XLIX.
Farewell.
"My country is there;
Beyond the star pricked with the last peak of snow."--E. B. Browning.
About a fortnight afterwards, a closely veiled lady, dressed in deep mourning, leaned over the side of a merchant vessel, and gazed into the sapphire depths of the Bay of Cadiz. A respectable elderly woman was standing near her, holding her pretty dark-eyed babe. They seemed to be under the protection of a Franciscan friar; and of a stately, handsome serving-man, whose bearing and appearance were rather out of keeping with his supposed rank. It was said amongst the crew that the lady was the widow of a rich Sevillian merchant, who during a residence in London some years before had married an Englishwoman. She was now going to join her kindred in the heretical country, and much compassion was expended on her, as she was said to be very Catholic and very pious. It was a signal proof of these dispositions that she ventured to bring with her, as private chaplain, the Franciscan friar, who, the sailors thought, would probably soon fall a martyr to his attachment to the Faith.
But a few illusions might have been dispelled, if the conversation of the party, when for a brief space they had the deck to themselves, could have been overheard.
"Dost thou mourn that the shores of our Spain are fading from us?" said the lady to the supposed servant.
"Not as I should once have done, my Beatriz; though it is still my fatherland, dearest and best of all lands to me. And you, my beloved?"
"Where thou art is my country, Don Juan. Besides," she added softly, "God is everywhere. And think what it will be to worship him in peace, none making us afraid."
"And you, my brave, true-hearted Dolores?" asked Don Juan.
"Señor Don Juan, my country is there, with those that I love best," said Dolores, with an upward glance of the large wistful eyes, which had yet, in their sorrowful depths, a look of peace unknown in past days. "What is Spain to me--Spain, that would not give to the noblest of them all a few feet of her earth for a grave?"