Adoon that stream my man did rove, And crossed the tearfu" sea.
O whaur"ll I get a leal true love To bide at hame wi" me?
The lang, lang years they winna pa.s.s; My lord is still awa".
Mayhap he loves a fairer la.s.s-- O wae the warst ava!
How sall I wile my lover hame?
I"ll drink the tearfu" seas!
My red mou" to their briny faem, I"ll drain them to the lees!
Then gin he comes na hameward soon His ain true love to wed, I"ll kilt my claes and don my shoon And cross the sea"s dry bed.
"Oh in thine heart, my love, my lord, Mak" room, mak" room for me; Or at thy feet, by my true word, Thy lady"s grave sall be!"
"A melancholy air, yet with somewhat of a pleasing sadness in its minor cadences," commented Dona Orosia when I had ceased. "Translate me the words, an your Spanish is sufficient."
"That it is not, I fear," was my reply, "and the task is beyond me for the further reason that the song is not even English, but in a dialect of the Scots. "Tis only the plaint of a poor lady whose mind seems to have gone astray in her long waiting for a faithless lover"--and I gave her the sense of the verses as best I could.
"Nay," said the Spanish woman, with a singular smile. "She hath more wit than you credit her with. You mark me, the flood of a woman"s tears will bear a man further than a mighty river, and her sighs waft him away more speedily than the strongest gale. And once he has gone, taking with him such a memory of her, "twould be far easier for her to drink the ocean dry than to wile him home. For let a man but suspect that a woman _could_ break her heart for him, and he----is more than content to let her do it!"
She paused; but I made no answer, having none upon my tongue. Presently she added: "When once a woman has the folly to plead for herself, in that moment she murders Love; and every tear she sheds thereafter becomes another clod upon his grave. There remains but one thing for her to do----"
"Herself to die!" I murmured.
"Nay, child! To live and be revenged!" She turned a flushed face toward me; and, though the water stood in her eyes, they were hard and angry.
"To be revenged! To plot and to scheme; to bide her time patiently; to study his heart"s desire, and to foster it; and then----"
"And then?" I questioned softly, with little shivers of repulsion chilling me from head to foot.
"_To rob him of it._"
The words were spoken deliberately, in a voice that was resonant and slow. "Twas not like the outburst of a moment"s impulse--the sudden jangling of a harpstring rudely touched; it was rather with the fateful emphasis of a clock striking the hour, heralded by a premonitory quiver--a gathering together of inward forces that had waited through long moments for this final utterance.
What manner of woman was this? I caught my breath with a little shuddering cry.
Dona Orosia turned quickly.
"Go! Leave me!" she cried. "Do you linger? Can I never be rid of you?
Out of my sight! I would have a moment"s respite from your great eyes and your white face. Go!"
And I obeyed her.
CHAPTER XIV.
March, the 9th day.
Dona Orosia sent for me at noon to-day. There was news to tell, and she chose to be the one to tell it.
I found her in her favourite seat,--a great soft couch, covered with rich Moorish stuffs, and placed under the shadow of the balcony that overlooks the sunny garden. Up each of the light pillars from which spring the graceful arches that support this balcony climbs a ma.s.s of blooming vines that weave their delicate tendrils round the railing above and then trail downward again in festoons of swaying colour.
Behind, in the luminous shadow, she lay coiled and half asleep; with a large fan of bronze turkey-feathers in one lazy hand, the other teasing the tawny hound which was stretched out at her feet.
She opened her great eyes as I came near.
"Ah! the little blue-eyed Margarita, the little saint who frowns when men worship at her shrine," she said slowly. "There is news for you. The _Virgen de la Mar_ arrived last night from Habana, bringing the commands of the Council of Spain that the English prisoners here detained be liberated forthwith. For it seems that there has been presented to the Council, through our amba.s.sador to the English Court, a memorial, which clearly proves that these persons have given no provocation to any subject of his Catholic Majesty, Charles the Second of Spain, and are therefore unlawfully imprisoned. How like you that?"
