_ CHAPTER VIII. THE FAREWELL
THE apartment in Don Gonzales's house appropriated as Ruez's sleeping room, led out of the main reception hall, and adjoined that of his sister Isabella. Both rooms looked out upon the Plato, and over the Gulf Stream and outer portions of the harbor, where the grim Moro tower and its cannon frown over the narrow entrance of the inner bay. One vessel could hardly work its way in ship shape through the channel, but a thousand might lay safely at anchor inside this remarkably land-locked harbor. At the moment when we would introduce the reader to the house of the rich old Don Gonzales, Isabella had thrown herself carelessly upon a couch in her room, and half sighing, half dreaming while awake, was gazing out upon the waters that make up from the Caribbean Sea, at the southward, and now and then following with her eyes the trading crafts that skimmed the sparkling waters to the north.
As she gazed thus, she suddenly raised herself to a sitting position, as she heard the suppressed and most grievous sobs of some one near the room where she was, and rising, she approached the window to discover the cause of this singular sound. The noise that had excited her curiosity came from the next chamber, evidently, and that was her brother's. Stealing softly round to the entrance of his chamber, she went quietly in and surprised Ruez as lay grieving upon a couch with eyes filled with tears.
"Why, Ruez, what does this mean? Art sick, brother, that you are so depressed?" asked the beautiful girl, seating herself down by his side.
"Ay, sister, sick at heart," said the boy, with a deep drawn sigh.
"And why, Ruez?" she continued, gently parting the hair from his forehead.
"How can you ask such a question, sister? do you not know already?" he asked, turning his deep blue eyes full upon her.
"Perhaps not, brother," replied Isabella, struggling to suppress a sigh, while she turned her face away from her brother's searching glance.
"Do you not know, sister, that to-morrow Captain Bezan is sentenced to die?"
"True," said Isabella Gonzales, with an involuntary shudder, "I do know it, Ruez."
"And further, sister," continued the boy, sagely, "do you not know that we have been the indirect cause of this fearful sacrifice?"
"I do not see that, brother," said Isabella, quickly, as she turned her beautiful face fully upon her brother, inquiringly.
Ruez Gonzales looked like one actuated by some extraordinary inspiration; his eyes were wonderfully bright, his expression that of years beyond his actual age, and his beautiful sister, while she gazed thus upon him at that moment, felt the keen and searching glance that he bestowed upon her. She felt like one in the presence of a superior mind; she could not realize her own sensations. The boy seemed to read her very soul, as she stood thus before him. It was more than a minute before he spoke, and seemed to break the spell; but at last-and it seemed an age to Isabella Gonzales-he did so, and said:
"Sister?"
"Well, Ruez?"
"Captain Bezan loves you."
"Perhaps so."
"I say he does love you."
"It is possible."
"I say he loves you," continued the boy, almost sternly.
"Well, brother, what of that?" she asked, with assumed indifference.
"It is that, sister, which has led General Harero to persecute him as he has done, and it is that which has led him like a noble spirit to turn to bay."
A moment's pause ensued.
"Is it not so, sister?" he asked, still looking keenly at her. "Have you not yourself intimated that Captain Bezan was to suffer owing to his interest and services for us?"
"You do indeed speak truly, brother," said the lovely girl, breathing more quickly, and half amazed at Ruez's penetration and prophetic manner of speech.
"Alas!" said the boy, once more relapsing into his former mood, "that he might be saved!"
"Has our father seen the governor-general, Ruez?" asked his sister, earnestly.
"Yes."
"And to no effect?"
"None. Tacon, you know, is most strict in his administration of justice, and he says that if he were to pardon one such breach of military discipline as Captain Bezan as been guilty of, the whole army would at once be impregnated with insubordination."
"Would that I could see Captain Bezan, if only for one single moment," murmured Isabella Gonzales, half aloud, yet only to herself.
"Do you mean so, sister?" asked Ruez, catching quickly at his sister's words, and with an undisguised expression of delight written upon his handsome countenance.
"Yes, no, brother, that is to say, if I could see him with propriety, you know, Ruez; that is what I meant to say."
"Nothing easier, than for you to do so, if you desire it," said the boy.
"Do you think so, Ruez?" said his sister, somewhat eagerly.
"Certainly, Isabella, my pass will serve for you with a trifling disguise."
"But our difference in size; besides, you know that my voice--"
"Will not be noticed by those stiff sentries, or the turnkey," interrupted the boy. "They do not know me at all, and would not suspect you."
"Ah! but I can see many impediments in the way of one of my sex," added Isabella Gonzales, with a deep sigh.
Captain Lorenzo Bezan awoke on the day previous to that appointed for his execution, with cheerful spirit. He found no guilt in his heart, he felt that he had committed no crime, that his soul was free and untrammelled. His coarse breakfast of rude cassava root and water was brought to him at a late hour, and having partaken of sufficient of this miserable food to prevent the gnawings of hunger, he now sat musing over his past life, and thinking seriously of that morrow which was to end his career upon earth forever. A strange reverie for a man to be engaged in a most critical period-the winding up of his earthly career.
