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L'Orme

<h4>CHAPTER XXIII.</h4> The horses of the smugglers were accustomed to hard service, and therefore soon refreshed, so that when we again mounted, they wanted but little of the vigour with which they had at first set out. Still, however, twenty leagues lay between us and Barcelona, and since my unfortunate encounter with the trooper, the necessity became more urgent of arriving there with all speed. Nevertheless, it was in vain that we spurred on as rapidly as we could, even little Achilles exerting himself in proportion to his ideas of the danger; night fell upon our journey ere it was more than two thirds finished, and as we could not arrive before the gates were shut, we were obliged to pause and await the return of day at a small town about ten miles from Barcelona. Here, however, all was quiet, and I judged from the tranquillity that no news had yet reached this place from Lerida; concluding, also, that the soldado, whose wounded horse must have been soon exhausted, had not yet passed through. In this case there was still hope of arriving at the city before the insurrection was known, so that we might embark on board any vessel about to quit the port immediately, or even hire one of the light boats that are continually running across the Gulf of Lyons, between Barcelona and Marseilles. The next morning, an hour before day-break, we were again upon our journey, and arrived at the gates of the city not long after they were opened. A crowd of country people were going in, carrying fruit and milk, and other articles of consumption to the town, and mingling amongst the horses and mules that bore these supplies, we endeavoured to pass in unnoticed. All proceeded very well for some way, till we passed the guard-house near the inner gate: in fact, we had proceeded a few paces beyond, when suddenly a couple of soldiers rushed out, half a dozen more followed, and I was knocked off my horse by a violent blow on my head, which they chose to bestow upon me with a prospective view to prevent my resisting. As soon as I was on my feet again, the cause of this brutal conduct became evident, without question, as my good friend, the trooper, from Lerida, was the first person that met my eyes. "Ha! ha!" cried he, coming before me, while the others pinioned my arms behind, and shaking his clenched hand in my face, with a grin of unutterable rage--"Ha! ha! we have thee now; and, by the soul of a Castilian, I would pluck thy heart out with my own hands, did not the viceroy wish to examine thee himself. But never fear! before two hours be over, thou, too, shalt have a flight from a cannon's mouth!" My situation was not a very agreeable one, but yet it was not one that impressed me with much fear. Indeed, it was never any circumstances of mere personal danger that much agitated me. Anything that touched me through my affections, or through my imagination, ever had a great and visible effect upon my mind; but to all which came in the simple form of bodily danger, I was, I believe, constitutionally callous. While the soldiers were engaged in pinioning my arms with cords, which they drew so tight as almost to tear my flesh, some of their companions dismounted my trembling little companion, and as his excessive fear and non-resistant qualities were very evident, they did not think it necessary to decorate his wrists with the same sort of strict bracelets which they had adapted to mine, but simply led him along after me in a kind of procession towards the arsenal; whither, it seems, the viceroy had removed from his own palace the night before, on the news of the insurrection at Lerida. The way was long, and I believe the brutal Castilians found a sort of pleasure in parading us through the various streets, and showing to the populace a new instance of the height to which the daring authority they assumed might be carried. Their insolence, however, seemed to me, even from the glances of the people as we passed, to be likely to receive a check sooner than they imagined. Not a Catalonian did we approach, but I recognised that flash in his eye, which told of a burning and indignant heart within; and though they suffered themselves to be shouldered by the licentious and ill-disciplined soldiers as we went along, it was with a bent brow and clenched teeth, which seemed to say, "The day of retribution is at hand!" As we approached the arsenal, I caught a glimpse of the wide, grand ocean; and there was something in the sight of its vast free waves, which seemed to reproach me with the bonds I suffered to rest upon my hands. I believe, involuntarily, I made an effort to burst them asunder, for one of the guard, seeing some movement of my hands, struck me a violent blow with the pommel of his sword, exclaiming, "What! trying to escape! Do so again, and I will send a ball through your brains!" I was silent, giving him a glance of contempt, which only excited his laughter, and calling to his companions, he bade them look at the proud Frenchman. Patience was the only remedy; and still maintaining my silence, though I own it cost me no small effort, I suffered them to lead me on, with many a taunt and insult, till we arrived at the port and arsenal. Here I was dragged through two large courts, and conducted into a stone hall, where I was subjected, for near an hour, to the insolent jeering of the soldiery, while the Count de Saint Colomma, then Viceroy, finished his breakfast. To all they could say, however, I