CHAPTER XXIII.
SENTENCED TO DEATH
I lay within a darkened cell in the prison which formed part of the ramparts of Lugo. Lay there, a man doomed to death; sentenced to be burnt at the stake, as a spy taken in a country at war with my own. To be burnt at the stake on some Sunday morning, because that day was always a day of festival, because all Lugo would be there to witness, because from all the country round the peasants would come in to see the Englishman expire in the flames.
Doomed to death!
Yet not alone. By my side-his right hand nailed to an upright plank! (so the sentence had run) to which our bodies were to be fastened by chains-was to stand that other man, Gramont-the pirate and buccaneer who, as Eaton had testified, had been called the Shark of the Indies.
I had been tried first by the Alcáide of Lugo and the principal Regidór, assisted by the Bishop of the province, an extremely old man-and had been soon disposed of. Evidence was forthcoming-there was plenty of it in Lugo in the shape of French sea-captains and sailors from the Spanish galleons-that I had fought with the English at Vigo; also, that I had slain men betwixt the border and here. And, again, there was the evidence of Eaton that I had travelled from Rotterdam as the undoubted bearer of the news that the galleons were approaching Spain.
Also, not content with all this, I was on my way through the land, gleaning evidence of all that was taking place within it, so as to furnish, as none could otherwise suppose, information to my countrymen when I should reach them.
No need for my trial to be spun out; one alone of all these facts was enough to condemn me, and, after a whispered conference between the Alcáide, the Regidór and the Bishop, the latter delivered the above sentence, his voice almost inaudible because of his great age, yet strong enough for the purpose-powerful enough to reach my ears and those of the small crowd within the court house; that was sufficient.
So I knew my fate, and knew, too, that it was useless to say aught, to utter one word. I had lost the game; the stakes would have to be paid in full.
Then began the unravelling of the history of him who stood beside me-swarthy, contemptuous-his eyes glancing around that court, alighting at one moment on the withered form and cadaverous face of the Bishop, at another on the figure of the Regidór, a moment later on the Alcáide, a younger, well favoured man, whom I guessed a soldier in the past or present.
Gramont's condemnation was assured by the part he had played on that night when he assisted us on the road 'twixt Chantada and Lugo. That alone would have forfeited his life amidst these Spaniards; yet, perhaps from curiosity, perhaps because even they doubted whether so summary an execution, and one so horrible, was merited by that night's work, they decided to hear the denouncement of Eaton, the story of Gramont's past life. They bade the former speak, tell all.
And what a story it was he told!
Sitting in a chair near the Bishop, looking nearly as old as that old man himself, he poured out horror after horror; branded the man by my side as one too steeped in cruelty to be allowed to live another hour, if what he said was, indeed, true.
Told how this man had ravaged all the Spanish main-had besieged Martinique, Nombre de Diós, Campeachy, and scores of other places, shedding blood like water everywhere-had sunk and plundered ships; burnt them and the men in them-burnt them alive; gave instances, too, of cruelty extreme.
"I have known him to tie dead and living together and fling them to the sharks," he said-"dead and living Spaniards! Also hang them to the bowsprit by a cord round their waists, a knife placed in one hand, so that, while freedom was theirs if they chose to sever the rope, a worse death awaited them when they fell into the water-a death from sharks, from alligators! Oh, sir, oh, reverend prelate," he continued, stretching out his hands toward the old, almost blind man, "I have seen worse than this. Once he and his followers besieged a monastery full of holy fathers, governed by a bishop saintly as yourself; and they defended it vigorously, bravely-would have driven this tiger back but for one thing."
"What?" asked the younger of the judges, the Alcáide. And I noticed that now, as all through this testifying of Eaton, that Alcáide seemed less disposed to accept his evidence than the others were. Later on I knew the reason that so urged him.
"What?" he said.
"Some of the priests had already fallen into his hands and the hands of his crew. Then they it was whom he forced to advance first against the monastery-to fire the brass cannon they had brought with them against their brethren; forced them to do so, so that those brethren should not know them, should shoot them down first.
