CHAPTER XXIX.
"LET US KISS AND PART."
As I unbarred the door that gave directly from the miserable living-room of the house to the outside he came in, the snow upon the shoulders of the cape he wore-some flakes even upon his face.
"You are alive! Escaped!" I whispered, recognising that this was no phantom of my brain, but the man himself. "Safe! Thank God!"
"Where is she?" he asked, pausing for no greeting, giving me none. "My child! Is she safe? Or-have I come too late?"
"She is here-safe. It is not too late."
His eyes roamed round the room; then, not seeing her, he continued:
"Where? I must see her-once."
"Once?"
"For the last time. After that we shall never meet again. The shadow of my life, my past, must fall on her no more. Yet-once-I must see her. Lead me to where she is."
"She has been ill, delirious-is crushed by all that has happened-by-"
"All that she has learnt," he interrupted, his voice deep and solemn-broken, too. "Yet I must see her."
"She is asleep above."
For answer to this he made simply a sign, yet one I understood very well-a sign that I should delay no longer.
"Come," I said, "come." And together we went up the narrow stairs to the room she occupied-stole up them, as though in fear of waking her.
Pushing the door open gently, we saw by the rays of the veilleuse, which I had ordered to be placed in the room, that she was sleeping; observed also that our entry did not disturb her; also it was easy to perceive that she was dreaming. Sometimes, as we standing there gazed down, the long, dark lashes that drooped upon her cheeks quivered; from beneath them there stole some tears; once, too, the rosy lips parted, and a sigh came from between them.
"My child, my child!" Gramont whispered to himself, "child of her whom I loved better than my life-that we should meet at last, only to part forever!"
And from his own eyes the tears rolled down-from his! He stooped and bent over her; his face approached hers; his lips touched that white brow, over which the short-cut hair curled in such glorious dishevelment, while he murmured:
"Unclose those eyelids once, look for the last time on me." Then he half-turned his head away, as though to prevent his own tears from falling on and awakening her.
Was he a sorcerer, I wondered, even as I watched-a sorcerer, as well as other things unnamable? Had he the power over his own child to thus reach her mind and brain, even though both were sunk in a deep, feverish sleep? In truth, it appeared so.
For, even as he spoke, those eyelids did unclose, the dark, dreamy eyes gazed up into his, while, slowly, the full, white, rounded arms encircled his neck, and their lips met, and from him I heard the whispered words:
"Farewell, farewell, forever. Oh, my child, my child!"
Yet-and I thanked God for it then, as ever since I have thanked Him again and again! – he had turned away ere the answering whisper came from her lips, had not heard the words that fell from them-the words:
"Mervan, Mervan, my beloved!"
Thanked God he had not known how, in her sleep, she deemed those kisses mine, and dreamed of me alone.
* * * * * * * * *
"'Twas went on the storm increased, the snow no longer came in flakes against the window of the room below, in which we sat, but, instead, lay thick and heavy in masses on the sill without-was driven, too, against the window by the fierce, tempestuous wind that howled down from the mountains above, and rocked the miserable inn.
"There is no going on to-night," Gramont said, coming in out of the storm after having gone forth to attend to the horse that had brought him from Lugo, and having bestowed it in the stables, where were the animals on which Juana and I had also ridden. "No going on to-night." Then, changing the subject abruptly, he said: "Where is that man?"
Not pretending to doubt as to whom he made allusion, I said:
"The Alcáide?"
"Ay, the Alcáide."
Whereon I told him of all that had happened since my arrival with the mute, and of his immediate departure further on into Portugal.
"You should have slain him," he said, "the instant you had disarmed him. You loved Juana and she you-she told me so when she divulged his scheme to me in the prison-you should never have let him go free with life."
"I had disarmed him. I could not slay a weaponless, defenceless man."
"One slays a snake-awake or sleeping. He merited death."
"Yet to him, in a manner, we all owe our lives. Juana-I-you."