answered nothing, which enraged them more than anything I could have replied. "Have you cut out his tongue, Hernan?" asked one of the soldiers. "No," replied the other, "though he well deserves it; I spared it to speak to the Viceroy." "Slit it then, as they do the magpies to make them speak," said a third. "Ob, the viceroy will find him a tongue," replied the first. "Mind you that sullen boor, that would not betray the conspiracy at Taragona; and how the Count of Molino, who then commanded our tercia, found a way to make him speak?" "How was that?" demanded one of the others; "I served in the tenth legero then, and was not present." "Why, he made us tie him on a table," answered the first, "and then fix a nice wet napkin over his face, pricking some holes in it, however, or it would have smothered him altogether, they say. As it was, every breath was like the gasp of a dying man, it was so hard to draw it through the cloth! and one might see his fists clenching with the agony, and his feet drawn up every time we poured a fresh ladleful of water over his face. Every now and then, Don Antonio told him to stretch out his hand when he would confess; but he bore it stoutly, till the blood began to ooze out of his eyes and ears, and then he could not hold to it any longer, but stretched out his hand, and betrayed the whole story; after which, the conde was merciful, and had him hanged without more ado." It was fortunate for poor little Achilles, who sat beside me, that his knowledge of Spanish did not extend to the comprehension of a single word that passed, or this story would probably have bereft him of the little life he had left. Terror had already made him as silent as the grave--for which quality of silence he had never been very conspicuous before--and he sat with his eyes staring and meaningless, his mouth half open, his feet drawn up under the bench, and his hands laid flat upon his knees--the very image of folly struck dumb with fright. There was something so naturally small and unmeaning in his whole appearance, that the soldiers seemed to look upon him altogether as a cipher; and, in this respect, his insignificance for some time stood him in as good stead as the armour of his namesake; but at length, finding that they could draw nothing from me, my companion's look of terror caught the Castilians' attention, and they were proceeding to exercise their guard-room wit at the expense of poor little Achilles, when suddenly the noise of drums and trumpets was heard, announcing, as I found by their observations, that the viceroy was retiring from the great hall to his own cabinet. In a few minutes, a messenger arrived with orders for the officer of the guard to conduct the prisoners to his presence; but in the lax state of discipline which seemed to reign amongst the Castilian troops in Catalonia, it was not surprising that no officer could be found. I was placed, however, between two soldiers, and, with some attention to military form, led up the grand staircase towards the cabinet of the viceroy, at the door of which I was detained till the messenger had announced my attendance. The pause was not long; for shortly the door again opened, and I was told in a harsh tone to go in, which I instantly complied with, followed by little Achilles, while the soldiers and the Viceroy's officer remained without. The scene which presented itself was very different from that which I had anticipated. The room was large and lofty, lighted by two high windows, commanding a view of the sea, and altogether possessing an air of cheerfulness rarely found in the interior of Spanish houses. The furniture was luxurious, even amidst a luxurious nation. Fine arras and tapestry, carpets of the richest figures, cushions covered with cloth of gold, tables and chairs inlaid with silver, and a thousand other rare and curious objects that I now forget, met the eye in every direction; while on the walls appeared some of the most exquisite paintings that the master-hand of Velasquez ever produced. It put me strongly in mind of the saloon in the Marquis de St. Brie's pavilion de chasse; but the lords of these two splendid chambers were as opposite, at least in appearance, as any two men could be. Seated in an ivory chair,[5] somewhat resembling in form the curule chair of the ancient Romans, appeared a short fat man, not unlike the renowned governor of Barataria, as described by Cervantes; I mean in his figure; the excessive rotundity of which was such, that the paunch of Sancho himself would have ill borne the comparison. His face, though full in proportion, had no coarseness in it. The skin was of a clear pale brown, and the features small, but rather handsome. The eyebrows were high, and strongly marked, the eyes large and calm, and the expression of the countenance, on the whole, noble and dignified, but not powerful. It offered lines of talent, it is true, but few of thought; and there was a degree of sleepy listlessness in the whole air of the head, which to my mind spoke a luxurious and idle disposition. The dress of the Viceroy--for such was the person before me--smacked somewhat of the habits which I mentally attributed to him. Instead of the stiff fraise, or raised ruff, round the neck, still almost universally worn in Spain, he had adopted the falling collar of lace, which left his neck and throat at full liberty. His justaucorps of yellow silk had doubtless caused the tailor some trouble to fashion it dexterously to the protuberance of his stomach; but still