"Also," said the Alcáide, "it might have been to prevent their firing at all. In open war a great commander would, perhaps, have availed himself of such a cunning ruse."
Then I knew for sure this man had been, or was, a soldier.
More, much more, was told by Eaton-'tis best I set down nothing further-then the end came, The sentence was passed; he, too, was doomed to die, by my side, on the Sunday that should later be appointed.
"Break off," the Bishop said. "Justice will be done." Whereupon he glanced down at his papers-I wondering that he could see them with those purblind eyes-while, pausing in his attempt to rise, he "Yet there was another. The youth" – and here I pricked up my ears, for of Juan I had heard nothing since taken to the prison in the ramparts-"the youth who fought by the side of this man-this spy-this Inglés. How comes it he is not before us?"
For a moment, as it seemed to me, the Alcáide hesitated, then he said:
"He is not well. He was hurt in the mêlée; he cannot be brought before us for some days. Later, if necessary, he can be tried."
Although I had drawn as far away from Gramont as I could since I had learned his true nature and character and the bloodshed of which he had been guilty, I could not prevent myself from letting my eyes fall on him now; and I saw that for the first time there was a look of eagerness in his eyes, that he was watching the younger of those judges, watching as though filled with an intensity of feeling as to what might next be said.
"If necessary, Capitan Morales," the Regidór said, speaking now for almost the first time, "if necessary! By all reports he is as bad as his elder comrades. A wild cat, all say. Why should it not be necessary?"
"He is very young," the Alcáide replied, undoubtedly confused, "very young; also he-he-is not well. I should do wrong to produce him before you in the state he is. As governor I must use my discretion," and he made a feint of being engaged with the papers before him.
Then I felt sure that he, too, knew Juan's secret, as I now did.
And I wondered to what advantage he might put that secret on behalf of Juan. Wondered while I felt glad at the thought which had now risen to my mind-the thought that, at last, Juan might be saved from our doom.
Again the Bishop said at this time-doubtless his worn old frame was fatigued by the morning's work:
"Let us rise. There is no more to be done, since-since-this youth cannot yet be brought before us," and once more he placed his white, shrunken hands upon the desk in front of him to obtain the necessary aid to quitting his seat.
But now the governor, whose name was Morales, made a motion of dissent, accompanying it, however, by soft, respectful words.
"Nay, most reverend father, nay," he said, "not yet, if you will graciously permit that we continue our examination farther," while as he spoke the Bishop sank back again with a wearied look of assent. "I am not satisfied."
"Not satisfied," the old man whispered, while the Regidór also echoed his words, though in far louder tones. "What is it you are not satisfied with, Capitan Morales?"
"With that man's testimony," he exclaimed, pointing his finger over his desk at Eaton. "In no manner of way satisfied," and as he spoke it almost seemed-I should have believed it to be so in any other country but Spain, a land of notorious injustice and love of cruelty for the sake of cruelty-as if the crowd in the court somewhat agreed with him. Also, even as he spoke, a voice shouted from the midst of those forming it:
"Ay! How knows he all this? Ask him that."
Glancing my eyes in the direction whence those words came, they fell upon a man of rude though picturesque appearance, whose voice I thought it was; a fellow bearded and bronzed, with, in his ears, great rings of gold; a man whom, I scarce know why, I instantly deemed a sailor. Perhaps, one of the many who had fled from the galleons or the French ships of war.
"I am about to ask him that!" exclaimed Morales, though he cast an angry glance toward the crowd. "It is his answer to that which I require."
Then all eyes were instantly directed toward Eaton, one pair flaming like burning coals from beneath their bushy brows-the eyes of Gramont.
Looking myself at him, noticing the ashy colour of his face as he heard that unknown voice uprise amidst the people gathered in the court-as also he heard in reply the words of Morales-noticing, too, the quivering of his white lips and the look as of a hunted rat that came into his eyes-I found myself wondering if he had not thought of how his denunciation of the man by my side was his own accusation also.
