Act 5 — PEDRO DE PADILH.

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BY J. M. LEGARE.

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(Continued from page 97.)

Spain, and Tercera.}

AD. 1583.}

If the weekly mails brought me the Spirit of the Times instead of the Literary World, or in other words, I inclined to a sporting habit of speech, I would “lay an even wager” that not one of Graham’s readers has formed a correct idea of the personal appearance of Hilo de Ladron, from the foregoing account of that unscrupulous young gentleman’s proceedings. I say nothing of his morals, but refer merely to the harmony between features and character which Nature tries hard, and generally with success, to maintain, and which constitutes the main prop of the science of physiognomy. But no lawgiver allows more frequent exceptions to established rules than Nature; and thus, instead of being slouchy and red-haired, or big-whiskered and ferocious, Señor de Ladron, seated on the bows of one of De Chaste’s caravels, full sail for Tercera, belied his ill-name by the delicate beauty of his face and person. I use the word beauty, because his straight features, smooth skin and well-shaped hands, were feminine properties not usually looked for in male attire, and in company such as the owner was keeping. The French men-at-arms were well enough, but I would not fancy sleeping a night in the room with the thick-set Walloon standing next; people with such faces, coarse, crafty about the eyes and treacherous at the mouth—by the way, his laugh, always of an evil sort, was twofold, from a seam in the upper lip reaching half-way up the cheek, and exposing the teeth and gums at every contraction of the muscles thereabouts—should be called by names to correspond, and this man’s, Wolfang, showed remarkable foresight in his parents or sponsors. This face, which had not its duplicate any where in ill-looks, would be recognizable as that of an old acquaintance, if muffling, and false-hair and whiskers, frequently changed while begging an alms of Doña Hermosa, had not destroyed all identity with his natural features as now seen, for Wolfang was one with the free-captain who lived at the expense of that estimable if injudicious lady, until Don Peter turned him loose upon the world again. It was reasonable, under the circumstances, he should bear no great love for the truth-loving knight, and it was probably this feeling in common, accidentally communicated, which had first drawn Hilo and himself together. Don Hilo having inherited most of his father’s hate to the latter’s half-brother; not that he could lay claim to much personal cause for antipathy, having seen Sir Pedro but twice in his life, and one of those when little more than an infant, but it came quite easy to this chip-of-the-block to bear malice. With some grains of redeeming quality, it must be allowed, for he was not wanting in that sort of curious courtesy, common to all Spaniards I believe, which makes taking off his hat with a buènos nòches imperative on the very man who carries his hand from his sombrero to his dagger, to plunge the last under your shoulder blade the moment your back is turned. Friendship, in its usual acceptation, had little to do with the league existing between these worthies, and no small amount of self-interest must have been requisite to keep two such sweet dispositions from open rupture; however, they contrived to get along well enough, by each playing a part designed to dupe the other, although, with less success perhaps than the self esteem of each caused him to imagine. Capt. Carlo, ready, cunning in counsel, and cringing like a tiger ready to seize his keeper’s hand in his jaws, but fearing the short Roman sword in its clutch, followed the guidance of his junior, half through a brute instinct of inferiority, of which he himself was ignorant, and half for the furtherance of certain plans of his own, which will appear at intervals upon the surface of this narrative; but on the whole the pair were not ill-matched, their main characteristics uniting harmoniously enough, by a rule which more resembles dove-tailing in carpentry, than welding in iron-work, the joint being tight and fast so long as force is applied in one way, but easily dislocated by a lateral blow. Thus Wolfang scoffed at every thing holy or otherwise, seldom neglected a chance of shedding blood, when not withheld by manifest interest or personal risk; for the fellow was a coward in the depth of his heart, just as any other savage beast is, frightened by a parasol flirted in a child’s hand, but leaping unhesitatingly upon an unwary man, and in his thirst for gain, played any part however vile by which a maravedi might be dishonestly got. Don Hilo, to give the scapegrace his due, was murderous only in the heat of passion, and somewhat overawed his profane comrade by the resolute devotion he chose to entertain for certain saints in succession, it being a freak of his to hold in disgrace or honor, as the case might be, the celestial patron invoked prior to his last piece of rascality. Moreover the lad had the indefinable sense of pride, much as he lacked cause, which, I verily believe, constitutes the third element of Spanish blood and gives a dignified fold even to the dirty serape of the Mexican half-breed; and this pride kept his fingers from small pilferings if not from wholesale swindling; a turn of virtue which must have afforded high satisfaction to a certain alert fosterer of little errors, who has never been slow to avail himself of the like since the time of Adam and Eden. Even in general quickness of temper there was difference in kind, that of Capt. Carlo settling commonly into a smouldering fire incapable of being extinguished by any kindness whatever, and blown by the breath of opportunity into an instant flame; while Hilo’s, on the contrary, more dangerous and violent at its outbreak, was often succeeded by a reckless sort of recompense for injury done, which showed the boy had something of a soul left in his handsome carcase; but I am constrained to say as a set-off to this tolerable trait, it was only when the hurt or insult was avenged to his mind, a better spirit possessed him, for, if baffled at first, the aggriever had need to do as Bruce did, lose his trail in a running water.