"Owe our lives! Owe our lives to him! To one who trafficked with my girl's honour as against her father's freedom; a man who betrayed his trust to his own country as a means whereby to gratify his own evil desires! And for you-for me-what do we owe him? The chance of my escape came from another's hand than his."
"From another's! You could have escaped even without that vile compact made between-God help us-Juana and him?"
"Ay-listen. You stood by my side in the court when they tried us; you heard a voice in that court; saw the man who called out in loud tones to the man, Morales. You saw him, observed, maybe, that he bore about him the signs of a sailor."
As he spoke there came to me a recollection of something more than this-a recollection of where I had seen that man again, of how it was he who crouched behind the fallen masses of blasted rock in the passage beneath the bed of the river through which I had passed to freedom; also, I remembered the great gold rings in his ears, and the glistening of one upon the guarding of his cloak as he shrank back into the darkness.
"I remember him," I said, "very well-also, I saw him again, on the night that mute led me forth, helped me to escape."
"'Tis so. That man saved me, was bent on saving me from the moment he saw my face in the court. He is a Biscayan-yet we had met in other lands; once I had saved his life-from Eaton. He-that doubly damned traitor-that monster of sin-had taken him prisoner in a pink he owned, yet had not captured her without a hard fight, in which this man, Nuñez Picado, nearly slew him. Then, this was Eaton's revenge: He bound him and set him afloat in a dismantled ketch he had by him, that to which Picado was bound being a barrel of gunpowder. And in that barrel was one end of a slow match, the other end alight and trailing the length of the ketch's deck."
"My God!"
"So slow a match that it would take hours ere it reached the powder, hours in which the doomed wretch would suffer ten thousand-fold the tortures of the damned. Yet one thing Eaton forgot-forgot that those hours of long drawn-out horror to his victim were also hours in which succour might come. And it was so. I passed that craft drifting slowly to and fro off Porto Rico. In the blaze of the noontide I saw a brighter, redder light than the sparkle of sun on counter and brass-when I stepped on board the ketch there was not a foot of the slow-match left-not an hour longer of life left to the man. Only, the bitterness of death was over for him then-he was a raving maniac, and so remained for months."
"He has at last repaid you in full."
"Ay! In full. He knew the secret way into the ramparts; all was concocted, all arranged for our escapes."
"For yours and hers?"
"For hers and mine. Had it not been that you had to be saved also-that the freedom which Juana had obtained from Morales for me must be transferred to you, since I needed it not, she would never have been allowed to go forth with him. I or Picado would have slain him in the prison and escaped with her."
"I begin to understand."
"'Twas best, however, to let her go forth unknowing-at least it removed him away from what had to be done-made it certain that he could not impede your escape. The rest was easy. I persuaded the mute that 'twas you, not I, whom it was intended to save, that 'twas for you her letter was meant, that it was I who was doomed."
"And Eaton? Eaton?" I asked.
"Eaton has paid the forfeit of his treachery," he said. "It has rebounded on his own head. The braséro thirsted for its victim-the populace for its holiday. They have had it. Trust Nuñez Picado for that."
He said no more, neither then nor later, and never yet have I learnt how that vilest of men was the substitute for those whom he had hoped and endeavoured to send to the flames. Yet, also, never have I doubted that it was done, since certain it is that from that time he has never again crossed my path.
"The storm increases," Gramont said, as he strode to the window and peered out into the darksome night. "Yet-yet-I must go on at daybreak. I-I have that which needs take me on."
"Stay here with us," I cried, "stay here. Juana will be my wife at the first moment chance offers. Stay."
"Nay," he said. "Nay. She and I must never meet again. That is the expiation of my life which I have set myself-I will go through with it. In that last kiss above, I took my farewell of her forever in this world."
"What will you do?" I asked through my now fast-falling tears, tears that none needed to be ashamed of; tears that none, listening to his heart-broken words as they dropped slowly from his lips, could have forborne to shed. "What is your life to be?"
"God only knows," he replied; "yet one of penitence, of prayers for forgiveness so long as that life lasts. Thereby-thereby-I shall be fitter for the end. I am almost old now; it may not be far off."
