Stuart could scarce refrain from tears at witnessing the fate of this poor private soldier. Death, amidst the fierce excitement and tumult of battle, where "the very magnitude of the slaughter throws a softening disguise over its cruelties and horrors," is nothing to death when it comes stealing over a human being thus, slowly and gradually, having in it something at once awful and terribly impressive; and Ronald Stuart, blunted and deadened as his feelings were by campaigning, felt this acutely, as he turned away from the corse of his comrade and countryman.
His attention was next arrested by a monstrous raven, or corbie, which sat on a fragment of rock, watching attentively the scene as if awaiting his coming banquet; but Ronald compelled it to take to flight, by uttering a loud holloa, which reverberated among the rocks of the mountain wilderness. It was now night; but the moon arose above the summits of the hills, glowing through openings in the thin clouds like a shield of polished silver, and pouring a flood of pale light along the pass of Miravete, casting into yet deeper shadow the rifted rocks which overhung it. The speed at which he rode soon left the mountains far behind him, and about midnight brought him close to the gloomy wood of Jarciejo; but on all that line of road he had discovered no trace of Donna Catalina, or the ruffian who had deceived her; and as the country thereabouts was totally uninhabited, he met no one who could give him the slightest information, and his mind became a prey to fear and apprehension that some act of blood or treachery might be perpetrated before he came up with them.
"There they are! Now, then, Heaven be thanked!" he exclaimed on seeing figures on horseback standing at Saint Mary's well, a rude fountain at the cross-road leading from Truxillo to Lacorchuela, which intersects that from Almarez to Jarciejo. He loosened his sword in the scabbard, but on advancing found that he was mistaken. He met a stout cavalier of Lacorchuela escorting two ladies, whose singular equipage would have inclined him to laugh, had he been in a merrier mood. They were seated on two arm-chairs, slung across the back of a strong mule, and facing outwards, rode back to back. They were enveloped in large mantillas, and their bright eyes flashed in the moonlight, as they each withdrew the antifaz, or mask of black silk, which covered their faces to protect them from the dust, the heat of the sun, or the chill night-air when travelling.
Ronald hastily saluted them, and asked their escort if a priest and two females had passed that way? The cavalier, who was mounted on a fine Spanish horse, raised his broad beaver, throwing back his heavy brown cloak as he did so, as if to show that he was well armed by displaying the glittering mountings of the pistols, long stiletto, and massive Toledo sabre, which for protection he carried in the leathern baldric encircling his waist. He said, that when he had first stopped at the fountain to rest, about an hour ago, a priest and two ladies had passed, and taken the road directly for the forest of Jarciejo.
Ronald waited to hear no more, but hurriedly muttering his thanks, urged the good animal he rode to a gallop in the direction pointed out, regardless as to whether or not the whole band of desperadoes recognising Narvaez Cifuentes as their leader might be in the wood. He had not ridden half a mile further when the horse of D'Estouville passed him at a rapid trot, with its bridle-rein trailing on the ground and the saddle reversed, hanging under its belly, girths uppermost. Some terrible catastrophe must have happened! A groan broke from Ronald; and in an agony of apprehension for the fate of the fair rider, he madly goaded onward the horse he rode, using the point of his sword as a substitute for spurs, which as a regimental infantry officer he did not wear.
The mules of the priest and paisana, grazing the herbage at the entrance of the wood, next met his view. The light-coloured garments of a female form lying on the road, caused him to spring from the saddle in dismay. It was not Catalina, but the poor peasant-girl of Almarez: her gilt crucifix, which she had worn ostentatiously on her bare bosom, was gone, as was likewise the trunk-mail which she had carried. She was lying dead, stabbed by a dagger in the throat, where a ghastly wound appeared. The feathers and veil of Catalina's hat lay fluttering near, and the bruised and torn appearance of the grass and bushes bore evidence that some desperate struggle had taken place here. These outrages seemed to have been committed recently, as the cheek of the dead girl was yet warm and soft, when Ronald touched it.
"God help you, Catalina! My thoughtlessness has destroyed you: 'tis I that have done all this!" he exclaimed, as he struck his hand passionately upon his forehead, and reeled against a tree.
"O gracios caballero!" said a decrepit and wrinkled old man, arrayed in the garb of some religious order, emerging as if from concealment among the trees; "a most horrible scene has been acted here. I saw it from among the olive bushes, where I lay sleeping till the noise awoke me."
"The donna, mi amigo,—the young lady, where is she? Tell me, for the love of that Virgin you adore so much!"
"O los infidelos! and dost not thou adore her?" asked the old man querulously, while his sunken and bleared eyes kindled and lighted up.