I like to gossip confidentially now and then about matters which indirectly affect my characters, and so don’t mind mentioning a circumstance or two occurring in the early acquaintance of Capt. Carlo and Señor De Ladron, not noticed by historians of the time. The captain, it seems, after relinquishing in a highly praiseworthy manner, his annuity drawn from the unconscious countess, when no longer able to retain it, betook himself to the capital, where, falling in with the señor, the two soon came to understand each other’s projects, so far as it was good for either to do. Hilo made no secret of his hate for Doña Viola, whom he regarded as an incumbrance and interloper, but for whom he would long since have received an estate of more doubloons’ worth than he had ever possessed cobrès. The joint sagacity of the fathers and their notaries having been exhausted in drawing up a contract so stringent that nothing short of total forfeiture of the twin estates to the benefit of one of the infant parties, could release the other. No one knew what bond of union existed between the worse than dissolute half-brother of Sir Pedro, and so honorable a knight as Inique, but the contract stood fast on parchment, and the admirable wisdom of its conditions was shown in due season, when Viola, living at ease in her father’s house, grew up with a love amounting to mania for the handsome cavalier she regarded as her rightful husband, and whose vices she knew little of, until any thing like a just estimate of their enormity had become impossible to her biased mind. On the other side, Hilo, cursing in his heart Inique and his worthy father as founders of the scheme which his magnificent pride prevented his profiting by, even with the temptation of a twofold fortune attached, because it took the form of compulsory action in an affair it suited his humor to decide for himself, ransacked his brain to drive into outraged vindication of her woman’s dignity the innocent girl who stood between him and his claim. The poor little thing, without proper guidance or information in her own concerns, surmised nothing of the true state of the case, but affectionate and trustful to a fault, continued to love the young roué, long after his dislike found stronger expression than in words, with a docile patience and hopefulness for his reform, capable of touching any heart less villainous at the core. For the girl was no fool, I would have it clearly understood, weak as her affection for this Hilo might argue her; error in judgment, to which we are all subject, not necessarily indicating habitual silliness, least of all in one circumstanced as Doña Viola. This helpless child our worthy pair found it to their mutual interest to persecute, or fancied it so, and played very readily into each other’s hands; for Capt. Carlo had got it into his ugly head that such a prize (he was thinking of her money) was fitter for a manly-looking fellow like himself, with a beard to rub a soft cheek against, than for a stick of a lad whose weakly mustache broke the back-bone of the oaths he swore through it.

This was the wording of the meditation which occupied Don Wolfang’s brain while on his way to make himself known to his intended wife; not that Hilo would have refused his friend an introduction, he would have been only too gratified to present a Hottentot, if by so doing he could have caused her a pang of shame; but the captain, acting with unusual caution, chose to be independent of his hot-headed associate, perhaps fearing the latter might insist upon more than his legal share of the spoils, or from a natural aversion to working, except in the dark. Whatever his reasons, its cool impudence tempts me from my resolution of only hinting at these villainies, to give some account of the proceeding.

One night the house of Doña Viola was attacked by a gang of robbers, who, having no fear of police before their eyes in Philip the Second’s time, seemed every moment on the point of breaking in. Within was neither garrison nor protector worth the name, for the virtuous duenna, who was the young lady’s present guardian and companion, only rocked herself to and fro in a garment more snowy than becoming, and lamented her hard (approaching) fate with such heartfelt ay-de-mì’s, that it was evident nothing but the hope of ultimate rescue prevented her false hair (in which, for better self-deception, she slept) being plucked out by the roots. Moreover, the butler was busied in secreting the family plate, and a few little properties of his own, and the men-servants, with Spanish devotion, found occupation enough in quieting the maids and supplicating the saints; no doubt they would have fought, too, the race being noted for pluck—but there was no one to lead them on. At this opportune moment, who should appear before the terror-stricken ladies but Capt. Wolfang Carlo, all ruffles, ribbon-knots and rings, like a gay cavalier returning from some late merry-making, flying sword-in-hand to the rescue of besieged innocence. How he got in was a mystery; I suppose by dint of valor, for, as the number of the assailants was diminished by one on his entrance, it is more than likely one at least of the robbers was run through the body by this paladin, and the breach the former made turned to account by the latter.

