LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

the darkness. Already the lights which they bore must be flashing here and there; for Rome would not sound such a cry of alarm had she not heard the tramp of an enemy's feet in her camp, and caught sight of gleams of evangelical truth carried into the midst of her hosts.

      "There must be a movement going on, even in Seville," thought Lucius, "of which I never knew till this moment. Not all of my countrymen have been cold-hearted laggards like me."

      Lucius, for once, arrived late for dinner, found the company already seated at table, and forgot to make an apology. Mr. Passmore, at the head of a board loaded with a repast more profuse than elegant, was too much engaged with his double occupation of eating and talking even to notice the entrance of his clerk. The familiar sound of the snorting laugh of his employer reached Lucius before he came into the room.

      "Ho, ho, ho! it was a shabby trick in the cavalier to engage himself as a butcher, without giving due notice that he intended to leave the ironware business! And I paid the fine gentleman his quarter's salary only last week! Don Alcala de Aguilera is no great loss to the firm, for he took his very pay with an air which seemed to say, 'I'm a hidalgo, a gentleman born; I honour you too much by soiling my fingers with an Englishman's dirty cash.'"

      "Aguilera has not a bad headpiece, though," observed one of the party.

      "Oh, for a Spaniard he's clever enough," replied Passmore, speaking with his mouth full; "had it not been for his ridiculous Spanish pride, the don would have made a fair man of business. Save in that matter of the translation yesterday; – I told you that capital story! ho, ho, ho! I see now how twenty dozen bulls came to be running in the poor fellow's head; no wonder that he looked pale at the idea of such an awful squad of the beasts!" Peter Passmore leant back in his chair, and laughed till he seemed to be in danger of suffocation.

      "Aguilera will find one of them enough, and too much, I'm afraid," said the former speaker.

      "Perhaps the don thought that he'd do a sharp bit of business," resumed Mr. Passmore, as soon as his explosive mirth had sufficiently subsided; "he'd contrive to get double pay for double work, by writing on week-days and fighting on Sundays. I wonder now what he'll receive for sticking his bull!"

      "Nothing but honour," said an onion-merchant who was one of the guests. "Folk say that there is some fair donna of Seville mixed up with the business."

      "Then Don Alcala de Aguilera is a greater idiot than I took him for!" exclaimed the ironware manufacturer. "I can imagine a man's selling his blood to support himself and his family; every soldier does that, and if he get a cannon-ball instead of promotion, one can only say that the poor fellow has had the worst of the bargain. But a man who is willing to run the chance of being gored or tossed for the sake of the prettiest girl that ever danced a bolero, is madder, in my opinion, than Molière's far-famed knight of La Mancha. Ah! Lepine, so you're here at last. You are Aguilera's friend; did you know anything beforehand of this freak of romantic folly?"

      Lucius only shook his head; he could not trust himself to make other reply.

      "They say," observed the merchant who had spoken before, "that Don Aguilera's family, of whom he is the chief if not the only support, are mightily distressed at his venturing as a picador into the Plaza de Toros. I hear that he has a poor old grandmother, who lost her husband in the war with the first Napoleon; and a young sister who, it is said, is breaking her heart with grief."

      Lucius remembered the light graceful form which he had seen springing across the patio, and the tones of the sweet eager voice which had exclaimed, "Alcala, is it you at last?" The young Englishman thought of his own favourite sister, and felt for the Spanish girl, though the reality of her misery exceeded the picture drawn by his fancy.

      The conversation now turned on other subjects, but the mind of Lepine was full of but one. He could not join in discussions on Spanish politics, or the current business of the day. The untasted viands lay before him; he cared not to touch food, though he had fasted since the morning. Lucius took the earliest opportunity of quitting the party and returning to a small lodging which he had taken in one of the humbler streets of Seville.

      CHAPTER VI.