many of the points of this were left open, showing a shirt of the finest lawn. His hat and plume, buttoned with a sapphire of immense value, lay upon a table before him; and as I entered, he put it on for an instant, as representative of the sovereign, but immediately after, again laid it down, and left his head uncovered, for the sake of the free air, which breathed sweetly in at one of the open windows, and fanned him as he leaned back on the cushions of his chair. Behind the viceroy stood his favourite negro slave, splendidly dressed in the Oriental costume, with a turban of gold muslin on his head, and bracelets of gold upon his naked arms. He was a tall, powerful man; and there was something noble and fine in the figure of the black, with his upright carriage, and the free bearing of every limb, that one looked for in vain in the idle listlessness of his lord. His distance from the viceroy was but a step, so that he could lean over the chair and catch any remark which his lord might choose to address to him, in however low a tone it was made, and at the same time, he kept his hand resting upon the rich hilt of a long dagger; which seemed to show that he was there as a sort of guard, as well as a servant, there being no one else in the room when we entered. I advanced a few steps into the room, followed, as I have said, by Achilles alone, and paused at a small distance from the Viceroy, on a sign he made me with his hand, intimating that I had approached near enough. After considering me for a moment or two in silence, he addressed me in a sweet musical voice. "I perceive, sir," said he, "notwithstanding the disarray of your dress, and the dust and dirt with which you are covered, that you are originally a gentleman--I am seldom mistaken in such things. Is it not so?" "In the present instance your excellence is perfectly right," replied I; "and the only reason for my appearing before the Viceroy of Catalonia in such a deranged state of dress, is the brutal conduct of a party of soldiery, who seized upon me while travelling peacefully on the high road, and brought me here without allowing me even a moment's repose." "I thought I was right," rejoined the viceroy, somewhat raising his voice: "but do you know, young sir, that your being a gentleman greatly aggravates the crime of which you are guilty. The vulgar herd, brought up without that high sense of honour which a gentleman receives in his very birth, commit not half so great a crime when they lend themselves to base and mean actions, as a gentleman does, who sullies himself and his class with anything dishonourable and wrong. From the mean, what can be expected but meanness, and consequently the crime remains without aggravation? but when the well born, and the well educated, derogate from their station, and mingle in base schemes, their punishment should be, not only that inflicted by society on those that trouble its repose, but a separate punishment should be added, for the breach of all the honourable ties imposed upon a gentleman--for the stigma they cast upon high birth--and from the certainty, in their case, that they fall into error with their eyes open--what say you, sir?" "I think your excellence is perfectly right," replied I, the Viceroy's observations having given me time to lay down a line of conduct for myself; "I have always thought so, from the time I could reason for myself; and such have been always the principles instilled into my mind." "Then what excuse, sir, have you," demanded the viceroy, rather surprised at the calmness with which I agreed to all his corollaries--"what excuse have you for meanly insinuating yourself into another country, and, by the basest arts, stirring up the people to sedition and revolt?" "If I had done so, my lord," replied I, "I should be without excuse, and the severest punishment you could inflict would not be more than I merited. But I deny that I ever did so; and more! I can prove it impossible that I should have done so, from the short space of time which I have been in Spain, not allowing opportunity for such a crime as has been imputed to me. This is the third day I have been in this country." The viceroy looked over his shoulder to his slave, who, stooping forward, listened, while his lord said, in a low tone, "You were right, Scipio--I am glad I looked to this myself--I am afraid I must exert myself, or these rude soldados will stir up the people to worse than even that of Lerida:" then turning to me, he added, in a louder voice, "I looked upon your guilt, sir, as so evident a matter, that I did not think you would have had the boldness even to deny it; but as you do, it is but just that you hear the charge against you. It is this, that you, a subject of Louis the French king, have, together with many others, found your way into this province of Catalonia, and, as spies and traitors, have instigated the people to revolt against their liege lord and sovereign Philip the Fourth; in evidence of which, a Castilian trooper of the eleventh tercia deposes to having seen you with the rebels now in arms at Lerida, and that, moreover, you overtook him on the road hither, and with other rebels at the village of Meila, would have slain him, had it not been for the goodness and speed of his horse. What can you reply to this?" "Merely that it is false," replied I; "and if your Excellence will permit, I will tell my tale against his, and leave it to your wisdom to find means of judging which is false and which is true." "Proceed! proceed!" said