Silence came upon us after that-a silence broken only by the howl of the wind outside the lonely house, by the thud of snow falling now and again from the roof and eaves-blown off by the fury of the tempest. But broken by scarcely aught else, unless 'twas a sigh that occasionally, and all unwittingly, as I thought, escaped from that poor sinner's overcharged breast. Yet, for the rest, nothing; no sound from that room above, where Juana lay sleeping; nothing but sometimes the expiring logs falling together with a gentle clash in the grate.
Then suddenly, as I almost dozed on one side of those logs, he being on the other, I heard him speaking to me, his voice deep, sonorous and low-perhaps he feared it might reach her above! – yet clear and distinct.
"Evil," he said, "as my existence has been, misjudge me not. None started on life's path meaning better than I. God help me! none drifted into worse extremes. Will you hear my story-such as 'tis meet you should know-you who love my child?"
I bowed my head; I whispered, "Yes." Once, because I pitied him, I gently touched his hand with mine.
"I was a sailor," he went on, his dark eyes gleaming tenderly at that small offering of my sympathy, "bred up to the sea, the only child of a poor Protestant woman. Later-when Louis the king first fell under the thrall of the wanton, De Maintenon, my mother died of starvation, ruined by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, ruined ere that revocation by the shadow it cast before it on all of our faith. Think you that what was doing in the Indies by the Spaniards made me love the followers of the Romish church more?"
He paused a moment-again he went on:
"In the Indies to which I had wandered, I met with men who had sworn to extirpate, if might be, every Spaniard, every one of those who in their time swore that there was to be no peace beyond the line. That was their oath-we helped them to keep it, made it our watchword, too. All of us, Morgan, Pointis, Avery, Lolonois, your other countryman, Stede Bonnet, a hundred others, all of different lands, yet all of one complexion-hatred against Spain. And there was no peace beyond the line. You are a soldier, may be one for years, yet you will never know blood run as blood ran then. You may rack cities, even Louis' own capital, you will never know what sharing booty means as we knew it. Ere I was thirty I possessed a hundred thousand gold pistoles, ere another year had passed I owned nothing but the sword by my side, the deck I trod."
"Yet," I said, "when you were lost-disappeared-you left your child a fortune-which Eaton stole."
"I did more," he answered. "I left her that-but-I left her another which Eaton could not steal. She has it now; it is, it must be safe. Do you know your wife brings you a great dowry?"
I started-I had never thought of this! – yet, ere I could say aught, he went on again.
"I pass over much. I come to twenty years ago. Eaton was my lieutenant; we were about to besiege Maracaibo, a gallant company three hundred strong. Well, let me hurry-see, the daylight is coming. I must away-Maracaibo fell, our plunder was great. Also, we had many prisoners. Amongst them one, a girl, young and beautiful; God! she was an angel!"
"Juana's mother that was to be," I whispered, feeling sure.
"Hear me. She was my prize-there were others, but I heeded them not, had eyes only for her. Her ransom was fixed at five thousand pistoles, because she was the niece of the wealthiest man of all, to be paid ere we sailed three days later. And I prayed that they might never be forthcoming, that I might bear her away with me, teach her to love me as I loved her."
"And they were not paid?" I asked breathlessly.
"We did not sail in three days' time; the money of the place had been sent away inland on our approach; also one-half our body were all mad with drink ashore. 'Twas more nigh three weeks ere we were ready to depart."
"And the lady?"
"Her uncle had died meanwhile of a fever-yet-yet-the ransom was forthcoming. She was affianced to a planter; he came on board my ship, and with him he brought the gold."
"Ah!"
"My oath bound me to take it-had I refused, my brethren had the right-since we had laws regulating all things amongst us-to remove me from my command. I had to see him count the gold out on the cabin table, to tell her she was free to go."
"And she went?" I asked again, almost breathless.
CHAPTER XXX.
GONE
"She went," he continued, "and I thought that she was gone from me forever, since, filibuster as I was, as I say, my oath to my companions bound me to set her free upon payment of the ransom. Yet, by heaven's grace, she was mine again ere long."
