer,
half in soliloquy:

“Ay! the Blessed Virgin! Succor! Succor! I surely need her
help! Would she have come sooner! Oh! how wild the pathway
seems before me! What clouds, how torn! How flitting
with the wind: and what a crowd of changing and frightful aspects!
They drift along, with the force of the tempest, which
they vainly offer to resist! Now, they cry to one another for help
and succor! But they disappear, even as they cry, swallowed up
in the fearful void, and making way for other forms and aspects!
There is no sun, no moon, no stars; but there is a light as from
the eyes of death; sepulchral, and filled with myriads of floating
spectres! What can it mean! Where am I! What do I see?
Ah! these are Hernan de Soto, and his troops and followers!
That is Nuno de Tobar: yonder rides—Oh! how my heart
loathes him as he rides!—and yonder is—Oh! Blessed Virgin,
it is myself I see! But the spectre lives and moves,—and
serves! It is Don Philip that charges away in front—away!
away! and—see, how the boy follows him! Ah!....”

The highly wrought and febrile condition of Olivia's brain,
must account for her apparent vision, in which she sees the known
and the conjectured; in which she mingles a past knowledge with
her own future purposes. The madness lasted but for a brief
space! She seemed suddenly to recover, and sank upon her
knees before the image of the Virgin. She now prayed inaudibly;
then rose, calm,—rigid rather in every muscle, and then proceeded
to unfold the contents of trunks and chests, as if with the
view of making her toilet. Let us leave her to this performance.