"I ask you," went on Morales, "how you know all these things. None but an eye-witness, a participator, could have told as much!"
Upon that muttering and gesticulating crowd, upon the shaggy, black-bearded Asturians and Biscayans-some of them rude mountaineers from the Gaviara and some even ruder sailors from the wild and tempest-beaten shores of Galicia-upon the swarthy Spanish women with knives in their girdles and babes at their bare breasts, there fell a hush as all listened for his answer-a hush, broken only by his own halting attempt to find an answer that should be believed-gain credence not only with the judges, but the people.
"I have-heard-it said-heard it told," he whispered, in quavering tones. "'Twas common talk in all the Indies-his name hated-dreaded. Used as a means to fright the timid-to-"
He paused. For, like a storm that howls across the seas, sweeping all before it in its course, another voice, a deeper, fuller, more sonorous one, swept through that court and drowned his; the voice of the lost man by my side.
"Hear me, you judges," he cried, confronting all-standing there with his manacled hands in front of him, yet his form erect, his glance contemptuous, his eyes fire. "Hear me. Let me tell all. I have the right-the last on earth granted to one such as I-for one who sees and reads his doom in all your faces. Give me your leave to speak."
"Speak!" the Bishop murmured, his tones almost inaudible. "Speak-yet hope nothing."
"Hope!" Gramont said. "Hope! What should I hope? Nothing! in truth. No more than I fear aught. I am the man this one charges me with being-am Gramont. That is enough. Gramont, the filibuster-one of a hundred of your countrymen, of Frenchmen, of Englishmen. But," and he glanced proudly around the court, "the leader of them all, of almost all. Yet, if I am guilty, who is there in the Indies that is innocent? Was Morgan, the English bulldog? – yet his king made him deputy-governor of his fairest isle. Was Basco, Lolonois-is Pointis? Answer me that. And, you of Spain, you, one of her bishops, you, one of her soldiers," and he glanced at each of them, "how often has one of you blessed the ships that sailed from your shores laden with men of my calling-how often have men of your trade," again he glanced at Morales, "belonged to mine? Yet now I, a Frenchman, a comrade in arms of you Spanish, am judged by the words of such as that" – and this time his eyes fell on Eaton.
Also all in the court looked at him again.
"Now," went on Gramont, "hear who and what he is-hear, too, how he knows all that I have done. He was my servant-my ship's steward once-then rose through lust of cruelty to be my mate and second in command. And he it was who first whispered that the captured monks and priests, as he terms them, should be sent against the monastery at Essequibo. Only-he has forgotten, his memory fails-they were not monks and priests-but nuns."
"No, no, no!" shrieked Eaton, as a tumult indescribable arose within the court, while now the mountaineers and seamen howled, "burn him and let the other go," and the fierce dark-eyed women clutched their babes closer to their breasts, fingering the hilts of the knives in their girdles at the same time.
"Nuns! Holy nuns!" the Bishop gasped. "Great God!"
"Ay! Holy nuns. And hear one more word from me; it is the truth, though it avails me nothing. I was not at Essequibo then, was far away, was, in truth, at Cape Blanco. And he-he-James Eaton, was the man."
There rose more tumult and more uproar-it seemed as though all the men in the court would force the barrier that separated them from the judges and from Eaton and us, the prisoners-would slay that villain, that monstrous wretch, upon the spot. But at a look from the Alcáide some of the alguazils and men-at-arms by that barrier, thrust and pushed them back, and made a line between them and the body of the court.
"Again listen," Gramont went on, when some silence had at last been obtained. "It is my last word. I was not there-was gone-the band was broken up, dispersed. From Spain had come an order from your king that those who desisted were to be pardoned; from Louis of France came the same news by Pointis. And I was one who so desisted, took service under Louis, was made his lieutenant. Also I was on my way to France when I was cast away. Cast away, after leaving my child, my wealth, in that man's hands for safe keeping. He drove the one from him with curses and cruelty, he stole the other. And-hear more-those galleons coming to Cadiz were bringing that stolen wealth to him-because I knew that it was so I came in them to Spain, hoping by my disguise to meet him, to wrench it back from him, to call him to account for his treatment of my girl."
