STRANGE COMPANY.
The vehicle which conveyed Alcala to his destination stopped at the entrance of a dark and gloomy building, situated in a narrow street. Through a vaulted passage, dimly lighted, Alcala was conducted to a door in which was a grating formed of thick iron bars. At this door one of the alguazils who escorted the prisoner knocked. The face of a jailer was dimly visible through the grating, and then there was the sound of withdrawal of bolt and turning of key; the heavy door was slowly swung back, and Alcala entered the prison.
Through a vestibule the cavalier was then conducted to an office-room, in which, seated at a high desk, appeared the alcalde of the prison, a hollow-eyed, melancholy man. He glanced at the warrant which was formally presented to him by one of the alguazils, then rose, and with gloomy ceremony welcomed his involuntary guest.
"Señor," said the alcalde, with a low inclination of the head, "may your residence here be a brief one. Permit me to have the honour of myself introducing you into your temporary abode. I regret to see that the health of the illustrious caballero appears to be impaired."
After a ceremonious exchange of courtesy with the alcalde who had arrested him, and who retired after delivering up his charge to the prison authorities, Alcala followed his jailer to a huge grated door, which was guarded by a couple of turnkeys. This barrier also was passed, and with a heavy, echoing clang the massive door closed on the prisoner. Alcala and his jailer were now in a corridor, lighted by narrow barred windows, looking on a patio, in which a number of prisoners were taking what air and exercise its confined space permitted.
"Most noble caballero," said the jailer, who now walked by the side of Alcala, "in this melancholy abode there is preserved a due distinction of ranks. We have a few apartments reserved for illustrious señors like yourself, whom misfortune may have led to visit our retreat for awhile."
As Alcala only replied by a slight inclination of the head, the alcalde thought that his hint had not been understood by his captive.
"Cavaliers are permitted to furnish their apartments according to their good pleasure, señor; and they are waited on by the attendants with the distinction becoming their rank. But, of course, this alleviation of the trial of detention within these walls belongs only to those who—" The alcalde hesitated, so Alcala relieved him from the difficulty of further explaining his meaning.
"I suppose that the private apartments are reserved for those who have the means of paying for them," said Alcala. "This, señor, I have not."
"I regret that on the present occasion every one of these rooms is occupied, illustrious caballero," observed the jailer, still—though disappointed of his expected gains—preserving his ceremonious politeness, as he ushered Alcala into the large vaulted gloomy dungeon which the cavalier was to share with the fifty or sixty criminals who crowded the place.
The sight, the scent of the den in which he was to pass, perhaps, the remainder of a brief life, were enough to try the fortitude of any one who had, like Alcala, been gently nurtured. The place was dirty to a disgusting degree, and utterly unfurnished. The brick floor, on which some of the inmates were squatting and others reclining, served at once for chair, table, and bed. Offensive odours poisoned the air; the aspect of the place was revolting.
To an artist, indeed, the scene, as beheld by light struggling through grated windows coated with dust, might not have appeared devoid of picturesque effect. There was no clipped hair to be seen, no prison-dress common to all the inmates; each criminal wore what he would, and a curious variety of costumes appeared before the eyes of Alcala. There were here and there dashes of bright colour from waistcoats of green or blue silk, worn, uncovered by coat or jacket, over shirts with large flowing sleeves. These gaudy articles of costume marked the bandit race, who had probably been committed to prison for robbery or murder on the highway. On other criminals appeared the sheep-skin of the peasant, or the mantero of the citizen; one man was seen in buff jerkin, with jack-boots reaching half-way up his thigh. Most of the prisoners wore the faja, or waist-belt, so characteristic a part of Spanish costume,—being a very long piece of cloth, usually black or red, twisted round the middle of the person, and forming a receptacle for the purse, and sometimes the dagger.
Of course the entrance of a new companion in misfortune awakened curiosity, and attracted the attention of all the motley groups. A murmur of "'Tis a caballero!" was heard from the dark recesses of the place of confinement.