He paused, looking out of the snow-laden window through which there stole now a greyness which told of the coming of the wintry day; pointed toward it as though bidding me remember that his time with me was growing short; then went on:
"I was ashore for the last time before we sailed for Port Royal; those of us who were something better than brutish animals seeking for those who were wallowing in debauchery; finding them, too, either steeped in drink, or so overcome by their late depravity that they had to be carried on board the ships like logs. Then, as we passed down a street seeking our comrades, I saw her again-saw her lovely face at the grilled window of a house that looked as though it might be a convent; at a window no higher from the ground than my own head. And she saw me too, made a sign that I should stop, should send on my company out of earshot; which done, she said:
"'Save me. For God's sake, save me!'"
"'Save you, Señorita,' I whispered, for I knew not who might be lurking near, might be, perhaps, within the dark room to which no ray of the blazing sun seemed able to penetrate; 'save you from what, from whom?'
"'From him who ransomed me-Diôs! that you had not taken the money. I hate him, was forced to be affianced to him, am a prisoner here in this convent until to-morrow, when I am to become his wife.'
"'Yet, Señorita,' I murmured-'how to do it? These walls seem strong, each window heavily grated, doubtless the house well guarded-and-and we sail at daybreak.'
"'Yet an entrance may be made by the garden,' she whispered in reply; 'the house is defended by negroes only-my room at the top of the stairs. Save me. Save me.'"
Again Gramont paused-again he pointed at the day-spring outside-hurriedly he went on:
"I saved her. Twenty of us-that vile Eaton was one! – passed through the garden at midnight-up those stairs-killing three blacks who opposed us" – even as he spoke I remembered Eaton's ravings in La Mouche Noire as to the dead men glaring down into the passage; knew now of what his frenzied mind had been thinking on-"bore her away. Enough! three months later, we were married in Jamaica!"
He rose as though to go forth and seek his horse, determined to make his way on in spite of the snow that lay upon the ground in masses-because, as I have ever since thought, he had sworn to undergo his self-imposed expiation of never gazing more upon his child's face! – then he paused, and spoke once more:
"She died," and now his voice was broken, trembled, "in giving birth to her who is above; died when I had grown rich again-so rich that when I sailed for France, my pardon assured, my commission as Lieutenant du Roi to Louis in my pocket, I left her with Eaton, not even then believing how deep a villain he was; thinking, too, that I should soon return. Left with him, also, a fortune for her, What happened to her and that fortune you have learnt. Yet, something else you have to learn. Her mother's name had been Belmonte, and when Juana fled from Eaton, driven thence by his cruelty, she, knowing this, found means to communicate with an old comrade of mine, by then turned priest and settled at the other end of the island-at Montego. Now, see how things fall out; how, even to one belonging to me, God is good. 'Twas in '86 I sailed for France, my commission in my cabin-nailed in my pride to a bulkhead-when, alas! madman as I was, I encountered a great ship-a treasure ship, as I believed, sailing under Spanish colours. And-and-the devil was still strong in me-still strong the hatred of Spain-the greed and lust of plunder. God help me! God help and pardon me!" and as he spoke he beat his breast and paced the dreary room, now all lit up by the daylight from without. Even as I write I see and remember him, as I see and remember so many other things that happened in those times.
"We boarded her," he continued, a moment later; "we took her treasure; she was full of it-yet even as we did so I knew that I was lost forever in this world, all chance of redemption gone-my hopes of better things passed away forever. For she was sailing under false colours; she was a French ship, one of Louis' own, and, seeing that we ourselves carried the Spanish flag, the better to escape the ships of war of Spain that were all about, had herself run them up. And we could not slay them and scuttle the ship-we had passed our word for their safety-moreover, an we would have done so 'twas doubtful if we should have succeeded. There were women on board, and, though the men fought but half-heartedly to guard the treasure that was their king's, they would have fought to the death for them. Therefore, we emptied the vessel of all that it had-we left them their lives-let them go free."
