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.