When the party outside had been routed, which was accomplished immediately on the captain’s sallying forth at the head of the revived household,

“Sir,” said Doña Viola, to the disinterested hero who stood regarding her with a smile, as one should say, “look at me! Danger cannot shake my nerves: I am quite in my clement in it; it is just such a protector you need,” but which reminded for all that of the supple waving of a cat’s tail just before the animal springs. “Sir, if my father, Don Augustino, were present, he would know better how to thank you than I.”

“Oh,” interrupted her deliverer, with more truth than was common in his speech, and bowing low, partly because he designed to be exceedingly polite, and partly to hide his rectangular grin, “I am delighted to find he is not, Doña Viola.”

“I understand your noble motives, señor, and by your calling me by name, you probably know Señor Inique also.”

“Intimately,” said the unblushing vagabond; “we were comrades in arms against the Moors in the last war; and but that my mother’s being a Portuguese induces a reasonable distaste to waging war on one’s own kindred, we would have been lying side by side in Portugal, at this very hour. We disagree, perhaps, in this little matter, but there is no ill-feeling between us; and you may imagine, señora, the haste I made to snatch my distinguished friend’s daughter from such pressing danger.”

“Señor,” cried the lady at this, simply, “the house and all it contains is yours. (Capt. Carlo wished it was.) Command me; you have only to make known your wishes.”

Saying this, she left the room to order refreshments for her guest. Don Wolfang, in high feather at his success, and looking upon a part of the Doña’s property as his own in right of salvage, which saved any scruples arising in his tender conscience, pocketed a few valuables lying about, and assumed the bearing of a Rico, occupying four chairs with his burly person, for the better, that is, more truthful enactment of the character in hand. In which easy attitude he lolled until the tray, with its choice eatables, arrived; and it was while on the point of putting into his mouth a pâté-de-fois-gras (I use the word generally, as designating something good; but did you ever hear Dr. C. talk of real pâtés) that—

But what happened I must begin in a different manner to relate, or the moral of this episode will be lost.

I have said Doña Viola was no fool, and here I intend bringing forward proof of my position. No one would have supposed any thing like nerve existed in so delicate a creature, unless they had seen her descending the stairs with a light in one hand, and a great sword, too stiff for her to draw, in the other, to rally the servants, while that timid old soul, her duenna, was creeping under the bed above as fast as a sudden weakness in her ancient knees would allow. The girl was brimfull of character, and made a worse impression on her first appearance, because fevered and crushed in spirit by the final wickedness of her betrothed husband, and its likely consequences; possibly the fever which afterward brought her to death’s door, had begun to show itself already in unnatural excitement of the brain, for it is not easy otherwise to reconcile the crazy eagerness she showed with her usual modesty.

But this is straying from the truffle-eating captain. Poor, simple, lamb-like captain! what could have induced him to pull off his leathern doublet and mask under the eyes of a girl not out of her teens, to be sure, but whose Gallician blood was all afire while watching from a dark window what was passing beneath. I am filled with pity and admiration for Doña Viola, when I think how, with one protector leagues away in Portugal, and the other up stairs, making her toilette to appear becoming in the eyes of this prince who had come to their rescue, she traversed the whole house, accompanied by a desperado whose only restraint lay in the greatness of his hopes dependent in part on present good conduct. She was a little fluttered, and ready to faint with fear, as any other woman short of a novel heroine would have been, but for all that she spoke so connectedly, and showed such faith in the captain’s will and ability to protect her, that it never entered his slow, Netherlandish brain, the figure before him was possessed of no more vitality in itself than an electro-magnetized body, or that she had noticed without start or scream his left, jetty whisker slip down far enough to expose the scrubby red growth underneath. Still less did it occur to him as a remote possibility, the idea of taking him, Captain Wolfang Carlo, fairly in the trap, could be occupying her head at the very moment he talked of “his dear friend, Don Augustino, her father;” and when one servant went up with the tray, a second went out with a summons to the Hermandad.