"I wonder," said he to himself, somewhat curiously, "why Ruez does not come to-day? it is his hour-ay, must be even past the time, and the boy loves me too well to neglect me now, when I am so near my end. Hark! is that his step? No; and yet it must be; it is too light for the guard or turnkey. O yes, that is my door, certainly, and here he is, sure enough. I knew he would come."
As the prisoner said this, the door slowly opened on its rusty and creaking hinges, and the turnkey immediately closed it after the new comer, who was somewhat closely wrapped in the profuse folds of a long Spanish cloak.
Well, Ruez," said Captain Bezan, quite leisurely, and without turning his head towards the door, "I had begun to fear that you would not come to-day. You know you are the only being I see, except the turnkey, and I'm quite sensitive about your visits, my dear boy. However, you are here, at last; sit down."
"Captain Bezan, it appears to me that you do not welcome me very cordially," said Isabella Gonzales, in reply, and a little archly.
"Lady!" said the prisoner, springing to his feet as though he had been struck by an electric shock, "Senorita Isabella Gonzales, is it possible that you have remembered me at such a time-me, who am so soon to die?"
Isabella Gonzales had now thrown back the ample folds of the cloak she wore, and lifting her brother's cap from her head, her beautiful hair fell into its accustomed place, and with a slight blush tinging either cheek, she stood before the young soldier in his cell, an object of ineffable interest and beauty.
"Heaven bless you, lady," said the prisoner, kneeling at her feet.
"Nay. I pray you, sir, Captain Bezan, do not kneel at such a time."
"Ah! lady, how can I thank you in feeble words for this sweet ray of sunshine that you have cast athwart my dark and dreary path? I no longer remember that I am to die-that my former comrades are to pierce my heart with bullets. I cannot remember my fate, lady, since you have rendered me so happy. You have shown me that I did not mistake the throne at which I have secretly worshipped-that, all good and pure as you are, you would not forget Lorenzo Bezan, the poor, the lonely soldier who had dared to tell you how dearly he loved you."
As he spoke, Isabella Gonzales seemed for one moment to forget herself in the realizations of the scene. She listened to his thrice eloquent words with eyes bent upon the ground at first, and then gazing tenderly upon him, and now that he had ceased to speak, they sought once more the floor of the room in silence. He could not but construe these delicate demonstrations in his favor, and drawing close to her side, he pressed her hand tenderly to his lips. The touch seemed to act like magic, and aroused her to present consciousness, while she started as if in amazement. All the pride of her disposition was instantly aroused; she felt that for a single moment she had forgotten herself, and to retrieve the apparent acquiescence that she had seemed to show to the condemned soldier's words and tale of love, she now appeared to think that she must assume all the hauteur of character that usually governed her in her intercourse with his sex and the world generally. It was but a simple struggle, and all her self-possession was rallied again to her service and absolute control.
"Captain Bezan," she said, with assumed dignity, and drawing herself up in all her beauty of to person to its full height, "I came not hither to hear such talk as this from you, nor to submit to such familiarity, and I trust, sir, that you will henceforth remember your station, and respect mine."
The breast of the prisoner heaved with inward emotion, in the struggle to suppress its outward show, and he bit his lips until the blood nearly flowed. His face instantly became the picture of despair; for her words had planted that grief and sorrow in his heart which the fear of death could not arouse there. Even Isabella Gonzales seemed for a moment struck with the effect of her repulse; but her own proud heart would not permit her to recall one word she had uttered.
"I would not leave you, Captain Bezan," said she, at length, as she gathered the ample folds of the cloak about her, "without once more tendering to you my most earnest thanks for your great services to our family. You know to what I refer. I need not tell you," she continued, with a quivering lip, "that my father has done all in his power to have your sentence remitted, but, alas! to no effect. Tacon seems to be resolved, and unchangeable."
As she spoke thus, spite of all her assumed pride and self-control, a tear trembled in her eye, and her respiration came quickly-almost in sobs!
The young soldier looked at her silently for a moment; at first he seemed puzzled; he was weighing in his own mind the meaning of all this as contrasted with the repulse he had just received, and with the estimate he had before formed of her; at last, seeming to read the spirit that had possessed her, he said:
"Ah, lady, I bless you a thousand times for that tear!"
"Nay, sir, I do not understand you," she said, quickly.
"Not your own heart either, lady, else you disguise its truth. Ah! why should all this be so? why should hearts be thus masked?"
"Sir, this is positive impertinence," said Isabella Gonzales, struggling once more to summon her pride to sustain her.
"Impertinence, lady?" repeated the prisoner, sadly.
"That was my word, sir," answered the proud girl, with assumed harshness.