"But why, why?" I asked, still not comprehending how this last attack upon another ship-and that but one of many stretching over long years! – should be so fateful to him, "why not still go on to France, commence a new life under better surroundings?"
"Why?" he repeated, "why? Alas! you do not understand. I, a commissioned officer of the French king, had made war on his ships, taken his goods; also," and he drew a long breath now, "also there were those on board who knew and recognised me-we had met before-knew I was Gramont. That was enough. There was no return to France for me; or, if once there, nothing but the block or the wheel."
"God pity you," I gasped, "to have thrown all chance away thus-thus!"
He seemed not to heed my words of sympathy, wrung from me by my swift comprehension of all he had lost; instead, he stood there before me, almost like those who are turned to stone, making no movement, only speaking as one speaks who encounters a doom that has fallen on him, as one who tells how hope and he have parted forever on wide, diverging roads.
"There were others besides myself," he continued, "who had ruined all by their act of madness, others of my own land who had gained their pardon, and lost it now forever, flung away all hopes of another life, of happier days to come, for the dross that we apportioned between ourselves, though in our frenzy we almost cast it into the sea. As for my share, though 'twas another fortune, I would not touch a pistole, but sent it instead to the priest I have spoken of-sent it by a sure hand-and bade him keep it for my child, add it to that which Eaton held for her; told him, too, to guard it well, since neither he nor she would ever see me more!"
"And after-after?" I asked.
"After, we disbanded-parted. I went my way, they theirs; earned my living hardly, yet honestly, in Hispaniola; should never have left the island had I not discovered that Eaton, who even then sometimes passed under the name of Carstairs-that was his honest name-and who had long since disappeared from my knowledge, was having a large amount of goods and merchandise shipped under that name in the fleet of galleons, about to sail as soon as possible. And then-then-knowing how he had treated the child I left in his care-the child of my dead and lost love-I swore to sail in those galleons, to find him, to avenge-" He paused, exclaiming, "Hark! What is that?"
Above-I heard it as soon as he-there was a footfall on the floor. We knew that Juana was moving, had arisen.
"Go to her," he said, and I thought that his voice was changed-was still more broken-"Go; it may be she needs something. Go."
"Is this our last farewell? Surely we shall meet again."
"Go. And-and-tell her-her father-nay. Tell her nothing. Go."
O'ermastered by his words, by, I think, too, the misery of the man who had been my companion through the dreary night, my heart wrung with sorrow for him who stood there so sad a figure, I went, obeying his behest.
But ere I did so, and before I opened the door that gave on the stairs leading to her room, I took his hand, and whispered:
"It is our last farewell! Yet-oh, pause and think-she is your child. Have you no word-no last word of love nor plea for pardon-to send?"
For a moment his his quivered, his breast heaved and he turned toward the other, and outer, door, so that I thought he meant to go without another sign. But, some impulse stirring in his heart, he moved back again to where I stood; murmuring, I heard him say:
"In all the world she has none other but you. Remember that. Farewell forever. And-in days to come-teach her not to hate-my memory. Farewell."
Then, his hand on the latch of the outer door, he pointed to the other and the stairs beyond.
While I, stealing up them, knew that neither his child nor I would ever see him more, and, so knowing, prayed that God would at last bring ease and comfort to the erring man.
As I neared the door of the room in which she had slept she opened it and came forth upon the bare landing-pale, as I saw in the light of the now fully broken day, but with much of the fever gone; also with, upon her face, that smile which ever made summer in my heart.
"You are better," I said, folding her to me, "better? Have slept well? Is it not so?" Yet, even as I spoke, I led her back to the room whence she had come. She must not descend yet! "You have not stirred all through the night, I know."
"I dreamt," she said, "that you came to me, bade me farewell forever. Yet that passed, and again I dreamed that we should never part more. Therefore, I was happy, even in my sleep." Then broke off to say: "Hark! They are stirring in the house. Are the horses being prepared? I hear one shaking its bridle. Can any go forth to-day?" and she moved toward the window.
