“And left her waiting?”
“I could do her no help by going back––she is no worse off than if I had not come.”
“She sent you for the silken broidery?”
“She said if you could come to her service, the scarf or a certain page of a certain book would serve as a sign:––letters are difficult things––boys who carry them are tripped up at times and learn the might of a lash. To send a jewelled bauble and ask for the silken scarf was a less harmful thing for the messengers.”
“You imp of an Indian devil! a souvenir was sent me––and a message––and I am hearing no word of it until now in this pagan land!”
“Excellency:––the message is of little moment now––it was only a matter of a tryst––and you were too far on the journey! But the ardor of the Capitan Gonzalvo may bring us all strange moments,––and it may be some graves! If mine should be among them, and you should live to go back, you can take from my neck the bauble trusted to me by the lady. It is one of the records of her madness. But you will not quite laugh at it, Señor––and you will forgive me that I could not give it to you as she had dreamed in her madness that I could easily do.”
“Mad? By our Lady!––there has been no madness from first to last but my own when I was tricked away from her by lies pious and politic! Oh––oh!––our padre was in it deep, and I have served their purpose! And you––you girl-faced little devil––what share is yours in all this? Whose tool have you been from first to last?”
“Whose?”––the lad had regained his careless mien––“surely not that of Dame Venus or her son, Master Cupid! It is well for me to find employ in 199 the wilderness––never again dare I seek service with lord or lady!”
“Your lady lost her wits ere she made you ambassador on a love quest!”