"What should harm him?" she demanded. "Is he not the guest of my husband?"
"His guest, madame, or his prisoner?"
She gave me a keen glance. "Whichever role he may have the wit--or the folly--to play."
I wrung my hands again. "Madame, madame, do not trifle with me!"
"Child, what should make thee so afraid?"
I hesitated, then exclaimed: "Senor de Melinza bears him no good will--he may strive to prejudice your husband!"
The Governor"s wife looked intently at me. "Why should Melinza have aught against your Englishman?"
I could not answer,--perhaps I had been a fool to speak. I dropped my face in my hands, silently.
Dona Orosia leaned forward and took me by the wrists. "Look at me!" she said.
Timidly I raised my eyes, and she studied my countenance for a long minute.
""Tis absurd," she said then, and pushed me aside. ""Tis impossible! And yet----a new face, a new face and pa.s.sably pretty. Oh, my G.o.d, these men! are they worth one real heart pang? Tell me," she cried, fiercely, and shook me roughly by the shoulder, "has Melinza made love to you already?"
"Never, madame, never!" I answered quickly, frightened by her vehemence.
"Indeed, their quarrel did not concern me. "Twas about two lads that had a wrestling-match upon the galley. And although they were both angered at the time, there may be no ill feeling between them now. I was foolish to speak of it. Forget my imprudence, I pray you!"
But her face remained thoughtful. "Tell me the whole story," she said; and when I had done so she was silent.
I sat and watched her anxiously. She was a beautiful woman, with a wealth of dark hair, a richly tinted cheek, glorious eyes, and a small, soft, red-lipped, pa.s.sionate mouth--folded close, at that moment, in a scornful curve.
Suddenly she rose and touched a bell. A young negress answered the summons. Dona Orosia spoke a few rapid words to her in Spanish, then turned coldly to me.
"Go with her; she will show you to your apartment, and your woman will attend you there later on. You must be too weary to-night to join us at a formal meal, and your wardrobe must be somewhat in need of replenishing. To-morrow you shall have whatever you require. I bid you goodnight!"--and she dismissed me with a haughty gesture of her white hand.
The chamber that had been a.s.signed to me--which I was glad to share with the good Dame Barbara--was long and narrow. There was a window at one end that gave upon the sea; and through the heavy barred grating, set strongly in the thick cas.e.m.e.nt, I could look out upon the low sea-wall, and, beyond that, at the smooth bosom of the dreaming ocean, heaving softly in the quiet starlight, as though such a sorrow lay hidden in its deep heart as troubled even its sleep with sighs.
If I pressed my face close against the bars I could see, to the left of me, the ramparts of the castle, where my dear love was. The slow tears rose in my eyes as I thought that this night the same roof would not shelter us, nor would there be the same swaying deck beneath our feet.
While we had been together no very real sense of danger had oppressed me; but from the first hour of our parting my heart grew heavier with forebodings of the evil and sorrow which were yet to come.
CHAPTER VII.
At first all seemed to go well enough. The Governor"s lady was fairly gracious to me; old Senor de Colis was profuse in his leering smiles and wordy compliments, none of which I could understand; I saw Mr. Rivers and Melinza from time to time, and they seemed upon good terms with each other: but I did not believe this state of affairs could last,--and I was right in my fears.
One night ("twas the twenty-second of June, and the weather was sultry and oppressive; the sea held its breath, and the round moon burned hot in the hazy sky) the evening meal was served in the little courtyard of the Governor"s house, and both Mr. Rivers and Melinza were our guests.
This was not the first occasion on which we had all broken bread at the same board; but there was now an air of mockery in the civilities of Melinza,--he pa.s.sed the salt to my betrothed with a glance of veiled hostility, and pledged him in a gla.s.s of wine with a smile that ill concealed the angry curl of his sullen red lip.
"Twas a strange meal; the memory of it is like a picture stamped upon my brain.
From the tall bra.s.s candlesticks upon the table, the unflickering tapers shone down upon gleaming damask and glistening silver, and kindled sparks amid the diamonds that caught up the folds of lace on the dark head of Dona Orosia, and that gemmed the white fingers clasping her slow-moving fan. Hers was a beauty that boldly challenged men"s admiration and exacted tribute of their eyes. The white-haired Governor paid it in full measure, with a fixed and watery gaze from beneath his half-closed lids, and a senile smile lurking under his waxed moustache.
But whenever I glanced upward I met the eyes of Mr. Rivers and Don Pedro turned upon me; and I felt a strange thrill made up, in part, of triumph that my dear love was not to be won from his allegiance, and in part of terror because there was that in the Spaniard"s gaze that betokened a nature ruled wholly by its hot pa.s.sions and a will to win what it craved by fair means or by foul.
