Olmedo for the instant was dumb with anguish at the threatened fate of Beatriz. But clinging to the slightest hope of rescuing her, as he recovered his voice, with hands clasped in an appealing gesture towards Tolta, he eagerly asked, “How can I save her? Oh, gladly would I ransom her life with mine. Tell me, good Tolta; by the love you bore your mother, by your hope of heaven, tell me, Mexican, and the prayers of gratitude, and all that a chaste maiden and a Christian priest may do, shall be forever yours. She saved your life amid the ruin of your native city—you rescued her from drowning, but not for this fate. Let her not perish now, and thus”—Olmedo paused for an instant, as his imagination pictured to him with the force of reality, all the horrors that encompassed her for whom he plead; big drops of agony came upon his brow as he met the cold, fierce, lustful eye of the Aztec fixed unmoved upon his, while the same wily, implacable look, born of his deepest passions, overspread his pitiless features which he had noticed once before, and now, as then, involuntarily shuddered to see; but the stake at issue was the honor and life of his daughter in Christ, and so he plead on. “No! you cannot—you will not suffer this; the hand that has fed you, nursed you, the heart that has cared for you and your eternal welfare, when all others were cold; the tongue that never spoke to you but in love and kindness,—surely you will not harm them? Look, Tolta, Olmedo the priest, the friend of the Mexican,—your father was a priest,—Olmedo on his knees beseeches you to save the white maiden, to restore her in all honor to her brother; take my life as a ransom for hers, if your vengeance must have life,—will you not, Tolta?”
Olmedo became silent, and dropped his eyes to the ground, then raising them for a second towards heaven, he ejaculated in Spanish, as he met the relentless gaze of Tolta still fixed upon him, “Mother of Christ, soften the heart of this heathen,—save thy lamb from the wolves that beset her. If there be no escape prepared, sustain and fortify our spirits until their hour of final deliverance has come.”
As he finished his prayer, Tolta grasped his arm and said to him, “Now listen to me, Olmedo. I would save Beatriz, for I love her—start not—yes, the Mexican dog dares love the Castilian maid, loves her with all the fiery, quenchless passion of his race, as noble and proud as her own, and, till the Spaniards came, as victorious. I saved her from the ocean because I loved her. I have borne insult, oppression, slavery, the fierce words of Juan, and even a Christian baptism from you because of this love. I have been faithful to the Spaniard when revenge was offered me until now, because I love Beatriz. Would you know how much I love her?—as deeply as I hate her nation. She must become mine. It is in your power to accomplish this. You are her confessor, and you will she obey. Persuade her to be mine, and you shall be free, Juan warned, and even Kiana be spared the slaughter now ready to fall upon him. I can easily fool this brute Pohaku, and lead him into the destruction he richly deserves. Speak, priest, will you not make her my wife to save her, yourself, and all you love, from destruction?”
More in sorrow than in anger at his blindness and confessed villany did Olmedo reply to him. “Life is dear to all of us, but our souls are dearer. Willingly would I do all but violate my conscience and her truth to save her a single pang. You know not a Christian woman’s heart. She mate with you! the dove seek the nest of the hawk! Never! Beatriz would die a thousand deaths first. Oh! Tolta, is it for this you have played the traitor? Were I to name the price of my safety, she would spurn me, as I do you, for the thought. Tempt me no further. Repent of this wrong before it be too late, or you will learn that though you may imprison the body, the spirit escapes your bondage. Destroy her you may, but you cannot dishonor a Christian maiden. Her soul will defy your wiles, and we shall meet in Paradise. No more! I will hear no more of this.”
Tolta could as little comprehend the lofty motive of Olmedo in refusing to abase Beatriz’s purity, by merely hinting at its sacrifice, as a door of escape from bodily torment for either himself or her, as could Pohaku the spiritual strength of his faith in contrast with the thunder and lightnings of Pele. Unmoved by his reply, he sneeringly said, “I give you till night to think of this. After the moon rises it will be too late,” and left him.
CHAPTER XXII.
“Be just and fear not.
Let all the ends thou aim’st at be