It was this new captain, John de Castros, who carried De Chaste a letter from the viceroy a day later, which that loyal nobleman had received from Santa Cruz by a Portuguese, caught off the coast, and forced to swim ashore with the dispatch tied about his neck—the French not suffering any boat to approach within hail.
The commandant tore the paper to fragments as soon as he saw the contents. “This Count of Torrevedros,” he said, with a short laugh, to his maître-de-camp, who was present, “is either a fool, or doubts our honor. The Marquis of Santa Cruz offers him here his life, and abundant rewards, besides the freedom of his wife and children, now in Madrid, provided he surrenders the island, which he might well enough do as far as himself is concerned, but he wishes to be rid of us at the same time, and therefore risks being reckoned a traitor in hope of inducing us to accept the marquis’s conditions.”
“A traitor he is!” cried the lieutenant, indignantly. “And since he proves himself so in so many ways, why not return to France as we are, without further intermeddling between him and his lackland master.”
“You forget,” returned De Chaste, “all who have entered on this enterprise, are bound in honor to see it through with what success their energy may obtain. Still you, and other cavaliers who have joined of your free will, and not by the queen’s direct command, may do as you see proper, and leave us who remain to share the greater glory which must attend a defense against greater odds.”
“Sir commandant,” the lieutenant responded, simply hearing him through with some little mortification in his frank face, “you pain me by such permission, for neither I, nor any other French gentleman here, would leave you an instant without being compelled by your commands; and that I am sure you know.”
“I know it so well,” cried the commandant at this, “that I am not sure I spoke the truth in even hinting my distrust just now.”
And truly the lieutenant was as good as his word; for when the French crossed the neck of the promontory I have mentioned, and coming too late to reinforce Bourgignon, fell upon a strong party of the Spaniards, detailed to take possession of a spring near by, with a determination which brought about a general and very bloody battle; there was not one in the tremendous uproar of voices and of arms, smoke of arquebuses, blood spattered and welling, screams, shrieks, groans, and huzzas!—huzzas! ensuing—who did such execution with the sword, as that same lieutenant; it was he that killed the father of poor little Margueretta, who, for want of bread, the next year became what even famine must not excuse. And, perhaps, as he did his share of irreparable mischief with an easy conscience, and certainly to the best of his ability, when his corpse lay stark as the mail encasing it, that same afternoon, by the eminence to the left, where Hilo was seen aiming an arquebuse at one time of the fight, his spirit may have been regaling in Paradise with other performers of that much abused sentiment, duty.