I could eat little for the heat and the pungent flavour of strange sauces, so I dallied with my plate only as an excuse for lowered eyes; and, although I listened all the while with strained attention, the talk ran by too swiftly for me to grasp any of its meaning.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "TO THE BRIGHTEST EYES AND THE LIPS MOST WORTHY OF KISSES!"--_Page 55._]
But Dona Orosia was neither deaf nor blind; her keen black eyes had noted every glance that pa.s.sed her by. With a deeper flush on her olive cheek, and a prouder poise of her haughty head, she made to me at last the signal for withdrawal.
The three gentlemen, gla.s.ses in hand, rose from their seats; and, as we pa.s.sed beneath the arched trellis that led away from the paved court into the fragrant garden, Don Pedro lifted his gla.s.s to his lips with a gesture in our direction, and exclaimed in French:
"To the fairest face in San Augustin! To the brightest eyes and the lips most worthy of kisses! May the light of those eyes never be withdrawn from these old walls, nor the lips lack a Spanish blade to guard them from all trespa.s.sers!"
The Governor, who understood not the French words, lifted his gla.s.s in courteous imitation of his nephew"s gesture; but Mr. Rivers coloured hotly and set down his upon the table.
"I like not your toast, Senor Melinza, whichever way I construe it. The face I hold fairest here shall leave San Augustin the day that I depart; and, since it is the face of my promised wife, it needs no other sword than mine to fend off trespa.s.sers!"
He, too, spoke in French; and as the words pa.s.sed his lips I felt the soft, strong hand of Dona Orosia grasp my arm and drag me backward among the screening vines, beyond the red light of the tapers, where we could listen unseen.
Melinza was laughing softly. "Senor Rivers says he cannot construe my toast to his liking; but perhaps if I give it him in the Spanish tongue he may find the interpretation more to his taste!" Then he lifted his gla.s.s again and slowly repeated the words in his own language, with a meaning glance toward the Governor.
The old man drained his goblet to the dregs, and then turned a flushed face upon the Englishman and laid his hand upon his sword.
My dear love had no thoughts of prudence left,--for Melinza"s words had been a direct charge of cowardice,--so for all answer he took the frail goblet from the table and threw it in the younger Spaniard"s face.
There was a tinkle of broken gla.s.s upon the stone pavement, and Melinza wiped the red wine from his cheek. Then he held up the stained kerchief before the eyes of my dear love and spoke a few words in his softest voice.
An angry smile flickered over the countenance of my betrothed; he bowed stiffly in response.
The blear-eyed Governor broke in hotly, with his hand still upon his sword; his dull eyes narrowed, and the blood mounted higher in his wrinkled cheek: but his nephew laid a restraining hand upon his arm, and, with another laughing speech and a profound bow to Mr. Rivers, pointed toward the door.
I saw the three of them depart through the pa.s.sageway that led to the street entrance. I heard the creak of the hinges, and the clang of the bars as they fell back into place. Then a strong, sweet odour of crushed blossoms turned me faint. I loosed my hold of the screening vines and stepped backward with a sudden struggle for breath.
The woman beside me caught my arm a second time and drew me still farther away down the moonlit path.
"Is he aught of a swordsman, this fine cavalier of thine?" she demanded, grasping my shoulder tightly and scanning my face with her scornful eyes.
Then my senses came to me: I knew what had happened--what was bound to follow; and I began to speak wildly and to pray her to prevent bloodshed between them.
I scarce know what I said; but the words poured from my lips, and for very despair I checked them not. I told her of my orphan state--of that lone grave in Barbadoes, and the sad young mother who had died of a broken heart; I spoke of the long, long journey over seas, the love that had come into my life, and the dreams and the hopes that had filled our thoughts when we reached the fair, strange sh.o.r.es of this new country; and I prayed her, as she was a woman and a wife, to let no harm come to my dear love.
"Ah! madame," I cried, "a face so fair as yours needs not the championship of one English stranger, who holds already a preference for blue eyes and yellow hair. I grant you that he has a sorry taste; but oh! I pray you, stop this duel!"
She loosed her hand from the clasp of mine, and looked at me a moment in silence; then she laughed bitterly.
"Thou little fool! Thou little blue-eyed fool! What do men see in that face of thine to move them so? A painter might love thee for the gold of thy hair, thy white brow, and thy blue eyes,--they would grace a pictured saint above a shrine,--but for a man"s kisses, and such love as might tempt him to risk his very life for thee,--_cielos_! it is more than pa.s.sing strange." Then, as I stood dumb before her, she tapped me lightly on the cheek. "Go to! Art such a fool as to think that _either_ sword will be drawn for _my_ beauty"s sake?"