“What! when the son of a felon in yonder ship must be disowned only to substitute a felon himself! No, sir; the most I can do is what I now purpose—to find this reckless youth and turn him from his vicious life by every means but that you propose. Only in the last extremity will I show him to be as penniless in the future as now, and that the girl he has exhausted his vileness to dishonor is his sister, and I the wretched father of both.”
“And only in such extremity will your words have weight with Hilo de Ladron, as I suppose, for your sake, he must yet be called, although I grudge him the name. But it seems to me, Don Augustino Inique, you prate more of dishonor than a man should who has committed felony to his own conscience and in God’s sight; and that the honor you esteem so highly is nothing better than the declamation of those who surround you.”
“A truce to your sarcasms,” cried Inique, pale with anger. “I am not here, Padilh, to listen to a sermon or be ordered a penance. If you will help me in this affair by your intervention, you will not find me ungrateful; and I know enough of my own nature, as you might, to feel assured that, left to my own resources, I may do that in the heat of passion which cannot be undone. What! am I so fallen in your eyes that you cannot afford me the time and occasion I need for amendment, or distrust my best designs?”
“No, by St. Jago,” cried our generous don, “that I will not, Inique. I have done you some wrong in thought, perhaps, but I will make amends by assisting you where I may with proper regard to my own views and affections. But, you understand, I annex a condition—the true Hilo must pass from your care into mine as soon as we effect a landing. As his nearest relative, I have a higher right to the charge of his person than the—than yourself, Don Augustino.”
“Don Pedro,” answered Inique, slowly, after a pause, “you have justice on your side, and I will not oppose the transfer if you insist. But I beg you earnestly to consider that I, from hating, have come to love the youth better—yes, better than my own children; and until the present adjustment succeeds or fails, you may do worse than leave him in my keeping, as before—only that the doors of his prison, as you seemed but now to consider it, are open to you from this hour. I pledge you my word, at all hazard or pain, to restore him to you at the close of this expedition.”
“Well, let it be so,” replied Don Pedro, surprised and pleased at the other’s words.
And the maître-de-camp, with a breast somewhat less burdened, betook himself to his ship again.
A couple of days later the peaked and thickly-wooded shores of Tercera were first visible, and the armada coasting along, to the mortal terror of the Portuguese, who were parceled out in companies to defend the accessible points, and miserably ignorant where the Spaniards would make their descent, came to anchor off St. Catherine, where about fifty French and twice as many Portuguese were drawn up to oppose the landing.
“It would be a pity to cross the humor of the French gentlemen, yonder,” Santa-Cruz said, with a grim smile. “But their allies will only embarrass their manœuvres, and had better be routed before hand. Don’t you think we can frighten them, Pòlvora?”
“Frighten them!” cried that cavalier; “I can see, at this distance, the finery of some glittering in the sunshine, as if the wearers were shaking all over. Let us try if they are not too frightened to run.”