CHAPTER XXXII. THE PARDONED VOLTIGEUR.
“Portia.—It must not be; there is no power in Venice
Can alter a decree established;
‘Twill be recorded for a precedent;
And many an error, by the same example,
Will rush into the state—it cannot be.”
Merchant or Venice.
I never met a man who appeared to have made his mind up to die with more dignity and determination than Lieutenant Cammaran. He had already almost undergone the bitterness of death; as yet his fate was an uncertainty—the sword continued suspended by a hair—and still the expression of his manly countenance was perfectly undisturbed, and neither lip nor eye-lid trembled, he planted his foot firmly on the floor, and, calmly and resolved, awaited a doubtful result—the turn of the die, on which life and death depended.
How he had escaped mortal injury seemed the miracle: two balls had passed through his chaco, his epaulette was divided by another, the jacket perforated by several, and yet not one bullet of a dozen aimed at him had even razed the skin! In such a presence, and under such circumstances, to remain unmoved, required a powerful exercise of moral courage. Few there were, who bore the name of Frenchman, who would have coveted an interview with Juan Diez. El Manco, in desperate severity towards the invaders, bore even a more terrible reputation than the Empecinado; and although the Cura was a learned and pious churchman, as it might have been presumed, still, from divers exploits ascribed to him, in which unbounded liberties had been taken with life and limb, there was not a follower of the intruder who would not have preferred an interview with the archenemy himself.
“Thou hast been condemned to death,” said Juan Diez, addressing the prisoner.
“I have,” replied the captive, steadily, “and the only marvel is that the sentence has not been yet completed.”
“Humph! But for the thoughtless interference of this rash young man, that marvel would have been ended speedily,” returned the Empecinado. “Hast thou aught to ask before——” And he made a pause.
“The experiment shall be tried more successfully,” said the Frenchman, coolly. “Yes; I have an orphan daughter! My poor Pauline!—thou hast no mother to protect thee—and in an hour thou wilt be fatherless! I would send her all I have—my parting blessing; and, with your permission, write a brief letter, which this kind and gallant youth will, I have no doubt, endeavour to get safely conveyed to Paris.”
“Mona sin diaoul!” exclaimed the fosterer, drawing the back of his hand across his eyes, “Miss Pauline shall get it, though I walked every inch of the road, and committed highway robbery for my expenses.”
“Thy request is granted. Diego, bring my portefeuille hither. And make the letter short,” continued El Manco, coldly; “I have some ten leagues to ride after thy execution; I’ll wait until it’s over, for I hate to leave a job half done.”
“Gracious God!” I exclaimed; “surely this cannot be serious! Pause, Don Juan!—One so miraculously preserved—the very hand of Providence visible in his escape!—Would you slay him?—deliberately, coldly, slay him? No, no, I can’t—I won’t believe it. You are brave!—the brave are not assassins; and this would be an act of butchery! You would not sanction it. Did I conceive it possible that you would, by Heaven, the worst remembrance of my life would be, to think that you and I had ever fought side by side, and hand and heart together!”
The Spaniard coloured; but a sarcastic smile was the only reply he vouchsafed.
“I am too warm, Don Juan; like that of your own land, Irish blood is hot. Forgive me if I have offended you.” A gracious smile from the Empeeinado was returned, and conveyed a gracious pardon. “Now let me ask a favour: make me in gratitude your debtor; I have a claim on you. From the surprise, three nights ago, I risked nothing but captivity; by the French I should have been honourably respected; and had I determined on escape, a fitter time and better opportunity would have been readily found to attempt it. With you circumstances were different, nay, desperate. With you ‘twas but a choice of deaths—the sword or halter the alternative—while I had only to remain quiet, and not a hair of my head would have suffered injury. Did I fail you then?—Did my foster brother? No; we perilled all, fought by your side, and hewed out a path by which you escaped a death more certain, even than that which now awaits this unfortunate gentleman.”
