The castle of Menda belonged to a grandee of Spain, who, together with his family, was then in residence. All that evening the elder of his daughters had regarded the officer with an interest characterized by such sadness, that the sentiment of compassion expressed by the Spaniard might well have been the cause of the Frenchman’s reverie. Clara was beautiful, and, although she had three brothers and a sister, the Marquis of Leganés’s possessions seemed considerable enough to lead Victor Marchand to believe that the young lady would have a rich dowry. But how presume to think that the daughter of an old man, the vainest in all Spain of his nobility, would be bestowed on the son of a Parisian grocer? Moreover, the French were hated. The Marquis having been suspected by General G..t..r, who was governor of the province, of organizing a movement in favour of Ferdinand VII, the battalion commanded by Victor Marchand had been stationed in the little town of Menda to overawe the neighbouring districts, which owed allegiance to the Marquis of Leganés. A recent dispatch from Marshal Ney had given reason to apprehend that the English might shortly attempt a landing on the coast, and had pointed out the Marquis as a man who kept in communication with the Cabinet in London. So, in spite of the good reception which the Spaniard had given to Victor Marchand and his soldiers, the young officer was constantly on his guard. As he made his way to the terrace, from which he intended to examine the state of the town and the districts committed to his oversight, he had asked himself how he ought to interpret the friendliness which the Marquis had never ceased to display towards him, and how the tranquillity of the country could be reconciled with his general’s disquietude; but for the last minute these thoughts had been driven from the young officer’s head by a sense of prudence, and by a very legitimate curiosity. He had just observed a considerable number of lights in the town. In spite of it being the feast of St. James, he had ordered, only that very morning, that fires were to be put out at the hour prescribed by his regulations. The castle alone had been exempted from this measure. He could see here and there the gleam of the bayonets of his soldiers at their usual posts; but the silence was most solemn, and nothing announced that the Spaniards were overcome by the intoxication of a feast. After trying to discover a reason for this infringement of which the townspeople were guilty, he found their contravention all the more mysterious and incomprehensible that he had left officers in charge of the night police and the rounds. With the impetuosity of youth, he was proceeding to slip through a gap, in order to descend the rocks rapidly, and thus arrive sooner than by the ordinary road at a small post stationed at the entrance to the town on the castle side, when a slight noise arrested him in his course. He thought he heard the gravel of the walk crunch beneath a woman’s light footstep. He turned his head and saw nothing, but his eye was arrested by the extraordinary brightness of the ocean. There, all of a sudden, he perceived a sight so ominous that he stood motionless with surprise, and refused to believe his senses. The silvery rays of the moon enabled him to distinguish some sails at a considerable distance. He trembled, and sought to convince himself that this vision was an optical delusion produced by the fantastic tricks of waves and moon. At that moment a hoarse voice uttered the name of the officer, who looked towards the gap, and there saw the head of the soldier whom he had ordered to accompany him to the castle slowly emerge.
“Is that you, commandant?”
“Yes. What is it?” was the whispered response of the young man, whom a sort of presentiment warned to proceed with secrecy.
“Those rascals down there are as restless as worms, and I hasten, with your leave, to report some little things I have observed.”
“Speak,” answered Victor Marchand.
“I have just been following a man from the castle, who came this way with a lantern in his hand. A lantern is terribly suspicious! I don’t think that there Christian requires to light candles at this time of night.—‛They mean to do for us,’ says I to myself, and I set about examining his heels. And so, commandant, I discovered a pretty heap of faggots on a rock two or three steps away.”
A terrible cry which all at once resounded from the town interrupted the soldier. A sudden gleam lit up the commandant. The poor grenadier received a bullet in his head and fell. A fire of straw and dry wood blazed up like a conflagration some ten paces from the young man. The instruments and laughter were no longer to be heard in the ball-room. A deathly silence, broken by occasional groans, had suddenly taken the place of the hum and music of the feast. A cannon-shot boomed across the silvery plain of the ocean. A cold sweat ran down the young officer’s forehead. He was without his sword. He understood that his soldiers had perished, and that the English were about to land. He saw himself dishonoured if he lived, he saw himself brought before a court-martial; then with his eye he measured the depth of the valley, and was about to dash himself down, when at that moment Clara’s hand seized his.
“Flee!” she said. “My brothers are coming behind me to kill you. At the foot of the rock yonder, you will find Juanito’s Andalusian. Go!”
She pushed him away; the young man gazed at her in stupefaction for one moment; but, soon obeying the instinct of self-preservation, which never forsakes any man, even the bravest, he dashed into the park in the direction indicated, and ran over rocks which only the goats had trodden hitherto. He heard Clara calling to her brothers to pursue him; he heard the steps of his assassins; he heard the bullets from several discharges whistle past his ears; but he reached the valley, found the horse, mounted it, and disappeared with the rapidity of lightning.
Some hours later, the young officer arrived at the quarters of General G..t..r, whom he found at dinner with his staff.