“Monster of iniquity! The veil that has but too long concealed thy unequalled crimes from the eyes of a confiding woman, has been rudely torn aside. Murderer of my brother! Apostate! Traitor! Adulterer! receive at my hands the first stroke of the Almighty’s anger. The illegitimate offspring of our intercourse lies a mangled corpse upon our adulterous bed! Yes, unparalleled villain; my hand, like thine own, is stained with the blood of my child—our child. But on thy head rests the sin. In a moment of delirium, produced by the sight of my husband, and the knowledge of thy atrocious crimes, the horrid deed was committed. I leave thee to the pangs of remorse. I cannot curse thee. Even with the bleached corpse of my poor boy before me, I cannot bring myself to call down a heavy punishment upon thee. We shall never meet again; but fly instantly and save thyself if possible; and may the Almighty Being, whose every command thou hast violated, extend the term of thy life for repentance; and may a blessed Saviour and the holy saints, whose mediation thou hast ever derided, intercede for the salvation of thy sinful soul.”
My first feeling on reading this epistle was incredulity! I, who had stopped at no crime to gratify any evil passion; even I could not persuade myself that it was not a forgery, nor believe that one so gentle, so affectionate, as Engracia, could be guilty of so diabolical an act. I took up a lamp and walked composedly to the adjoining chamber, to satisfy my doubts. With a steady hand I drew aside the curtain of the bed—nothing was visible. A thrill of delight ran through my veins. I tore off the counterpane, and—horrible revulsion of feeling!—discovered my boy, my darling boy, with anguish depicted in every feature, and every muscle contracted with excessive suffering; a cold—black—fetid—putrid corpse!
Until that moment I had not known the full extent to which the chords of the human heart are capable of being stretched. All my love of life had centred in that child. Each of his infantile endearments came fresh upon my memory. The pangs of jealousy and hate, too, had never before been so acutely felt; and, lastly, I thought of my Fernando’s dying malediction! It seemed as if a poisoned dart had pierced to the very innermost recess of the heart, and that my envenomed blood waited but its extraction, to gush forth in one irrepressible flood.
I stood speechless—awe-struck—motionless; but not yet humbled. I thought of Paca, and a curse rose to my throat; but ere I had time to give it utterance, a noise, as of many persons assembled at the door of the house, attracted my attention, and I heard an unknown voice say, “This, Tio, you are sure is the house? Then in with you, comrades, without ceremony, and bring out every soul you may find there, dead or alive.”
In another moment the door was broken open and a party of armed men rushed in. My precaution of extinguishing the lamp was vain, as several of them bore blazing torches. I rushed to a back window of the inner apartment, and drew forth a pistol to keep them at bay whilst I effected my escape by it. It had the desired effect. Not one of the dastard crew would approach to lay his hand upon me. The shutter was already thrown open; the strength of desperation had enabled me to tear down one of the iron bars of the reja; and one foot rested on the window-sill; when, rushing past the soldiers, a ghost-like female figure, whose face was bound up in a cloth clotted with gore, seized me in her convulsive grasp, and in a half-articulate scream cried, “Wretch! you shall not so escape me!"—It was Paca! I tried in vain to shake her off; she clung to me with the pertinacity of a vampire, I placed the muzzle of my pistol to her temple, and pulled the trigger; but, in my hurry, I had drawn that which I had already fired at her. I attempted to snatch another from my belt, but the soldiers taking courage rushed forward and overpowered me, just as Paca, from whose mouth I now perceived blood was rapidly issuing, fell exhausted upon the floor.
The commander of the party was now called in, who gave directions for a priest and a surgeon to be instantly sent for, and that I should be bound hand and foot with cords. They took the bedding from under the corpse of my son to form a rest for Paca, whose life seemed ebbing rapidly.
In a few minutes the surgeon arrived, and shortly after a tinkling bell announced the approach of the Host. The doctor having examined Paca’s wounds, pronounced them to have been inflicted by the discharge of some weapon loaded with slugs, one of which had fractured her jaw-bone, whilst another had inflicted a wound that occasioned an inward flow of blood which threatened immediate dissolution, and consequently the services of the church were more likely to be beneficial than his own. The priest then approached, and offered the last and cheering consolation that our holy religion offers to a dying penitent.
Paca opened her now lustreless eyes, and with a motion of impatience, putting aside the proffered cup, pointed to me. “There is my murderer,” she muttered in broken accents; “Villain! monster! my vengeance is at length complete. I leave you in the hands of justice, and die ... happy.” An agonized writhe belied her assertion. She never spoke after, but continued groaning whilst the worthy priest attempted to call her attention to her approaching end.
I have not much more to add to my history. It appeared, by what I learnt afterwards, that Beltran had most miraculously escaped death, when thrown from the rock of Montejaque, and having been discovered by some French soldiers who made an attack upon the place a few days afterwards, was conveyed to Ronda, when the loss of his ears led to his being recognised by the French governor, who had, in the meanwhile, received my present, and discovered the trick I had played him.
Beltran’s tale thus proved to have been the true one, he was well-treated, and sent with a party of prisoners to France, where he remained until the conclusion of the war. He was then on his way back to his native country, in company with several other Spaniards, when he was arrested as being an accomplice, “sans préméditation,” in a robbery, attended with loss of life, and was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment; but, before this term was fully completed, he obtained his release, returned to Spain, and proceeding immediately to his native province, there first learnt that Engracia had become my wife.