“Stop, Mr. O’Halloran,” said Juan Diez, interrupting me. “All you have stated is correct; and the only difficulty in the case is to reconcile gratitude with duty. I see a course by which matters may be accommodated; and, from your interference on his behalf, I will save this Frenchman; that is, provided he accedes to terms. There are none here but those he may rely on. Listen, prisoner, and pause before you answer me.” He took an open packet from his breast. “These papers, in cypher, were found carefully concealed upon the body of your late commander: you were his secretary, and know the key; give me the means of reading the contents, and thou art free as yonder bird.” A pigeon passed the casement at the moment. “Hast thou not the key?”
“I have,” returned the captive.
“Speak—disclose it—liberty is thine; and none shall ever know the means by which I obtained a knowledge of the secret.”
“First, may this tongue be palsied!” And the captive drew himself proudly up.
“To the court-yard, then!” returned the Einpecinado. “No more, sir,” he said, perceiving I was about to urge anew my claims upon him for late service, “have I your final answer to my proposal?” he continued, turning to the condemned.
“Fixed and final!” was the firm reply.
“And upon my conscience, as a true Catholic,” exclaimed the fosterer, “a dirtier proposal, Mister Empecinado, I never listened to!—you would have the honest lad here turn traitor, after hanging three dacent men of the same profession scarcely half an hour ago!—Arrah, have ye neither conscience nor decency, Don Juan?”
“What ho!” returned the Spaniard, “art thou, too, upon me?”
“Mr. Empecinado—and God sees I’m not quite certain whether I’m right or wrong in mistering you—but if it’s wrong, why leave it on my ignorance. We have been comrades for three days, and from the little I know of ye, I would go through fire and water to serve you; more by token, the coldest swim I ever had, I took in your company over that river the other morning. No matter about that—the glass of brandy we had from that friend of yours in the cork wood set all to rights afterwards. Well, as I was saying, ye spoke civilly of me not two hours ago fornent these gentlemen—him with the crooked claw, and his reverence in the colonel’s jacket. Now all I ask you is a trifle. Honour bright, Don Juan! Don’t ye mind, after the swim, and over a glass of brandy-nate, you offered to hang a dozen Frenchmen as a mark of friendship to me and Master Hector there? It’s not much I want; only just let one neck alone. Do, Empecinado, avourneine! Arrah, do, and take my blessing! Why, man, it would be murder, out and out, to harm him. Arrah, just look at the state ye have reduced him to!—you have drove two bullets through his cap; and as to his jacket—and may be the best the crature has in the world—it’s cut into so many ribbons, that, upon my conscience, a respectable scarecrow would be ashamed to wear it in a wheat-field on a Sunday. You know I’m the last man that would interfere in matters that don’t concern me.—Did I part my lips, good nor bad, when ye sent the three gentlemen to the gallows a while ago?—and if you hanged raff of their kind out of the face—for as well as I could understand they were bailiffs or attorneys—sorra one of me would blame ye if ye strung them by the score. But this poor crature—let him go—and take Mark Antony’s blessing.”
Warm as was the fosterer’s appeal, it did not shake the stern resolution of the Empecinado; and a cold movement of his head negatived the supplication for mercy.
“And won’t ye, then, be after letting him off?” continued Mark Antony, warming into Hibernian eloquence, while his cheek flushed, and his dark eyes kindled. “Ye spoke a while ago about my doing you a civil turn—let this poor fellow free, and I’ll do ye twenty more, if you’ll only put me in the way. But if ye’re baste enough to murder him—mona bin diaoul!—the next time you’re in a skrimmage, and tumble over an ould tree, may the divil pick ye up for Mark Antony O’Toole. That’s all I have to say—Tiggum thu?” *
* Anglice, “Do ye understand?”,
The speaker paused. Most of the fosterer’s address Juan Diez comprehended; and such portion of the speech as had been delivered in Irish, being expletive, were not very material. To the appeal, however, he turned a deaf ear, and directed, that after his letter had been written, the prisoner’s sentence should be carried into immediate effect. I was about to remonstrate, but Mark Antony, having the ear of the Court, thus continued:—
“And is this your answer?” he exclaimed. “Ah, then, Empecinado, I have done with ye! Ay—and for all your fine speeches, I’m be-ginning to think you’re no great shakes, after all; and as to your promises, they’re very like what they call pig-shaving in Connaught—much noise and little wool. Come along, Hector, jewel! we won’t remain to see this poor gentleman fairly murdered. God forgive the whole of ye! I put the sign of the cross betune us.” And here the fosterer made a crusial flourish with his thumb in the direction of the guerilla chiefs. “I can only say, that if there are three gentlemen in Spain certain of a warm corner in the next world, I’m just at present taking a parting peep at them. Good morning to ye all. I’ll be obliged if you’ll send one of your understrappers to put us on the right road; and I hope, Mister Diez, that the next dacent lad ye tatter out of bed at cock-crow, to drag into a rookarn first, and a river afterwards—why—that you’ll trate him civiller than ye did me.”
