The Count stepped up to her, and said, with his sullen smile, "You rejoice not at it, Rosaura?"
"No," was her laconic reply.
"You love me not?"
"Love _you_, Excellency? a great statesman like you! Certainly not, Excellency."
"I grieve to hear it, my beautiful bride; but, fortunately, love often comes with marriage. You shall learn to love me, Rosaura. Our existence shall be a happy and envied one. You detest state affairs: I will leave them and devote myself solely to you. Far from the capital, we will lead a pastoral life, amidst myrtles and meadows, flocks and shepherds, in all the sweet tranquillity of a terrestrial paradise."
Whether sketched in jest or in earnest, this picture of rustic felicity had evidently few charms for Rosaura, at least in the companionship proposed. Suddenly she stepped up to the Count, took his hand, looked full into his dark serious countenance, and laughed aloud and most musically.
"What do I hear, Excellency," she exclaimed; "_you_ in myrtle groves and smiling meadows--_you_ leading a shepherd"s tranquil life! Oh, ye Saints! _he_ a shepherd in the Alpuxarras. Ah! the flocks would fly and scatter themselves when they beheld the gloomy lines upon your brow.
Where are sheep to be found who would be tended by that ensanguined hand? Where could _you_ find repose? Is there a place free from the echoes of the curses that martyred Liberals have heaped upon you? Where is the domestic hearth around which would not range themselves the spectres of the wretches who, at your command, have been blotted from the book of life. Count, I shudder at the thought! Holy Mother of G.o.d!
is that the happy future you would compel me to share? No, no, never!--though the garrote were to encircle my neck, as it did that of the unhappy lady at Granada, who refused to betray her husband, and whom you sent to the scaffold in his stead! Has she never appeared to your Excellency, cold and pale, and with sightless eyes? For Quito"s treasures would I not behold her--her and the whole ghastly train; hundreds, ay hundreds of them, in the long, black-bordered shrouds, and the bare-footed friars with their fearful _misericordia_! Mercy, mercy, Excellency! with me would come the evil spirits, and a thousand----but, good-night, good-night, Excellency."
With a graceful movement of hand and head she glided from the room. The Count attempted not to detain her. He stood motionless, his hand thrust into his breast, and followed her with his eyes in mute astonishment.
"The silly child!" he at last murmured. "But how lovely she is! I, whom all fear--even HE," he emphatically added--"I almost quail before her mad petulance. Well, well!" he continued after a pause, "the priest first, and discipline afterwards. A man who has bowed and broken so many stubborn spirits, will hardly be vanquished by the humours of a wilful girl. Good-night, my lovely bride. "We shall see," you said; and a.s.suredly we _will_ see."
He took his hat, and was about to leave the room, when, by an inadvertent movement, Federico let fall his poniard. The Count was quick of hearing, and the noise, slight as it was, drew his attention. He turned sharply towards the spot where the student was concealed.
"What was that?" he cried. "Something fell in the closet. Have we listeners here?"
For an instant he hesitated; then, taking one of the ma.s.sive silver candlesticks, he stepped briskly to the closet, and was almost knocked down by the door, which Federico pushed violently open. The waxlights fell to the ground; like a winged shadow, the student sprang past the astonished Count, reached the door before the latter recovered from his alarm, and would doubtless have got clear off, had he not, in hurry and ignorance, turned the wrong handle. The Count grasped his coat-skirt, and pulled him back.
"Scoundrel!" he cried. "What do you here?"
For sole reply, Federico seized his a.s.sailant by the throat, and a struggle began, which, although speedily decided in favour of the active student, was destined to have most important results. The Count was vigorous, and defended himself well. He had little opportunity of calling out, closely grappled as he was, but he dealt his antagonist more than one heavy blow. At last Federico dashed him to the ground, and disappeared from the room, leaving behind him one of his coat-skirts, torn off in the contest. In falling, the Count"s head struck against a table, and he lay for a few seconds stunned by the shock. Recovering himself, he sprang to his feet, foaming with rage, his dark visage black with shame and anger. "Seize him!" he cried, hurrying down the corridor.
Twenty servants flew to obey the order. But it was too late. The student pa.s.sed like a fire-flash before the porter, and made good his escape from the house. "Follow him!" shouted the Count--"a hundred ounces for his capture!" And, stimulated by this princely reward, the eager domestics ran, like hounds after a deer, on the track of the student, who soon heard the shouts of his enemies, and the shrill whistle of the _serenos_, around and on all sides of him.
