Read Ebook: La Novela de un Joven Pobre by Feuillet Octave

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Ebook has 900 lines and 56221 words, and 18 pages

"But Mariquita, who had become more mistress of herself, always heard me with composure, and with a bearing unlike that she had exhibited in the wood; but I could see that the simplest remark, or most casual tone of my voice, made her heart vibrate with pleasure, and her colour deepen.

"One evening we were standing together at an open window, which was shaded by a vine-covered verandah, and faced the usually flaming summit of the volcano of Orizaba. It was wonderfully still on that occasion; a column of thin smoke only ascended from it to the very zenith. The evening was lovely, and the sun's farewell rays were gilding the mighty summit of the cone; all was calm and quiet, save in our hearts, which beat tumultuously. I drew closer to Mariquita, and as she stood before me, I passed my arms round her, kissed the back of her delicate neck tenderly, and whispered:

"'How long shall I speak to you of love, Mariquita?'

"'As long as you please, Senor Don Pedro,' she replied, with a tender smile, as she half turned round her head.

"'Call me Pedro, my beloved one, without the ceremonious don--and senor, too, oh, fie!'

"'Sweeter still!' I exclaimed, in a low voice.

"'Well?'

"'Well, dearest Mariquita; how long shall we speak of love?'

"'As long as you please.'

"'Ah! feel how my heart beats. I ask how long in vain?'

"'Long enough, senor,' said she, with a pretty pout.

She paused.

"'What?'

"'You speak of marriage, too,' she replied, suddenly unclasping my hands, which were tenderly folded round her slender waist.

"'Do you love me?'

"'Beloved Mariquita!' I exclaimed, and pressed her to my breast in a long and mutual embrace, 'and you will be mine--mine?'

"'At the foot of the altar, Pedro--at the foot of the altar alone,' she whispered, with a heart that swelled with love, and with dark eyes steeped in languor.

"But vain are human resolves, even when made by a heart so pure and guileless as that of Mariquita, when struggling with a passion so deep and consuming; for with these very words on her lips she was yielding; we were alone and undisturbed, and ere the sun's last rays had faded from the cone of Orizaba, Mariquita had lost her honour!

"The hapless Mariquita! She loved me more than ever now. She clung to me with all the strength of love, of sacrifice, and of despair.

"For days after this, on her knees, she besought me to marry her. I would raise her, kiss and console her, and flatter, too--how weary now the task!--flatter and pacify her, making countless promises and professions, for I still loved her in my own selfish fashion; but I shrunk from the idea of marriage with the daughter of one of my own grangeros--one whose ancestors had been hewers of wood and drawers of water to mine--a girl, moreover, who had the taint of native blood in her veins!

"I, Pedro de Barradas, Knight of Santiago de Compostella, and Lord of Anahuac, whom the proud daughters of the first men, and of the noblest houses in New Spain, had failed to lure within the meshes of matrimony, was not likely to mate with the daughter of Miguel Escudero, however much I might love her, and however much she might please my somewhat fastidious eye.

"I heard her many tender and pathetic entreaties--and once, too, her wild threats of self-destruction, poniard in hand--that I would save her from impending shame; but I was pitiless as the ocelot--the tiger-cat that lurked in the woods of Orizaba--all the more pitiless that I knew she fondly--yes, madly--loved me.

"Weary of the endless task of seeking to console one who would not and could not be consoled, I quitted Orizaba for some months, as we were planning the revolt against the mother country, a movement which was to secure to me the captaincy of the great castle of San Juan, de Ulloa, the citadel of La Vera Cruz, which mounts nearly 200 pieces of cannon, and is the key of the whole province.

"During my absence and in the fulness of time, Mariquita had a son, born in secrecy, amid tears, shame, and sorrow. She baptised it by the name of Pedro, and sent him to a lonely puebla in the mountains that overlook the Barranca Secca, to be nursed by one of my people. This birth, all unknown alike to Miguel Escudero, whom I had despatched on a political mission towards the shores of the Pacific, and to his son, Juan, who was now a lieutenant of infantry at the castle of San Juan de Ulloa.

"My passion for Mariquita still existed; her love for me was greater than ever now, and she lived but for me, and in the hope that in pity, if not for love, I would espouse her still, and these hopes I was always wicked enough to fan; 'so man wrongs, and time avenges.'

"Completely in my power, surrounded by my toils, the victim of my wiles, still loving me dearly and desperately, and still hoping for the ultimate fulfilment of my thousand protestations, the poor girl continued to meet me from time to time in a deserted sugar-mill on the mountains of Orizaba, a secret intercourse that ended fatally for her and for all, for another son, whom we named Zuares, was born, and at the same time the whole affair came to the knowledge of Miguel Escudero, who, though but a humble grangero, had all the pride of birth, and more than the ideas of spotless honour, honesty, and female purity, possessed by any grandee of old Castile.

"The poor old man's horror was beyond all description.