The waving fan was suddenly stilled, and the brilliant eyes half veiled.
"Is this true?" I asked, for my heart misgave me.
She laughed. "It is true that the _Virgen de la Mar_ has brought those orders to the Governor of San Augustin--and that my husband has received them."
"Will he obey them, senora?"
"Will who obey them?" she asked; and there was a gleam of white teeth under the red, curling lip. "My husband, or the Governor of San Augustin?"
"Are they not the same?"
"If you think so, little fool," she cried, half rising from her couch; "if you think so still, you would better go back to your chamber and pray yourself and your lover out of prison!"
I made no answer; I waited, without much hope, for what she would say next. My heart was very full, but I would not pleasure her by weeping.
"Child," she continued, sinking back among the cushions and speaking in a slow, impressive manner, "there are _two_ Governors in San Augustin--and they take their commands neither from the child-King, the Queen-mother, nor any of the Spanish Council. My husband is not one; he obeys them both by turns. His Excellency Don Pedro Melinza decrees that these orders from Spain shall be carried out except in the case of one Senor Rivers, who will be held here to answer for an unprovoked a.s.sault on one of his Majesty"s subjects, whom he severely wounded; also for inciting others of his fellow prisoners to break their parole, and for various other offences against the peace of this garrison,--all of which charges Melinza will swear to be true."
"Is he so lost to honour? And will your husband uphold him in the lie?"
"Hear me out," she continued in the same tone. "Melinza also decides that these orders do not include the English senorita, Dona Margaret, whom he intends to detain here for----for reasons best known to himself; although the other Governor of San Augustin decrees"----she started up from her nest of pillows and continued in a wholly different tone: "_I_ say--_I_ say--that you shall quit this place with the other prisoners, and my husband dares not oppose me! I am sick of your white face and your saintly blue eyes; I am wearied to death of your company; but I swear Melinza shall not have you! Therefore go you must, and speedily."
"And leave my betrothed at Don Pedro"s mercy?"
"What is that to me? Let him rot in his dungeon. I care not--so I am rid of your white face."
She shut her eyes angrily and thrust out her slippered foot at the sleeping hound. He lifted his great head and yawned; then, gathering up his huge bulk from the ground, he drew closer to his mistress"s side and sniffed the air with solicitude, as though seeking a cause for her displeasure. There was a dish of cakes beside her, and she took one in her white fingers and threw it to the dog. He let it fall to the ground, and nosed it doubtfully, putting forth an experimental tongue,--till, finding it to his taste, he swallowed it at a gulp. His mistress laughed, and tossed him another, which disappeared in his great jaws. A third met the same fate; but the fourth she extended to him in her pink palm, and, as he would have taken it she s.n.a.t.c.hed the hand away. Again and again the poor brute strove to seize the proffered morsel, but each time it was lifted out of his reach; till finally his lithe body was launched upward, and he snapped both the cake and the hand that teased him.
"Twas the merest scratch, and truly the dog meant it not in anger; but on the instant Dona Orosia flushed crimson to her very brow, and, drawing up her silken skirt, she s.n.a.t.c.hed a jewelled dagger from her garter and plunged it to the hilt in the poor beast"s throat. The red blood spouted, and the huge body dropped in a tawny heap.
I rushed forward and lifted the great head; but the eyes were glazed.
"Senora!" I cried, "senora! the poor brute loved you!"
She spurned the limp body with a careless foot, saying,--
"So did--once--the man who gave it me."
Then she clapped her hands, and the negro servant came and at her command dragged away the carca.s.s, wiped the b.l.o.o.d.y floor, and brought a basin of clear water and a linen cloth to bathe the scratch on her hand.
When he had gone she made me bind it up with her broidered kerchief and stamped her foot because I drew the knot over-tight.