There are few who are proof against eloquence, natural or acquired; and on all it has power alike, whether it be exercised in the fish-market or the Four Courts. On some men it may have opposite effects; and the florid appeal that carries away the judgment of the one, will only alarm the suspicions of another; and thus, the same jury, that on the showing of Mr. Charles Phillips, values an abstracted lady at a thousand pounds, after a prosy address from Sergeant Roundabout, will estimate a similar loss only at a sixpence. Mark Antony had very awkward judges to address; like his greater namesake, “he was no orator,” and possibly it was all the better for his client. We have some doubts, had Mr. Joseph Hume denounced the international illegality of despatching Lieutenant Cammaran of the 16th Voltigeurs, with the arithmetical precision with which, in the House of Commons, he would calculate the waste of human breath, that the brass band of the Guards inflicts on this distressed country,—we have doubts, up say, whether the Empecinado would have been a convert. Had the Liberator of Ireland blessed or banned for an hour by Shrewsbury clock, it would have been all the same to El Manco—and to the remonstrance of the Bench of Bishops, aided by a rescript from the Pope, the Cura would have irreverently played “deaf adder.” And yet, with such unmanageable authorities to deal with, Mark Antony’s eloquence prevailed.
“Stop!” cried Juan Diez, as the fosterer turned his back sullenly round, to wait while the condemned soldier conveyed to his orphan a last farewell.—“Will nothing but this Frenchman’s life acquit the service that I owe thee?”
“Nothing,” returned Mark Antony.—“what other favour could ye grant me? Hav’n’t I the free use of my limbs, and ten dollars besides in my pocket?”
“Well—if it must be so—I will not let thee leave me in thy debt. Frenchman—thou art saved!”
“Then, Pauline, thou mayst yet receive from living lips, that blessing which a dying hand was tracing!” and springing from the bench, the voltigeur flung his arms around the fosterer, and pressed him to his bosom.
“Heaven forbid,” said Juan Diez, addressing Mark Antony—“that I had many creditors like thee! Well—no matter—have I now acquitted all claims upon me to the full?”
“No, Empecinado,” I returned—“I am as yet unpaid.”
“Go on, my friend.—What wouldst thou have me do?” said the Spaniard, graciously.
“Complete the favour—and add liberty to life.”
Juan Diez paused—looked at El Maneo and the Cura.
“What shall I answer? I swore that nothing should avert his doom—and thought nothing could have shaken the resolution.”
“I know that nothing human should have shaken mine,” observed El Maneo. “Life spared, liberty is a trifle—grant it, Juan Diez, if you please.”
“And I,” said the Cura, “will not object.—Great men have occasional weaknesses, and at times, I have found myself rather softer hearted than I should be. Empecinado, ’tis sinful to break an oath,—but Holy Church is merciful.—Hang me the first half dozen of these robbers who fall into your hands, and thou shalt have absolution; the penance—that thou shalt fast from flesh meat the first day when you cannot conveniently find it.”
At this merciful annunciation of the worthy clerk, Juan Diez laughed.
