“I think,” the ample-hearted knight answered, “he would not have done such a wickedness knowingly. It is hard to believe so young a man could have so far fallen in villainy as to assassinate his own father, recognizing him as such. Doubtless the papers placed in De Haye’s hands never reached their destination. That unhappy gentleman fell in the first battle beyond Praya.”
“Possibly,” Santa Cruz replied, thoughtfully, “and out of love to Inique I reverse my sentence, and postpone the day of execution until after that faithful cavalier draws his last breath; a period not far distant, his surgeon tells me.”
“So near,” Padilh replied, “that I think, my lord, M. de Chaste, you and I, to whom only the secret of his life is known, should remain custodians of his honor, and preserve his name from vulgar censure after death.”
“I give my hand to the compact cheerfully,” the other responded, and Don Pedro repaired at once to the quarters of the French commandant to enlist his neutrality.
“You will comprehend M. de Chaste,” he said, among other things, to that weather-beaten pattern of chivalry, “by what knightly motives I have been impelled to shun no duty incumbent on my office. And had he been my own nephew, wicked as he is, I would not have screened him from the full weight of justice he deserves. Our strenuous aim now should be to save Inique the knowledge of his son’s fate, and if possible, of even his vicinity to himself.”
This was not easy to do where no visiter to Inique’s bedside saw any reason for withholding the most important news, and in the course of a few days the dying soldier knew the worst and mastered it, and quietly desired Padilh to obtain permission for a last interview with his—his son. The word stuck in his throat.
The knight replied—“As soon as your recovery is advanced, or failing that, when you feel death drawing on, I will oppose nothing to your wish, Inique. But for the present spare yourself so agitating an encounter.”
“Don Pedro,” the wounded maître-de-camp answered, smiling faintly, “I wish to make my peace with the boy and acknowledge my sins, but you well understand where my most affectionate thoughts rest.”
To which Padilh assented gravely. He was thinking at the moment in what manner the tidings of the dispersion of the fleet at Praya, could be suppressed without equivocation.
“I will be compelled to confess the truth at last,” the honest gentleman said despairingly when alone, and still weighing the even balance of duty in his mind. “But it sadly perplexes a mortal intellect, Heaven knows, to distinguish between what is due one’s friend and one’s soul.”