"To find that his daughter's honour had been lost, his hospitality so infamously violated, his home disgraced, his prospects ruined, and by me--ME, whom he had so loved and so respected, as his friend and benefactor, was a mortal stab too deep to survive, and within an hour after the revelation came upon him in all its stunning details, poor Miguel Escudero had ceased to exist.

"He did not die by his own hand, he was too good and too religious a man for such a terrible act; but sinking on the floor of his chamber, he never moved again. He died of autopsy--paralysis of the heart!

"I was not present at this scene of horror, being, fortunately for myself, in command of the great castle of San Juan de Ulloa.

"On the day of Corpus Christi, after having attended mass, I was walking on that portion of the ramparts which faces the flats of Gallega, accompanied by some of the officers of my staff, when the young lieutenant, Juan Escudero, approached to inform me, in a voice broken with grief, of his father's sudden death, and to request leave of absence to attend his obsequies.

"My heart was struck with remorse, and grew sick with shame. I placed my purse in his hand; I gave him my best horse, and bade him begone to Orizaba with good speed; but I trembled like a craven in my soul for the hour of his return.

"A few days passed, and the young lieutenant came back.

"I was walking alone on the same ramparts when I saw him steadily approaching me. He was clad in his uniform, and his silver epaulettes glittered in the sun. He had a band of crape on his right arm, and another on the hilt of his sword--a soldier's simple mourning for a lost parent, and, alas! a lost honour.

"He came straight up to me; his handsome face, so like the face of Mariquita, was deadly pale; but the glare of wild hate shone in his eyes, and his nether lip quivered spasmodically.

"'Senor Don Pedro de Barradas,' said he, saluting me, ceremoniously, 'I have the honour to confess the many services you have rendered my family in the days when you were true to yourself and to us. For all these I beg to thank you. But I have also to confess the many deep wrongs you have done us, and I here brand you, before God and man, as a villain and a coward, whom I have vowed to kill like a dog, here on the ramparts of San Juan de Ulloa!'

"My heart sank, and my hand trembled.

"'Senor Teniente--Senor Escudero,' I began, in a rash and vague attempt to explain or to extenuate; but the brother of Mariquita was mad with ungovernable fury, and he rushed upon me, sword in hand.

"I knew that he would kill me without mercy, and that there was nothing left for me but to defend my life to the utmost, and to do this all my skill was requisite.

"I was the best swordsman in La Vera Cruz; but he was twenty years my junior, young, active, and filled with just rage and indignation.

"Compelled to stand on my own defence, my sole object was to ward off his cuts, to parry his thrusts, and to keep him at bay till the castle guard came to separate us. I sought to disarm, and if driven to sore extremity to wound him only; but while he was making a desperate lunge at me, my sword entered his heart. I felt its hot blood spout upon the blade, and pour through the hilt upon my hand, as I flung my weapon down in grief and dismay.

"Juan threw up his hands, and uttered a wild cry. It was 'Mariquita,' as he fell dead on his face, at my feet.

"Long, long did a horror of these events oppress me. I buried him in the church of the Augustine Friars, and had one hundred masses sung for the repose of his soul--oh, who will say one for me!--I would have made some effort to requite the living victim of my wickedness; but now retribution came upon me.

"When passing near this isle, a heavy gale came on, and I fell overboard. In such a sea, to save me was impossible; but a sailor heard my shriek of despair, and cast over to me a hencoop.

"God, in his goodness, enabled me to reach it, and after drifting on the dark ocean for more than an hour, I was cast ashore, and here have I remained ever since, leading a life of piety and austerity, of penance and of prayer, in the humble and earnest hope that this imitation of the holy men of old may atone for the errors I committed in the world as Don Pedro Zuares Miguel de Barradas.

"Rueguen a Dios por el."

As he wanted fresh water, the captain continued to stand off and on till dawn next day, when Morley, who had spent the morning watch in successful fishing, had the gratification of seeing the sun rise on the isle of Don Tristan d'Acunha.

Situated far amid the lonely waves of the Southern Atlantic, at the distance of 1,500 miles from any continent, this lofty island has a peak of 5,000 feet in height above the level of its beach. At dawn it seemed like a cone of flame, shaded off by purple tints, and towering amid a rose-coloured sea, whose depth is so vast that it far exceeds even the height of Tristan's loftiest peak.

Two islands are near it: one is named the Inaccessible; the other, the island of the Nightingale; but they are mere masses of wild storm-beaten rock, against which the ocean rolls its masses of foam, and above which, in the amber-tinted sky, a cloud of sea-hens, petrels, and albatrosses wheel and flutter.

In the little town which held a British garrison when our imperial captive pined in St. Helena, there is a mixed population of English and Portuguese mulattoes, though the isle is described in a recent gazetteer as being as desolate as when the Cavalier Tristan d'Acunha traversed the southern sea with his high-pooped caravel, and gave the place his name, in the first years of the sixteenth century.

Morley, Gawthrop, and three of the crew went ashore in the jolly-boat to procure some fresh water and vegetables. Morrison followed in the quarter-boat; both returned in about an hour, and after what they had brought off was put on board, they were sent ahead with a warp to tow the ship off the land, towards which a dangerous current had been drifting her.

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