the viceroy, throwing himself back in his chair, seemingly tired with an exertion that was probably not usual with him, and had only been called up by the pressing circumstances of the times--circumstances which his own inactivity had suffered to become much more dangerous than he thought them even now. "Proceed, sir; but do not make your tale a long one, for I have many important things to attend to." "It shall be a very short one, my Lord," I replied: "my reason for quitting my own country, Bearn, was that I had slain a man who attempted to strike me----" "A gentleman, or a serf?" demanded the Viceroy. "He was in the classe bourgeoise," replied I. "You did very right," said the Viceroy; "go on." "To escape the immediate consequences," I continued, "I fled across the Pyrenees, guided by some Spanish smugglers, who conducted me to a village not far from Jacca, whence I intended to proceed to Barcelona, and thence embark for Marseilles. From Marseilles, I intended to proceed to Paris, and there negotiate my pardon, so that I might eventually return to my own country in security." "But," said the Viceroy, "what did you at Lerida? That town lies not in your road from Jacca to Barcelona." "My Lord, I never was at Lerida," replied I; "though I have been in Spain before, I never was within the gates of Lerida in my life." The viceroy looked over his shoulder to his African confidant, saying, in the same low tone with which he had formerly addressed him, "Mark his words, Scipio!" then, turning to me, he asked, with rather a heedless air, "Then I am to believe, young sir, that the whole tale of the soldier who accuses you is false, and that you and he never met till, for the purpose of plundering you, or something of the same nature, he seized you this morning at the city gates?" "Not so, my Lord," I answered; "far be it from me to say so, for I have a heavy charge myself to lay against that soldier. He overtook me yesterday on the high road, seized upon my attendant's horse, and raised his hand to strike me for opposing him." "Good!" exclaimed the Viceroy. "Had you denied meeting him you were undone, for he gave last night a full description of your person. I now hear you with more confidence. Explain to me how, then, you happened to be on the road between Barcelona and Lerida, which is quite as much out of your way from Jacca as Lerida itself." "Your Excellence will remember, that I said I was guided by smugglers," I replied; "these smugglers were bound to Lerida; but they assured me that they would put me in the high road to Barcelona, after which I could not miss my way. They kept their word; and I proceeded safely and quietly on my journey, till, arriving at a village which your Excellence calls, I think, Meila, I stopped for a few hours to rest my horses. Here I was overtaken by this soldier, who, without asking permission, or making an excuse, seized upon my servant's horse, and on my opposing him, raised his hand to strike me. I threw him back on the pavement, and the villagers, rushing out of their houses, would, I believe, have murdered him, had I not interfered; for which good office, no sooner was he on horseback, than he fired his carbine at my head, the ball of which missed me, but wounded one of the peasants in the face." The viceroy paused for a moment, while the African whispered to him over his shoulder, in so low a tone that the words did not reach me. "Did you, then, not hear any report of a revolt at Lerida?" demanded the viceroy, at length. "I did," replied I, "at Meila; and before that I heard the sound of cannon and musketry from the side of Lerida." "Can your attendant speak Spanish?" "Not a word." "Does he understand it?" "No." The Viceroy, while he spoke, looked steadfastly at Achilles, whose face happily betrayed nothing but the most confirmative stupidity of aspect; he then called him forward in French, and bade him detail what had occurred during the course of the foregoing day. The little player had by this time, in some degree, recovered his intellects, and hearing the mild tone in which the viceroy had hitherto questioned me, as well as the calmness with which he addressed him himself, his penchant for bombast was excited by the solemnity of the occasion, and the presence of a representative of royalty, and he poured forth a stupendous piece of eloquence, such as he thought the ears of a Viceroy required. "May it please your sublime Highness," said he, "the following is a true account of what occurred to my noble and estimable lord, and to myself, during our woful peregrinations of yesterday; and if it is not the exact and simple verity, may all the stars of the golden firmament fall upon my head and crush me into atoms!" The viceroy looked back to the African and laughed; but the slave, whose Oriental imagination was perhaps more in harmony with the tumidity of little Achilles's style, than the more refined taste of his lord, opened his large eyes, and seemed to think it very fine indeed. Neither of them interrupted him, however, and the player proceeded. "Shortly after Aurora had drawn back the curtains of the Sun, and Phœbus himself jumped out of bed and began running up the arch of heaven, the illicit dealers, who had been hitherto our guides, our guards, and our suttlers, all in one, left us, to proceed themselves I know not where. We were now upon the broad and substantial causeway which leads from the far-famed city of Lerida--as I am given to understand, for I never was there--to this renowned