On the court there had come a hush-as the calm comes after the storm; hardly any spoke now-yet all, from Bishop downward, regarded Eaton, trembling, shivering there.
And once more in that hush, Gramont's voice uprose again.
"For myself I care not. Do with me what you will. But, remember, I denounce him, that man there, as pirate and buccaneer ten times more bloodthirsty and cruel than any other who ever ravaged the Indies; I denounce him, the denouncer, as thief, filibuster and spy. Do with me what you will-only take heed. Spare him not. And if you seek corroboration of my word, demand it of him who is my fellow-prisoner, demand the truth from Juan Belmonte."
CHAPTER XXIV.
MY LOVE! MY LOVE!
The days passed as I lay in my dungeon in the ramparts, and each morning when the jailer-who, I soon learned, was deaf and dumb-came with a loaf of bread and jar of water, I braced myself to receive the tidings that it was my last on earth.
Yet a week went by and I had not been summoned to the plank and flames-I began, as I lost count of time-as I forgot the days of the week themselves-to wonder if, after all, the sentence was one that they did not dare to carry out. And, remembering that in Spain nothing could be done without reference to the powers at Madrid, I mused upon whether, if they did so dare, the sanction for the execution of Gramont and myself must be first obtained ere the execution could take place; also I mused on many other things, be sure, besides my own impending fate, a fate which, I thought, would never be known to any of my countrymen, which would be enveloped forever in a darkness nothing could lift. I thought of Juan and of the secret which that wild, impulsive nature had concealed from me for so many days-wondered what would be the end of that career; thought, too, of Gramont, the man whose blood-guiltiness had been so great, yet who, as he stood by my side a doomed man, had seemed almost a hero by reason of his indifference to, his scorn of, his fate.
The dungeon, as I have termed it, though in fact it was more like a cell, was in and at the uppermost part of the ramparts of Lugo-noted for being the most strongly walled and fortified town in all Spain-was, indeed, a room in the great wall which sloped down perpendicularly to the Minho beneath; a wall, smooth and absolutely upright, or vertical, on which a sparrow could scarcely have found a crevice in which to lodge or perch, rising from eighty to a hundred feet from the base of the rock on which it was built and through which the river rushed. This I had seen as we had passed under it on the other side of the Minho when we approached the town; could see, indeed, in the daytime as I glanced down on to the river beneath through the heavily grated and barred window which admitted light to my prison; also I could observe the country outside and the mountains beyond, while I heard at night the swirl of the river as it sped by those rocks below.
Because there was no chance of escape for any creature immured within this cell, since none could force away those grates and bars, even had he possessed that strength of Samson, for which I had once prayed; because, also, had I been able to do so, there was nothing but the jagged rocks beneath, or the swift river, into which to cast myself, I was not chained nor manacled; was at liberty, instead, to move about as I chose; to peer idly out all day at the freedom of the open country beyond, which would never again be mine, or to cast myself upon the pallet on the floor and sleep and dream away the hours that intervened between now and my day of doom. Nay, I was at liberty, had I so chosen, to strangle myself with my bedding, or, for the matter of that, my belt or cravat, or end my life in any manner I might desire. Perhaps, though I knew not that it was so, it might be hoped such would be the end. It might save trouble and after consequences.
None came near me all the day or night, except that mute jailer, of whom I have spoken, when he brought me my bread and water every morning, and it was, therefore, with a strange feeling of surprise-with a plucking at my heart, and a fear, which I despised myself for, that my last hour was come-that one night, as I lay in the dark, I heard footsteps on the stones of the passage outside the cell door-footsteps that stopped close by that door, some of them heavy, the others light. I heard, too, the clash of keys together, the grating of one in the huge lock, a moment later.
"Remember," I whispered to myself. "Remember, you are a man-a soldier. Be brave."
Then slowly the door opened, and a figure came in, bearing a light in its hand, while, a second later, the door was closed and locked again from the outside; the heavy footsteps were heard by me retreating down the passage.