Although panting from his brief but violent struggle with the Count, Federico traversed with extreme swiftness several streets and squares, until want of breath at last compelled him to a moment"s pause. He looked around, and observed the locality. Before him lay the ma.s.sive buildings of the royal palace, favoured by whose shadow he continued his flight, now up-hill. But the numbers of his pursuers gave them a great advantage; and, to his dismay, he found himself so closely and accurately followed, that capture appeared inevitable.
"Had I but my knife," he exclaimed aloud, pausing in despair, "I would keep them off or die! Fool that I have been! Sentries on all sides! They have taken alarm! What can I do?"
"Go to Ciudad Real, if not too late," said a man, wrapped in a cloak, and wearing a small three-cornered hat, who suddenly stepped from behind a ma.s.sive stone column, close to where the student stood.
Federico at once recognised the speaker.
"For G.o.d"s sake, Geronimo!" he cried, "a.s.sist me in this strait. If they catch me, I am lost. And hark! yonder they come! I hear the baying of the menial pack. On all sides the way is barred!"
Geronimo seized Federico"s hand, and hurried him behind the pillar.
"There is only one chance," he said; "m.u.f.fle yourself in my cloak, take my hat, a.s.sume a stoop, and walk slowly, like an old man."
"What is your plan?" cried the student.
"Ask no questions. Do as I bid you. Do you see yonder door?"
"Of the palace?"
"Go in there."
"Into the palace?"
"Of course. Look neither right nor left; cross the first court to the great portal. There await me. Quick, quick--they come!" And he pushed him away.
Not without doubt and disquietude did Federico obey the orders of the old man, who displayed, in this conjuncture, a prompt.i.tude and decision rare at his age. But the student had no alternative. Wrapped in Regato"s cloak, and feigning a feeble gait, he pa.s.sed slowly and unquestioned before the soldiers of the royal guard. This impunity in a palace where the strictest watch and ward were usually kept, was an enigma to Federico; and he was still more puzzled, when, whilst waiting at the portal, several persons, shrouded like himself in dark cloaks, pa.s.sed before him, greeting him as they went with a muttered "_buenas noches_"
and disappeared in the corridors of the palace. At last came Geronimo.
He had provided himself in the interval with another cloak. His appearance was an immense relief to the student.
"Are they gone?" said Federico. "May I venture out?"
"Thank the saints that you are here!" replied Geronimo. "And now, tell me what has happened."
Federico told his adventures; and old Regato listened to the narrative with marks of the strongest interest. When he heard what the Count had said of him and of his probable fate, he laughed heartily. "Bah!" said he; "threatened men live long. I have had hotter broth cooked for me, and cooled it with my breath. I hope to die in my bed like a good Christian; and as for my chance of a rope, I would not change with his Excellency. The infernal schemer! I"ll pay him off now. _Madre de todas gracias!_ had we but the list of the conspirators, what a blow might be struck!"
"The list!" repeated Federico. "Stay, let me remember!" and, plunging his hand into his pocket, he pulled out a torn paper. "When I threw the man down, this remained sticking between my waistcoat and neckcloth, where he had grappled me. I noticed it when I got outside, and thrust it into my pocket."
Without listening to this explanation, Geronimo seized the paper, and, by the light of a lamp under the portal, examined it with eager curiosity. At sight of its contents, a savage joy sparkled in his eye.
"Ah, _maldito_!" he exclaimed with a laugh of triumph; "we have you now.
Federico, the rose-coloured lady is ten times more surely yours than if you had remained in the closet and his Excellency had not discovered you. Follow, and be silent. Whatever happens, not a word till I bid you; then speak boldly, and tell what you know."
Through winding corridors, up and down stairs, along galleries where sentries stood like statues, Geronimo led the way, until he reached a room whose door was opened by a gigantic lackey in the gaudy royal livery. Federico, who followed close upon his heels, suddenly found himself in the presence of a number of men, for the most part elderly and of grave respectable aspect, who stood in small knots about the apartment, or sat at tables on which were wine and refreshments, conversing in a low tone. Amongst these a hum of interest arose on Regato"s entrance; and under cover of the attention he attracted, his companion pa.s.sed unnoticed.