metropolis of Catalonia, when, I being much fatigued with the unwonted extension of my legs across the back of my equine quadruped, my noble and considerate lord permitted me to stop and repose my weary limbs at a small pot-house by the road-side. Suddenly, after we had been there about an hour, loud roared the cannon, and quick beat the drum; and my lord not loving tumults amongst the people, as he said, and I not loving tumults amongst the cannon, we got upon horseback, and rode on till our horses could go no farther. Truly, I was thankful that their weariness came to back my own, or verily, I believe, that my lord, whose thighs must be made of cast iron, would not have left a bit of skin upon me, by riding on till night. However, we stopped; and, by the blessing of God, I lay down to take what the people of this land call a siesta, but what I call a nap; when, after having lain in the arms of Somnus for about half an hour, (four hours, he should have said,) I was startled by the tremendous sound of a musket, and incontinent, crept under the bed, from whence I was dragged out shortly after by my master, mounted on the awful pinnacle of my horse's back, and compelled to ride on to another village, where we slept in quiet until day this morning. After that, we proceeded to these hospitable walls, where a generous soldier rushed forth upon us, and invited us in with a pressing courtesy which was not to be resisted. He bestowed upon my lord a long piece of cord, which your sublime majesty may observe upon his wrists. Me he decorated not in the same manner, but they took care of both our horses and----" "Hold!" said the Viceroy, "I have heard enough.--You said," continued he, turning to me, "that you had been in Spain before. Where did you then reside, and to whom were you known?" "I resided at Saragossa," replied I, "and was known to the corregidor, and to the Chevalier de Montenero." "The Conde de Montenero!" said the Viceroy. "Good! I expect him here this very day, or to-morrow at the farthest. If he witness in your favour, your history needs no other confirmation; for though a foreigner, all Spain knows his honour." "A foreigner!" exclaimed I: "is he not a Spaniard?" "Certainly not," answered the Viceroy; "knew you not that? But to speak of yourself; mark me, young sir, you are safe for the present, for your story bears the air of truth; but woe to you if you have deceived me, for you shall die under tortures such as you never dreamed of; and to show you that in such things I will no longer be trifled with between these cut-throat soldiers and the factious peasantry, I will instantly order your accuser to have the strappado till his back be flayed. By the Mother of Heaven! I will no longer have my repose troubled at every hour with the rapacity of these base soldados, and the turbulence of the still baser serfs." And the full countenance of the Count took on an air of stern determination, which I had not before imagined that it could assume. "Scipio," continued he to the negro, "see that these two be placed in security, where they may be well treated, but cannot escape; bid my secretary, when he arrives from the palace, take both their names in writing, and note down their separate stories from their own mouths. Henceforth, I will investigate each case to the most minute particular; and, be it peasant or be it soldier that commits a crime, he shall find that I can be a Draco, and write my laws in blood." His resolution unfortunately came somewhat too late, for his indolence and inactivity had permitted the growth of a spirit that no measures could now quell. The hatred between the soldiery and the people had been nourished by the incessant outrages which the former had been suffered to commit under the lax government of the Count de St. Colomma; and now that the populace had drawn the sword to avenge themselves, they were not likely to sheath it till they had done so effectually. When he had finished speaking, the viceroy threw himself back in his chair, fatigued with the unwonted exertion he had made, and waving his hand, signed to us to withdraw, with which, as may be supposed, we were not long in complying. The African followed us; and being again placed between two soldiers, we were conducted to a small low-roofed room, which filled up the vacancy between the two principal floors in that body of the building. The soldier who had been my accuser did not fail to follow, addressing many a triumphant jest upon our situation to the negro. The slave affected to laugh at them all heartily, but was, I believe, amusing himself with very different thoughts; for the moment we were safely lodged in the room he had chosen, he beckoned our good friend the soldier forward, and made him untie my hands. As he did so, an impulse I could scarcely resist almost made me seize him and dash his head against the floor; but the negro avenged me more fully, for he instantly commanded the other soldiers, with a tone of authority they dared not disobey, to bind the delinquent with the same cord, and taking him down into the court, to give him fifty blows of the strappado, and farther, to keep him in strict confinement till the Viceroy's farther pleasure was known. "Ha, ha, ha!" cried he to the soldier, with a grin, that showed every milk-white tooth in his head; "Ha, ha, ha! why do you not laugh now?" And having placed a guard at our door, he left us. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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