The figure was that of "Juan" Belmonte.
"You here?" I said, springing up, and then I advanced toward it, my hands outstretched, while my companion of so many days sprang to my arms, lay in them, sobbing as though with a broken heart.
"Do not weep, do not weep," I said, and, as I spoke, my lips touched that white brow-no whiter now than all the rest of the face, "do not weep. What is, is, and must be borne."
"My love, my love!" those other lips-whose rich crimson I had once marvelled at so much-sobbed forth now, "my love, how can I help but weep? Oh, Mervan, I have learnt to love you so, to worship you, for your strength and courage! And now to see you thus-thus! My God!"
"Be brave still," I said; would have added "Juan"; only, not knowing, I paused.
"What shall I call you?" I asked.
"Juana."
"Do they-the judges-know?"
"The Alcáide knows: 'Tis through that knowledge I am here."
"Why," I whispered, my arms about her as she clung to me, "why was this disguise assumed, these dangers run? Oh! Juana, since I learnt what you were in truth I have shuddered, sweated at the memories of your risks. What reason had you for coming to Europe as a man? and with such beauty, too! 'Tis marvellous it was never seen through."
"They would not give passage to women in the galleons," she answered. "Therefore I came as I did; also I knew I might better find Eaton-confront him, in a garb, another sex, which would prevent him from recognising the little child he had treated so evilly." Then, suddenly, with a wail, she exclaimed: "Oh, my God! Mervan, I have not come to talk of this, but to be with you for our last hour; one hour before we die. The Alcáide has granted me that-and one other thing-on conditions;" and I felt her shudder in my arms.
"Before we die," I repeated stupidly, saying most of her words over again. "Granted you this and one other thing-and on conditions. What conditions? Tell me all; make me to understand. We die? Not you! They cannot slay you."
From some neighbouring church a deep-toned bell was pealing solemnly as I spoke. Far down below, by the river banks, I heard the splash of some fishermen's boats as they went by to their night work-always, until my eyes close for the last time, I shall remember those sounds accompanying her words in answer to mine-shall hear them in my ears-her words: "I can slay myself."
"Juana!"
"Must slay myself," she went on, "there is no other way. Can I live without you-or, living, fullfil those conditions?" and, even as she said this, our lips met. "But," I asked, my voice hoarse with grief and misery, "what are they, and wherefore granted?"
"He gives me one life-his-my father's! My God! he my father! – he will not give me yours because he thinks you are my lover-and-and the condition is that on the night when he is set free, I fly from Lugo with him, Morales, to Portugal. He will be safe there, he says. 'Tis rumoured the king has joined England."
"And you accept the terms?" I asked, bitterly, knowing that I loved this girl as fondly as she loved me. Had loved her since I discovered her sex as she reeled into my arms on that night. "You accept?"
"I accept. Nay!" she exclaimed, "do not thrust me from you-you cannot doubt my love, my adoration. Else why am I here a prisoner in Lugo-why, except because I could not quit your side, could not tear myself from you?"
"How then accept?"
"Listen. I must save him. God! – he is my father-to my eternal shame! Yet-yet, being so, his soul must not go to seek its Maker yet-'tis too deeply drenched with crime, he must have time-time to live-to repent-to wash away his sins. Oh! Mervan, you are my love, my love, my first and only love-will be my last-yet-I must save him."
"At what a cost! Your own perdition!"
"No, no. Listen. Morales leaves here the day before my unhappy father is given his chance of escape-the door of his cell will be set open for him at night; none will bar his exit by a back way-I, too, shall be gone. Morales will take me with him in my own proper garb, that of a woman. Then-then-because I shall not believe in my father's freedom until I am sure of it, know it, he will join us at the frontier-not the one which we passed, but where the road crosses to Braganza at a place called Carvallos-and-"
"You will keep your word!"
"Yes. To myself-not him. My father will be safe-Morales unable to do more against him-I-I shall be dead. Once I am assured all is well with him I shall end my life. There will be nothing more to live for."