So Capt. Carlo was on the point (as I have said) of putting a pâté into his capacious mouth, when there came a rapping at the street-door, such as only the Hermandad made, it being the custom of the holy brotherhood to give due notice of their arrival on such occasions, lest one of themselves should prove to be the culprit. The captain knew to a stroke what mercy he would be likely to receive if arrested, and alert enough when danger pressed, clapped a couple of goblets in his pockets, and in the same instant seized by the throat the tray-bearer, (who had his hand already on the latch,) so that the poor simpleton had not breath enough in his body to whisper, when his assailant threw him into the corner limp as a bundle of rags.

The former had not perambulated the house without using his eyes, and knew the shortest way to the leads, where he dodged the Hermandad until an opportunity presented itself for making good his descent, the citizen police probably being not wide awake at two o’clock in the morning.

That estimable youth, Hilo, was highly amused when the adventure reached his ears, and in his customary reckless speech gave his Flemish associate to understand he was not wise beyond his years, and had quite overshot his aim by too much caution; nothing could have caused himself more pleasure than to be rid of that (what I don’t choose to write in Spanish or English,) who had cheated him out of his estate by her artful behavior. And he would not mind settling a round sum out of the to be recovered fortune on Wolfang, provided he could contrive to enter the house a second time, without so much useless stir; but our prudent friend had the Hermandad in too vivid remembrance, and excused himself, suggesting, however, a scheme no less rascally, which all readers of this true history know already to have been carried out to its full extent.

To return to the caravel; some one was talking of Neptune.

“What a clatter about your Neptune,” cried a soldier, peevishly, “I wish I’d never heard the name, and had stayed where I was. Here we are pitched from one storm into another, and land just in sight. I’m sick of it.”

“La casa quemada, acudir con el agua!” put in Hilo, who was swinging his legs over the bowsprit, and did not trouble himself to take his eyes from the blue land ahead.

“What does he say?” demanded the Frenchman, eagerly, looking suspiciously about.

“He says your house is burnt, and you run for the water,” exclaimed Wolfang, with a short chuckle.

“Ha!” retorted the other, setting down a steel cap he was polishing, to gesticulate and call attention to Hilo with his forefinger. “Look here, comrades, here’s a man to talk to another as if he had never made any blunders he would like to take back. But this kind of talking behind you, is the way with all these cowardly Spaniards.”

Hilo turned his head just sufficiently to send a glance at the irascible speaker from his wicked black eyes. “Take care!” it said.

“Take care!” repeated the Netherlander, warningly, this time translating the look. “You’re a born fool, Jean, to tempt the devil in him.”

“Fool!” cried Jean. “Who meddled with him first? He kicked my casque out of his way yesterday, and set me to work cleaning and straightening it out this morning. As to running for water when it’s too late, he’ll think so too some day when Señor Inique catches him, and he gets down on his knees to beg for life, or the Marquis of Villenos’s friends corner him. He needn’t think he’s thought less a villain by us Frenchmen than by his own countryfolks.”

Here the man-at-arms stopped to take breath and glower at Señor De Ladron, who lifting in his feet, walked coolly over, opposite the first, saying, with a smile on his face, “Come, come, there is no use in comrades quarreling. Do you suppose I knew it was your casque? Give me your hand, and let’s make it up.”

The soldier looked down distrustfully at his slight enemy, but not being able to make up his mind what to do at this unexpected proposal, hesitatingly laid his broad palm in Hilo’s.

“That’s as it should be,” said a shrunken little cannonier, perched on his gun. “Hey! I remember how we shook hands all round at St. German-en-Laye. You see, we had been fighting like mad at Montcontour, and when one cools it isn’t pleasant to think you’ve knocked on the head your old chum at bird-nesting, and the like, only because he differs from you a little when grown up.”

“So you fetch water!” interrupted Hilo, mockingly, half to the speaker and half to Jean, whose fingers suddenly wrenched back forced him to stamp and foam with rage and pain while struggling to loosen the iron hold of the speaker.

“Sacrè! Devil!” he stammered, “let go; my wrist is out of joint.”

“It will be worse for you if you don’t recant,” muttered our Don, speaking faster than before, and holding a dagger to the side of his throat.

“Stop!” cried two or three men-at-arms, springing up, “that is not fair play. We are Frenchmen, not cut-throats, here.” Capt. Carlo merely grinned in his usual agreeable fashion.

“Don’t bite!” cried Hilo fiercely to his prisoner, drawing back his hand to strike. And, perhaps, as that amiable young gentleman was in no wise particular in such matters, and took no heed of the interruption, Hilo’s hand might have been the last bit of flesh held between the Frenchman’s teeth for evermore, (as the raven would say.) But the officer on duty came down the deck at this crisis, demanding the cause of the disturbance.