“I thank thee, Cura,” he replied; “but when I make my shrift, I will seek another confessor. Come, the morning passes, and ‘tis time we were wending towards the mountains. Gentlemen,” he continued, turning to the fosterer and me, “our short companionship is about to terminate. If gallantry could attach me to brwe men, and make me regret a separation, I should have abundant reason to grieve that I am about to lose ye; but, sooth to say, for our wild warfare you are not exactly fitted, and, like my excellent camarado, the Cura, you have a little too much softness at the heart. From intelligence I have received since we first met, I would advise you to abandon your original intention of crossing the mountains to Valencia. Suchet’s movements are suspicious,—the roads are unsafe—crowded with ladrones—all desperate men, who would respect no passports, were they guaranteed by every authority in Spain. If you choose to persevere——”
“No, Don Juan,” I replied; “I will return to the allied cantonments. I have, in obedience to orders, endeavoured to reach my regiment. I have failed; and, to say truth, I don’t regret it. I shall resign my commission, if required, and serve under Lord Wellington a volunteer.”
“Such being your intention, I would recommend that you return by the shortest and openest route. Should you touch upon a French outpost, this gentleman will protect you,” and he pointed to Lieutenant Cammaran; “if you fall in with the allied cwalry, you will return the compliment; and should you tumble upon any friends of ours during the journey, you carry a passport that every partida on the peninsula will respect. Ho, Diego! bring me yonder writing-case. Fortunately, sir, you do not require it at present,” and the Empecinado smiled as he addressed the reprieved one.
“Thanks to these noble Englishmen, I do not,” returned the lieutenant.
“I beg your pardon,” replied Mr. O’Toole; “I can’t exactly tell what countryman I am, because I was born at sea.”
“Wine!” cried the Empecinado. “Ho, landlord! stir thyself. Thou know’st my taste—none of that sorry stuff that would poison a Manolo. Let’s have some fit for Christian men. Remember, honest Gonsalvez, thou hast rarely such honourable guests. Here are three foreigners of distinction; and there a holy churchman. Of my friend here,” and he pointed to El Manco, “I shall say nothing: and modesty forbids me speaking of myself. Come, let thy wine be good, or, by San Juan, we’ll quit thy venta altogether.”
With a low bow, the alarmed innkeeper hurried off. As he passed us, the expression of his countenance was ridiculously intelligent; and to the last sentence of the Empecinado, said, or seemed to say, “I wish to Heaven you would!”
The wine that the host produced no doubt was excellent, for its effect upon the company was marvellous. Juan Diez jested with the Curate; the Frenchman and fosterer conversed in broken English; occasionally El Manco vouchsafed a relaxation of the facial muscles, which he intended to represent a smile. All seemed happy but the innkeeper; and on his dull countenance terror and anxiety were imprinted. On him the lively sallies of his distinguished visitors were lost; and the only occurrence at which his sombre features lightened was when a guerilla entered the apartment, and announced that the horses were saddled in the yard.
While the party resumed their cloaks and weapons, the Empecinado beckoned to me, and I retired with him to a corner.
“Is there aught in which I can oblige you? Speak freely,” he said.
I thanked him, and answered him in the negative.
“How is thy pocket lined, my child?” was his next question.
I assured him my purse was liberally supplied.
“I can spare thee a dozen pistoles,” he added.
I acknowledged the kindness, but declined the offered subsidy.
He looked suspiciously around, and then took a packet from his bosom, and placed it in my hand, unseen.
“Conceal these papers, and deliver them carefully, with my duty to Lord Wellington. They are written in cipher; but I know that he has a key that will unravel their contents. I feel assured that they contain important information, for I have learned through a channel where I never was deceived, that the expedition of La Coste was originally intended for no other purpose, than to enable him to communicate with another commandant to whom he was directed to transfer these papers safely. A movement of two strong detachments to secure the delivery of a letter is a sufficient guarantee, my friend, that the contents are momentous. Let us go. El Manco is impatient. Outside the village we part—thou, to the low country; I to the mountains.”
“Art thou hearing a confession in yonder corner, Empecinado?” inquired the monk.