"Suppose," I whispered, "suppose-it might be! – that I should escape, and, doing so, find you dead! Oh, Juana, how would it be with me then? How could I live?"
"Ah, my love," she said, whispering, too, "can you not believe I have thought of that-believe that if all hope of your escaping was not gone I should not have decided thus? But, Mervan, you are a brave man, have faced death too often to fear to do so once again for the last time. Mervan, my love, my life-there is no hope. None. He has told me-he-Morales-that the morning after all are gone but you, you will surely be put to death. My own, my sweet, there is no hope."
"If I could escape first-"
"It is impossible. Impossible. Oh! I have begged him on my knees again and again to give you the same chance as he gives my father-have told him that, since he ruins himself to set free the one, it would cost him no more to let both go-yet, yet-he will not."
"Why not?"
"I have said. And he makes but a single answer. One is my father-the other my lover. Laughs, too, and says he does not jeopardise his own body-ruin for certain his own life in his own land-to fling that lover back into my arms."
"Still, if he knows that until a few days ago I deemed you a boy-"
"Knows it!" she exclaimed. "Oh, my God! have I not told him so a hundred times-sworn that we were but strangers thrown together scarce a month past; had never met before. And to all my vows and protestations he replies: 'Knowing you now to be a woman-as I have myself by chance discovered-he must love you as I do. I will not save him to steal you from me.'"
"Yet, with this refusal on his lips, you yield-or appear to yield."
"My father! My father!" she cried, flinging her arms madly around my neck. "My father! My father! For his sake I must yield. Oh, my love, my love, my love-I must."
* * * * * * * * *
I cannot write down-in absolute truth, cannot recall-our last sad parting, our frenzied words, our fond embraces. Suffice it that I say we tore ourselves apart at the sound of the mute's footsteps-that Juana was borne away almost insensible.
For that we should never meet again in this world we recognised-we were parted forever. I had found and won-although till lately unknown to myself! – the most fond and loving heart that had ever yielded itself up to a man-found it only as I stood upon the brink of my grave.
Yet if there were anything that could reconcile me to my loss of her it would be that grave, I knew; that-or the casting of my ashes to the wind after my body was consumed by the braséro-would bring the oblivion I desired. And, since she, too, meant to die the moment her father was safe, neither would be left to mourn the other. At least the oblivion of death would be the happy lot of both. Yet, as now the hours followed one another, as I heard them strike upon the bells of all the churches in this old city, and boom forth solemnly from the cathedral tower-wondering always, yet resignedly, when I should hear them for the last time; wondering, too, when the key would once more grate in the lock and I should be summoned to my doom-I cursed myself for never having penetrated Juan's disguise, for never having guessed she was a woman. Sir George Rooke had done so, I knew now; that was what he meant by his solemn warnings to me-fool that I was, not to be as far-seeing as he!
There were many things, which I now recalled, that should also have opened my eyes-her timidity, her nervousness, the strange power of mustering up courage at a moment of imminent danger; also the frequent change of colour; the remaining in the inn kitchen all one night; the shriek for assistance at the barrier encounter. And yet I had been blind, and thought it was a boy who rode by my side through all the perils we had passed.
I might have saved her had I but had more insight-might have refused to let her accompany me; have sternly ordered her to travel in some other way than along the danger-strewn path which I had come. She would have been safe now-what mattered it what had befallen me! – would have been free, with no hideous necessity of taking her own life to escape from the love which Morales forced upon her.
Yet, as I tossed upon my pallet, thinking of all this-thinking, too, of how fondly I had come to love this girl, so dear to me now that we were lost to each other forever-I knew, I felt sure, that no stern commands issued to her to turn back and quit my side would have been of any avail; that, as she had once threatened, she would have followed me like a dog, have lain upon the step of the house wherein I slept, would never have quitted my side.
For hers was the hot, burning love of the southern woman, of which I had often read and heard told by wanderers into far-off lands-the love that springs in a moment into those women's breasts, and, once born, is never quenched except by death-as, alas! hers was now to be quenched.