But though the den was mostly filled with miscreants who had broken every one of the ten commandments, an Englishman must have been struck by the absence of brutal coarseness, whether of manner or conversation, which he would have expected amongst the lowest class of criminals thus promiscuously thrown together. Men who had preserved no sense of honour, no scruple of conscience, men who might have robbed a church or murdered a brother, demeaned themselves as though they preserved some self-respect still. It is a peculiarity of the Spanish race that, to a certain extent, even the poorest appear to be gentlemen born. The beggar has his dignity; the picker of pockets his grace. Alcala had to encounter no insolent banter, no brutal jests, when he found himself amongst the scum of Spanish society in the common prison of Seville.
The cavalier's first feeling was one of utter disgust and repulsion, and an intense longing for solitude, were it even only to be sought in the darkest and most narrow of cells. Alcala had been brought up in aristocratic seclusiveness, and his besetting sin was pride. He reproached himself now for the selfish haughtiness which would fain have raised an impenetrable wall between himself and his companions in suffering.
"How is it that I, myself rescued from depths of guilt, dare to despise my fellow-sinners?" mused Alcala. "Who hath made me to differ from them? Wherefore should I desire to be secluded from all opportunities of serving my kind, because my pride shrinks from contact with those whom I deem beneath me? Here is the post which my Lord has assigned me. May He give me strength to bear witness for Him even in the prison, and deliver His message to some who, if they had heard it before, might never have entered this horrible den."
Alcala had scarcely had time for these reflections, when he was accosted by a lithe, active-looking man of very dark complexion, who had come from the further end of the dungeon on seeing him enter.
"Most illustrious caballero, Don Alcala de Aguilera, we have met before," said the man.
"And where, my friend?" asked Alcala.
"In the Plaza de Toros, señor. My name is Diego. I was one of the chulos who planted a banderilla in the neck of the bull which your worthiness met so bravely."
"I am engaged in a different contest now," said Alcala, who was resolved not to let either the weariness of his frame, or the repugnance of his spirit, prevent his entering into conversation with the companions whom he hoped to influence for their good. The cavalier seated himself on the floor, supporting his back against the wall; and the chulo, who was inclined to be sociable, stretched himself, resting on his elbow, beside the señor.
"Your worship finds yourself in strange company," observed this self-constituted cicerone of the prison, lowering his tone so as not to be overheard by the ruffians around him. "Yonder, jabbering their Egyptian gibberish, is a party of Zingali: the worst punishment to them is to have a roof over their heads; the Gitano would rather lie in a ditch than a palace, boil his kettle under a hedge than feast at the governor's table. To the left there, señor, are smugglers from Cadiz; many a contraband bale has galled the backs of their mules as they moved over the sierra by moonlight. He in the red faja behind them is a highly respectable man; he merely hacked a rival to death in a combat with knives: it is strange that the alguazils should have thought it worth while to arrest the poor fellow for a simple affair like that. But yon gentleman with the bright blue jacket has earned his lodging at Her Majesty's expense; he is a brigand from the Sierra Morena, and has, I trow, cut more throats than he has fingers upon his two hands."
Alcala wondered silently for what crime his communicative companion had himself been committed to prison. Diego did not long leave him in ignorance of the cause.
"It is a shame to put me with such as these," said the talkative chulo; "I am a political offender," he added, with something like pride. "Not a Carlist, mind you, señor; I am locked up in this kennel merely for saying what all the world thinks, though not all have the courage to speak out their minds. I did but say that it is a disgrace that such a wretch as he whom the Queen has always at her elbow should be suffered to ride rough-shod over the necks of the Spanish nation, and that I wished that the nun Patrocinio would keep to her cell and leave politics alone. I did add—and I care not who knows it," continued the chulo, "that we shall never see good days till we have our exiled General Prim back again! Prim is the man to make Spain once more what she was in the glorious old times!"