Little conversation took place on the road, the mind of Garcias labouring evidently under a high degree of excitement, which he was afraid might break forth if he spoke, and I myself being far too much swallowed up in the selfishness of painful thoughts to care much about the schemes or wishes of others. I gathered, however, from the occasional questions which Garcias addressed to Francisco, and the replies he received, that the whole of Catalonia was ripe for revolt; that the sufferings of the people, and the outrages of the Castilian soldiery, had arrived at a point no longer to be endured; and that the murmurs and inflammatory placards which had lately been much spoken of, were but the roarings of the volcano before an eruption. Several private meetings of the citizens and the peasantry had been held, Francisco observed; and at more than one of these, aid, arms, ammunition, money, and co-operation, had been promised on the part of France. All was ready for revolt; the pile was already laid whereon to sacrifice to the god of liberty, and it wanted but some hand to apply the torch.
"That hand shall be mine," muttered Garcias;--"that hand shall be mine, if they change not their doings mightily;" and here the conversation again dropped.
For three hours we rode on in darkness, by rough and narrow paths, which probably we might not have passed so safely had it been day; for we went on with that sort of fearlessness which is almost always sure to conduct one securely through the midst of danger. Although I felt my horse make many a slip and many a flounder as we went along, I knew not the real state of the roads over which we passed, till I found him plunge up to his shoulders in a pit of water that lay in the midst. By spurring him on, however, I forced him up the other side; and shortly after the day broke, showing what might, indeed, be called by courtesy a road, but which seemed in truth but an old watercourse, obstructed with large stones and deep holes, and, in short, a thousand degrees worse in every respect than any path we had followed through the gorges of the Pyrenees.
No feeling, I believe, is more consistently inconsistent than cowardice. Children shut their eyes in the dark to avoid seeing ghosts; and as long as my little companion Achilles could not exactly discover the dangers of the path, he proceeded very boldly; but no sooner did he perceive, by the light of the dawn, the holes, the rocks, and the channels, which obstructed the road at every step, than he fell into the most ludicrous trepidation, and called down upon his head many an objurgation from Garcias for hanging behind in the worst parts, floundering like a fish left in the shallows.
During the whole of our journey hitherto we had passed neither house nor village, as far as I could discover; and we still went on for about an hour before we came even to a solitary cottage, where Garcias drew in his rein to allow our horses a little refreshment.
Here he paced up and down before the door, seemingly anxious and impatient to proceed, knitting his brows and gnawing his lip with an air of deep and bitter meditation. I interrupted his musings, nevertheless, to inquire whether he could convey a few lines to their destination, which I had written to inform my father that I was, at least, in safety.
"To be sure," replied he hastily, taking the letter out of my hand. "Did I not deliver the packet safely to Mademoiselle Arnault, at the château? and doubt not I will deliver yours too, if I be alive; and if I be dead," he added with a smile, "I will send it."
"What packet did you deliver to Mademoiselle Arnault?" demanded I, somewhat surprised; "I never heard of any packet."
"Nay, I know not what it contained," answered the smuggler; "it was brought to me by a friend at Jaca, and I know nothing farther than that I delivered it truly. That is all I have to do with it, and fully as much as any one else has."
I turned upon my heel, again feeling the proud blood of the ancient noble rising angrily at the careless tone with which a peasant presumed to treat my inquiries; but the overpowering passions which, under the calm exterior of the Spaniard, were working silently but tremendously, like an earthquake preceded by a heavy calm, levelled in his eyes all the unsubstantial distinctions of rank. Nor did I, though struck by a breach of habitual respect, give above a thought to the manner of his speech; the matter of it soon occupied my whole mind, and for the rest of the journey I was as full of musing as the smuggler himself. A packet from Spain!--for Helen Arnault! What could it mean? She, who had no friends, no acquaintances beyond the circle of our own hall! A new flame was added to the fires already kindled in my bosom; I suppose that my mind was weakened by all that I had lately suffered, for I cannot otherwise account for the wild, vague, jealous suspicions that took possession of me. But so it was--I was jealous! At other times my character was anything but suspicious; but now I pondered over the circumstance which had just reached my knowledge, viewed it in a thousand different lights, regarded it in every aspect, and still the jaundiced medium of my own mind communicated to Helen's conduct a hue that, however extraordinary, it did not deserve.