"No, it would be impossible for me, on the very brink of the grave, to say aught but the truth; and I love you too deeply, too fervently, to be impertinent. You do not know me, lady. In my heart I have reared an altar to worship at, and that shrine for three years has been thy dearly loved form. How dearly and passionately I have loved-what a chastening influence it has produced upon my life, my comrades, who know not yet the cause, could tell you. To-morrow I must die. While I hoped one day to win your love, life was most dear to me, and I was happy. I could then have clung to life with as much tenacity as any one. But, lady, I find that I have been mistaken; my whole dream of fancy, of love, is gone, and life is no better to me than a burden. I speak not in haste, nor in passion. You must bear me witness that I am calm and collected; and I assure you that the bullets which end my existence will be but swift-winged messengers of peace to my already broken heart!"
"Captain Bezan," said Isabella, hesitating, and hardly speaking distinctly.
"Well, lady?"
"How could you have so deceived yourself? How could you possibly suppose that one in your sphere of life could hope to be united to one in mine?" asked Isabella Gonzales, with a half averted face and a trembling voice, as she spoke. "It was foolhardy, sir; it was more than that; it was preposterous!"
"Lady, you are severe."
"I speak but truth, Captain Bezan, and your own good sense will sustain it."
"I forgot your birth and rank, your wealth-everything. I acknowledge this, in the love I bore you; and, lady, I still feel, that had not my career been thus summarily checked, I might yet have won your love. Nay, lady, do not frown; true love never despairs-never is disheartened--never relinquishes the object that it loves, while there is one ray of light yet left to guide it on. It did seem to me now, when we are parting so surely forever, that it might have been, on your part, more kindly, and that you would, by a smile, or even a tear-drop, for my sake, have thus blessed me, and lightened my heavy steps to the field of execution and of trial."
Isabella Gonzales, as she listened to his words, could no longer suppress her feelings, but covering her face with her hands, she wept for a moment like a child. Pride was of no avail; the heart had asserted its supremacy, and would not be controlled.
"You take advantage of my woman's heart, sir," she said, at last. "I cannot bear the idea that any one should suffer, and more particularly one who has endeared himself to me and mine by such important service as you have done. Do not think that tears argue aught for the wild tale you have uttered, sir. I would not have you deceive yourself so much; but I am a woman, and cannot view violence or grief unmoved!"
"Say, rather, lady," added the soldier, most earnestly, "that you are pure, beautiful, and good at heart, but that pride, that only alloy of thy most lovely character, chokes its growth in your bosom."
"Sir!"
"Well, Senorita Isabella."
"Enough of this," she said, hastily and much excited. "I must leave you now, captain. It is neither fitting that I should hear, nor that you should utter such words as these to Isabella Gonzales. Farewell!"
"Lady, farewell," replied the prisoner, more by instinct than by any comprehension that she was actually about to leave him.
"I pray you, Captain Bezan, do not think that I cherish any unkind thoughts towards you," she said, turning when at the door; "on the contrary, I am by no means unmindful of my indebtedness to you; but far be it from me to sanction a construction of my feelings or actions which my heart will not second."
"Lady, your word is law to me," replied the submissive prisoner.
When she had gone, and the rough grating of the turnkey's instruments had done sounding in his ear, Captain Bezan remained a moment looking upon the slot where she had stood, with apparent amazement. He could not realize that she had been there at all; and hardest of all, that she had left him so abruptly. But her "farewell" still rang in his ears, and throwing himself upon his rude seat, with his face buried in his hands, he exclaimed:
"Welcome, welcome death! I would that thou wert here already!"
After a few moments thus passed, as it were, in the very depths of despair, he rose and walked his dreary cell in a sad and silent reverie, a reviewal of all these matters.
"How I have mistaken that beautiful creature, how idolized, how loved her! I knew that there was much, ay, very much, of pride in her heart. I knew the barriers that rose between her and me; but, alas, I thought them not so very at high, so very impregnable. I would not, could not, have believed that she would have left me thus. It was our last farewell. She might have been more kind; might, without much risk of loss of pride have permitted me such a parting as should have rendered my last hours happy! Alas! alas! what toys of fortune we are; what straws for every breeze to shake-for every wind to shatter!
"We set our hearts upon an object, and blinded by our warm desires, believe, like children, that which we hope for. I have never paused to think in this matter of my love, I have been led ont too precipitately by the brilliancy of the star that I followed; its light blinded me to all other influences; and, too truly, I feel it, blinded me to reason also. Isabella Gonzales, the belle of this brilliant city, the courted, beloved, rich, proud Isabella Gonzales; what else might I have expected, had one moment been permitted to me for reason, for cool reflection. I was mad in my fond and passionate love; I was blind in my folly, to ever dream of success. But the end will soon be here, and I shall be relieved from this agonizing fever at my heart, this woeful pain of disappointed love, of broken-heartedness."
He folded his arms, and permitting his head to sink upon his breast, sat down, the very picture of despair. _