It at once flashed upon Federico, that he had penetrated into that notorious camarilla or secret council of King Ferdinand VII., so much spoken of, so often cursed and scoffed at, so greatly feared and justly hated. This was the cringing and pernicious conclave of whose vile proceedings so many tales were told; these were the men, of all ranks and cla.s.ses, who poured into the jealous despot"s ear the venom of calumny and falsehood; these the spies and traitors who, by secret and insidious denunciations, brought sudden arrest and unmerited punishment upon their innocent fellow-citizens, and who kept the King advised of all that pa.s.sed in Madrid, from the amorous intrigues of a grocer"s wife, to the political ones concerted in the cabinet of the Infante Don Carlos.
The student"s first uneasiness at finding himself upon such new and perilous ground, vanished when he saw that he was wholly unheeded. He remembered to have heard that persons once admitted to the camarilla, and honoured by the King"s confidence, were at liberty to return when they thought fit, at short or long intervals; and thus it might well happen that some of the members were unknown to each other. And on that night, those illicit counsellors of majesty were evidently pre-occupied with some pressing and important matter. They crowded round Regato, took his arm, seized him by the b.u.t.ton, whispered so eagerly, and questioned him so fast, that the little man lost all patience.
"Hands off, gentlemen!" he cried. "Which of you will buy me a new coat when you have torn mine? "Tis true that this morning our gracious lord the King was very ill: but I hear that he is now better; and by the grace of our blessed Lady, he will rejoice his humble and loving slaves, and dispel their deep anxiety, by the sunshine of his presence."
The words had scarce left Geronimo"s lips, when the opening of a side-door proved the signal for a respectful silence in the apartment.
The whole a.s.sembly bowed profoundly, and preserved that posture, although no cause was yet apparent for such extraordinary greeting. At last one showed itself, in the person of a man who tottered slowly and feebly into the room, supported on the arms of two attendants, his livid and bloated countenance distorted by a smile as painful to behold as if compelled by thumbscrews. The face of the new comer, who nodded in reply to the humble salutation of all present, might once have been handsome, but it could never have been intellectual or prepossessing, and now it was hideously cadaverous and ghastly. The features were those characterising a well-known family, world-renowned for the high places it has filled, rather than for the virtues or abilities of its members.
The eyes were sunk deep in their sockets, the straight, scanty black hair shaded a brow blue and transparent from disease; the tall person and once well-formed limbs were swollen and unwieldy. The sick man"s dress would have suited some plain burgher taking his ease in his summer-house: it consisted of a light nankeen jacket, a white neckcloth knotted loosely round the throat, linen trousers, and large shoes. He seemed scarcely able to set foot to ground, and the agony each step occasioned him betrayed itself in spasmodic twitchings of the nerves and muscles. Still there was a violent effort of the will to conceal the pangs that racked the enfeebled frame; a fruitless attempt to hide, by the a.s.sumption of smiling ease and gracious condescension, the approach of that equalising hour when human greatness and human misery sink to one level.
The sick man propped himself against a table, beside which stood an easy-chair, and with an affable wave of his hand, addressed the company.
"Good evening, senores!" he said: "we have felt ourselves somewhat unwell, and our careful physician Castillo, as also our trusty Grijalva, was solicitous on our account. But we would not put off this meeting. We love to meet our good friends, and are not to be kept from them by slight bodily inconvenience. Men fancy us more ailing than we are. You can refute such reports. What say you, Mexas--and you, Salcedo? Is our aspect so very sickly? We know that many build hopes upon our death; but they are mistaken, and by Our Lady, they shall be disappointed."
"G.o.d preserve our gracious lord a thousand years!" exclaimed several voices.
"An example should be made," said the man appealed to as Salcedo, "of the traitors who dare spread lying reports concerning the royal health."
""Tis too true," observed another, "that such rumours are used to the most criminal ends."
"We will sit down," said the sick monarch. And with the a.s.sistance of his attendants, he deposited his exhausted person in the elbow-chair.
"Drink, my friends, and tell me the news. Give me a cigar, good Castillo. Senor Regato, how goes it? what is new in our fair city of Madrid?"
"Little is heard," replied Geronimo, "save lamentations for the indisposition of our beloved master."