“If you dare to resist, you shall be the first victim, Senhor Fidalgo!” exclaimed he who had first spoken. “And remember your daughter—her fate be on your own head!”
The priest rode fiercely towards them, exclaiming, “Begone, wretches! or dread the anathema of the Church on your souls!”
“Hark to the priest—he’s preaching!” cried one with a broad-brimmed hat drawn over his eyes, laughing. “Pooh, pooh, Senhor Padre, we are not afraid of mother Church; so do not waste your breath: we can get a priest to curse you in return, you know.”
The brow of Gonçalo Christovaö grew dark with anger. “Vile miscreants!” he exclaimed, “you shall not intimidate us. Forward, my men!”
The servants who were near their master prepared to obey; but the muleteers seemed no way inclined to fight.
“Ah! is it so?” exclaimed the captain of the banditti. “Fire on the fools!”
Several shots were discharged; but, fortunately, none of the party were injured; and the robbers, drawing their swords, rushed on with loud oaths, but were met with steady courage by the fidalgo and his two attendants—he parrying, with great skill, every blow aimed at him, till his servants were both disarmed, but his arm growing weary, at length, of wielding his blade, a sudden blow wrenched it from his grasp, and he was thrown with violence to the ground. The priest, in the meantime, remained by Donna Clara’s litter, though he looked fully willing, had he possessed a sword, to have joined in the fray; while the muleteers stood trembling by, without attempting to interfere.
“You would have acted more wisely to have saved us this trouble,” exclaimed the leader of the robbers, as they prepared to bind the hands of the servants,—several of them dragging the priest from his mule, and treating him in the same way; the muleteers falling down on their knees, and crying for mercy, expecting every moment to have their throats cut. The fidalgo remained stunned on the ground; and, when the robber approached the first litter, to see whom it contained, Donna Clara, overcome with terror at seeing her father, as she supposed, dead, had fainted. The ruffian gazed with astonishment not unmixed with admiration, at the fair girl, now with her eyes closed, as pale as death itself; and for a moment he fancied that some shot must have struck her,—awe preventing him from even daring to touch her, till her gentle breathing convinced him that she lived; but his courage soon returned. “Quick, now, my men!” he cried. “Look into the pockets of these gentlemen, and put gags into the mouths of those senhoras, who are screaming loud enough to be heard across the forest, if they do not choose to be silent, and to deliver up their trinkets quietly. The baggage-mules must accompany us, till we can examine their burdens at our leisure.”
The banditti lost not a moment in obeying these orders, though they found considerable difficulty in executing some of them; particularly in gagging the maid-servants, who fought most desperately, before they would deliver up each separate article of their ornaments. The more booty the robbers acquired, the more their avarice increased.
Donna Clara had now partially recovered; and, looking wildly around,—“Oh! my father, my father!” she exclaimed, “where are you?”