“I am his guardian, I think,” said Martin Alonzo. “You brought him here for my discretion, and he hath not yet been yielded up to the church. If he had been, I would be the last to say a word. He hath not been, and he goes with me. It is the last word. Wife, make a hasty bundle of the clothing of our son, which he hath outgrown. We have but a minute to waste. Cousin, look not so glum over a thing which so short a time ago awoke thy enthusiasm. Thou goest with me. Friar, I wish you good-day. Adios!”
Diego said not a word to his cousin; he knew that would have been useless. To the friar, however, he addressed a reproach.
“I told you how it would be.”
“Thou didst indeed, my son,” said the worthy friar, humbly. “But do not despair, for I will hasten to the prior and have his intervention.”
Martin Alonzo laughed in his beard, and Diego felt that his doom was sealed. He saw the friar go out of the house, and he saw the hasty preparations of the women of the household to get him an outfit; he listened to their words of comfort and hope, and to his cousin’s gruff assurance that he would not be taking the voyage himself, if he thought there was danger in it; and all the while his mind was only on the words he had spoken in mischief to the young convict.
“He is very young to die!”
They seemed cruel, now, instead of only mischievous, and he wished very heartily that he had not uttered them. And so he sat in melancholy silence until he heard Martin Alonzo saying to him:
“Pick up thy bundle, cousin; kiss the women, and come. Why, how glum thou art! And thou with the gift of language! Come, they are waiting for us, and the admiral, Christoval Colon, or Christopherus, as he and thou, being learned in Latin, would say it, will be impatient.”
Diego heeded not the banter in his cousin’s voice; but resigned himself to his fate, with no attempt to hide his grief and terror. He took up his bundle and dejectedly followed his cousin out of the house. Usually, when going to punishment, he would bear himself as jauntily as if going to a feast—that is, when all hope of escape was gone; but on this occasion he had no spirit to simulate what he did not feel. He went with drooping head and lagging step.
There was no doubt that some of the people whom they passed pitied him; and there were others who made merry as he had done with the young convict; but both sorts were alike to him, and he stepped off the quay into the boat, feeling very little better than if he had been going to execution.