      A SISTER'S SACRIFICE

      It is the dawn of a sweet Sabbath morn, peaceful and calm. The last lingering star is trembling still in the sky, but the fleecy clouds have caught a tint of rose from the not yet risen sun.

      By the archway of the dwelling of the Aguileras stands a bay horse, gaily caparisoned. His saddlecloth has been made out of a Moorish mantle striped with gold, a relic of happier days. Deep fringes of scarlet girdle his chest and encircle his haunches, and tassels of the same bright hue hang from the band above his eyes. The noble animal looks conscious of his dignity; he has been generously fed for the last few days, and the unwonted luxury of corn has restored to the old war-horse some of his former spirit. But "with arched neck, and drooping head, and glancing eye, and quivering ear," Campeador gently receives the caresses of the young mistress whose hand has helped to deck and to feed him, and who with tears and sighs is bidding him now farewell.

      Inez is no striking specimen of Spanish beauty, though her appearance on this morning must have awakened sympathy and interest even in a stranger. Her graceful form is rather below the middle size; she has the clear brunette complexion and the large almond-shaped eyes, shaded with long dark lashes, which are characteristic of the Andalusian race. The cheek is very pale, and the eyes are heavy with weeping, and the slender hand trembles as it strokes Campeador's long flowing mane.

      Inez has passed a restless, miserable night, devising all kinds of wild schemes for keeping her brother from the perilous encounter; schemes which melted away with the first gleam of morning light. If she kept back his horse, if she detained his accoutrements, Alcala, his sister well knew, would but provide himself with others. He would rather ride into the circus on one of the wretched hacks destined for slaughter, than fail at the hour of appointment. Inez could now but send, both by letter and word, entreaties to her brother that he would at least come and see her before going to the Plaza de Toros. The letter and messages were intrusted to Chico, a dark-browed, bandy-legged, ill-favoured groom, who was to lead the horse about a mile beyond the boundaries of Seville, to the Posada de Quesada, where Alcala had chosen to pass the preceding night. Chico's stunted form was half hidden under the burden of finery which he carried; he did not, however, bear with him the picador's spear, for that needful weapon Alcala had selected for himself, not trusting the choice of it to a servant.

      A little in the rear of the group appeared Teresa; but Lucius, had he been present, would scarcely have recognized in her the work-soiled, poorly-dressed old drudge whom he had seen bargaining with the hawker. Teresa was now attired in her best Sunday apparel; and the look of complacent pride on her wrinkled face was in strong contrast to that of despairing sorrow on that of her youthful lady. Teresa allowed herself the one annual treat of going to a bull-fight, to her Spanish mind the greatest of pleasures. She had a cousin to whom belonged the office of cleansing the blood-stained arena, and who always contrived to smuggle Teresa into a good seat, she being content to go early and wait for hours before the entertainment began. Nothing would have bribed the ancient Andalusian to have been absent from the Plaza de Toros on the present occasion; her strong desire to go overcame her reluctance to leaving for the greater part of the day her infirm old mistress and the sorrowing Inez. To Teresa, blinded by pride even greater than that which usually characterizes the Spaniard, the coming struggle in the Plaza de Toros appeared in a very different light from that in which it was viewed by Alcala's more clear-minded and tender-hearted sister. Full of the glories of the race of heroes from whom her master was descended, Teresa felt not a doubt that she was going to be a witness to his triumph. It had been a bitter humiliation to the old domestic to know that Alcala was earning his bread by honest industry. Had he consulted Teresa, the family might have starved before the caballero had so demeaned himself as to work for the firm of Messrs. Passmore and Perkins. But it was a very different thing to behold Don Alcala de Aguilera ride in magnificent array into the Coliseo, to confront danger with all the courage of his race, and win the plaudits of assembled thousands. Teresa felt as an old retainer of some knight might have done in days of chivalry, when his master rode forth, with gilded spurs and waving plume, to win honour in the lists at some brilliant tourney. To Teresa's partial eyes Campeador was the noblest of steeds, worthy to carry

Скачать книгу