"Nay, Juana," I said, leading her back again, although imperceptibly, to the middle of the room, "do not go to the window. The cold is intense-stay here by my side."
Not guessing my reason-since it was impossible she should understand what was happening below! – I led her back. Led her back so that she should not see one come forth from the stable whom she deemed dead and destroyed-so that she should not be blasted by the sight of her father passing away in actual life from her forever; then sat down by her side and led the conversation to our future-to how we should get away from here to England and to safety. Also, I told her not to bewail, as she did again and again, my failure to proceed further on my journey to Flanders and the army; demonstrated, to her that, at least, there had been no failure in the mission I had undertaken; that my secret service had been carried out-and well carried out, too-and, consequently, my return mattered not very much with regard to a week or month. The allies, I said, could fight and win their battles very well without my aid, as I doubted not they were doing by now, while-for the rest-had I not done my share both here and in Spain? Proved, too-speaking a little self-vauntingly, perhaps, by reason of my intense desire to soothe and cheer her and testify that she had been no barrier in my path to glory-that I, also, though far away from my comrades, had stood in the shadow of death, had been face to face with the grim monster equally with those who braved the bayonets, the muskets and the cannon of Louis' armies.
But all the time I spoke to her my apprehension was very great, my nerves strung to their bitterest endurance, my fear terrible that she would hear the man below going forth, that she might move to the window and see him-and that, thus seeing, be crushed by the sight.
For I knew that he was moving now-that he was passing away forever from this gloomy spot which held the one thing in all the world that was his, and linked him to the wife he had loved so dearly; knew that, solitary and alone, he was about to set forth into a dreary world which held no home for him nor creature to love him in his old age. I, too, heard the bridle jangling again; upon the rough boards of the stable beneath the windows of the fonda I heard the dead, dull thump of a horse's hoofs; I knew that the animal was moving-that he was setting out upon his journey of darkness and despair.
"You are sad, Mervan," she said, her cheek against mine, while her voice murmured in my ear. "Your words are brave, yet all else belies them."
"It is not for myself," I answered. "Not for myself."
The starry eyes gazed into mine, the long, slim hand rested on my shoulder.
"For whom?" she whispered. "For whom? For him? My father?"
I bowed my head-from my lips no words seemed able to come-yet said at last:
"For him. Your father." Then, for a moment, we sat there together, saying nothing. But soon she spake again.
"My thoughts of him are those of pity only, now," she murmured once more. "Pity, deep as a woman's heart can feel. And-and-my love-remember, I never knew who my father was until that scene in the inn at Lugo-thought always his, our name was in truth Belmonte. The secret was well kept-by Eaton, for his own ends, doubtless; by my father's friend, the priest who had once been as he was, for his past friendship's sake. If I judged him harshly, a life of pity for his memory shall make atonement."
As she said these words, while I kissed and tried to comfort her, she rose from where we were sitting and went to the window, I not endeavouring to prevent her now, feeling sure that he was gone; for all had become very still; there was no longer any sound in the stable, nor upon the snow, which, as I had seen as the day broke, had frozen and lay hard as iron on the ground beneath it.
Yet something there was, I knew, that fascinated her as she gazed out upon the open; something which-as she turned round her face to me-I saw had startled, terrified her. For, pale as she had been since we had met again here, and with all the rich colouring that I loved so much gone from her cheeks, she was even whiter, paler than I had ever known her-in her eyes, too, a stare of astonishment, terror.
"Mervan!" she panted, catching her breath, her hand upon her heart, "Mervan, look, oh, look!" and she pointed through the window.
"See," she gasped, "see. The form of one whom I deemed dead-or is he in truth dead, and that his spectre vanishing into the dark wood beyond? See, the black horse, that which he bestrode that night-oh! Mervan-Mervan-Mervan-why has his spirit returned to earth? Will it haunt me forever-forever-punish me because of my shame of him?"
And while I saw the horseman's figure disappear now-and forever-into the darkness of the pine forest, she lay trembling and weeping in my arms. To calm which, and also bring ease to her troubled heart, I told her all.