“No, Cura, I would not usurp the functions of the church with one of its brightest ornaments immediately beside me. I was merely giving my young friend here a slight hint of what Juan Diez has experienced, and I’ll once more repeat it.” Then, turning to me, he added aloud, “‘Tis an uncertain world, and many a brilliant opening in a young life has darkly closed. Should fortune frown, friends fall off, enemies prevail—in short, should thy young career be darkened as mine was suddenly, take thy chance with Juan Diez; and thou, my friend,” and the Spaniard addressed the fosterer, “thou, too, wilt any time be welcome; and, as we crossed the Sedana, we’ll swim or sink together.”
So saying, the guerilla pointed to the door. We took the hint, and passed on. There the worthy host stood, cap in hand, bowing us out, as it became customers of distinction. I would have stopped and demanded a reckoning, but Mark Antony was of opinion that such a proceeding might have been an offence in the sight of our patrons and protectors. Certainly, I saw no bill paid or delivered; and I have reason to believe that the guerilla leaders were of the school of ancient Pistol, and consequently gentlemen of too good taste to stoop to an inquiry into accounts. And yet proofs of disinterested regard were not wanting to Senhor Velasquez. I overheard the Empecinado, as he passed, impress on this favoured innkeeper the immediate necessity of replenishing his bins with better wine, and restoring his stable-loft, which needed repair sorely. In my presence certainly none of the circulating medium passed; and, to use fashionable parlance, I verily believe the unfortunate proprietor of the posada was regularly victimized by all.
We entered the court-yard; and, thank Heaven, for the last time. A score of guerillas, mounted and dismounted, were in waiting. Cammaran passed through with averted eyes; but I ventured a look at the well-remembered spot which, within eight-and-forty hours, had witnessed a double execution. The voltigeurs were lying as they fell; the bodies weltering in a pool of blood, or exhibiting, in other cases, no mark of violence whatever. One I passed by was a mere lad. His death must have been instantaneous—one fracture in the jacket was opposite the heart—the countenance was tranquil; and a smile played upon the lip. Could that be death? I knew it was, or I could have fancied well that he was dreaming of absent friends, and calmly indulging in a siesta.
I was delighted when we cleared the court-yard. El Manco and the Cura were waiting for us—presently, Juan Diez rode up; and, followed by an escort of some score of cavalry, we, for the last time, passed along the street of Villa Moro.
I had witnessed enough of guerilla life to render it thoroughly disgusting. War at best is bad; but “war to the knife” is only tolerable for savages. All the romance of partida daring had passed away. I had seen it in its naked light, and found its real character—a ruthless, reckless disregard to every feeling which binds mankind by a common tie—by turns suffering without complaint, and inflicting without compunction. Such were my impressions as I slowly rode along the village street; and had they needed any confirmation, the scene reserved for me would have been quite enough.
On the huge beech tree I had already remarked in front of the house of the chief magistrate, three human bodies were suspended. The Empecinado’s passing observation, and El Manco’s sarcastic address while dooming the unhappy offenders, came back vividly to my recollection. The sentence had indeed been executed to the very letter, and alcade, postmaster, and muleteer, were hanging precisely as the “maimed one” had decreed it.
The worst feature of the savage picture remained—six wretched orphans who had witnessed the expiring agonies of their father were still screaming from the windows from which they had seen him die, and from fear, insensibility, or both, their immediate neighbours dared not, or did not, offer the slightest mark of sympathy under a berewement that would have touched all but savage hearts. The fosterer turned pale; the Frenchman shuddered; the Empecinado regarded the dead men with a marble look.
“El Manco,” observed the Cura with a smile, “Jack Hangman has done thy bidding, and the alcade overtops his friends.”
“Ay,” returned the ‘maimed one;’ “this ever be the fate of traitors! Would that every oak in Spain bore such acorns as yonder beech tree!”
I was sick, nauseated, disgusted. Death—death in every shape! and from the bottom of my heart, I blessed God that my acquaintance with my excellent friends was to determine so speedily. Until we cleared the village I preserved an unbroken silence; and when Juan Diez pointed to a place where our respective roads branched off at the distance of a furlong, my bosom felt as if it were lightened of a load, and, as Doctor Pangloss says, “I breathed again.”