“Ha! you, sir?” he cried, directly he caught sight of the chief actor, as if he might have guessed as much. “I order you under arrest. Give up your dagger.”

Señor de Ladron faced his superior with an audacious smile, saying, “You jest?”

“Noose that rope,” ordered the lieutenant, purple with fury. “Close around, men; we will hang up this mutineer without trial.”

“’Pshaw!” answered our scapegrace, throwing his weapon overboard. “What a stir about a trifle, Señor mine. Better do this than hang.”

So Don Hilo de Ladron, when the island of Tercera lay close under the bows of the fleet, sat in the hold with irons around his ankles, and there probably would have remained, in obscurity, until the vessel returned to France, had not his fast friend, the captain, contrived to say a word or two to Commander De Chaste in person, while that brave knight was reviewing his forces on shipboard preparatory to landing.

“Who are you?” asked the commander, looking from a bit of paper he now twisted between his fingers to the bearer. “I have seen your face before.”

“Your excellency must be mistaken,” returned the unblushing Wolfang, who nevertheless remembered perfectly the gold piece the knight once put in the mouth of a holy war soldier without arms or feet, if appearances were true.

“Well,” interrupted De Chaste, “this scrawl tells me your friend was not materially to blame in the affair, his honor being concerned in repelling the charges.”

“True to a letter,” replied Wolfang, bowing low, as usual, to hide his unprepossessing grin. “Besides, the officer on duty owed the poor young gentleman a grudge.”

“That has nothing to do with it, sir. A man’s honor is his best possession, and needs unsleeping guardianship; but this taking its vindication into his own hands, must not be allowed in the service. However, the error is one on the side of right, and let him behave well in the field and we will pass over his indiscretion. We want every brave man we can get,” he added, turning to one of his officers.

“But, M. de Commandant,” objected the gentleman addressed, “is it likely a renegade like this fellow should prove a good soldier, or even be really possessed of ordinary honor!”

“How!” cried De Chaste, quickly. “I did not think the ranks of our little army contained any such. Is he a Spaniard, M. de Haye?”

“Yes, and guilty of every manner of crime.”

“Ha! Well, he must remain as he is until we find time to look into his case. How is it, Mr. What’s-your-name, Carlo, you suppressed his place of birth?”

“His mother was a French lady, Monseigneur, and fighting for one’s mother country is as good, any day, as fighting for a father’s.”

“True, in a measure, sir,” returned the knight. “What’s the prisoner’s name?”

“Hilo de Ladron.” This was said in no unusual tone, yet it seemed singularly to catch the commander’s attention, for he eyed the speaker keenly and then fell into a fit of musing, which lasted while he paced the deck between the officers of his suite. “M. de Haye,” he said at last, pausing before that officer and looking up, “you may be mistaken in your charges. They are grave ones and should be advanced when they can be examined at leisure, not at a hurried moment like this. I have need of every man in our too feeble squadron, and will take it upon myself to entrust the restoration of his character to M. de Ladron himself for the present.”

The gentleman addressed bowed, shrugged his shoulders, as well as a Frenchman could in a steel cuirass, and there the matter dropped.

Hilo laughed when the captain told him the favorable result of his application, and professed equal curiosity as to the commander’s motives—professions which honest Wolfang received as attempts to impose on his credulity—(he was probably touchy on the subject since his introduction to Doña Viola)—with less justice than usual, however, as Hilo, for a wonder, was telling the truth.

About this time the Sieur Cusson returned in his sloop from reconnoitering the island, and his report being that the Spanish squadron had not yet arrived, the little armament of De Chaste ran gallantly into the harbor, and came to anchor amidst a great firing of cannon and arquebuses from the Portuguese, who liked expending powder in this way much better than in front of an enemy, and besides, had lived in such daily dread of the descent of the Spanish fleet, that they could not sufficiently viva their delight at finding out who the new comers really were. The Viceroy, de Torrevedros, himself, came down to the water side to receive the commander, and made such a brave appearance in his embroidered surcoat and gilded harness, surrounded by other cavaliers equally well dressed, that the Frenchmen, walking with unsteady legs after their twenty-four days of stormy weather on shipboard, and in shabby doublets, presented nothing very imposing in their march through the streets.

But if the Portuguese gentlemen, riding on either hand, could scarce suppress their mirth at the ill looks of their allies, the ladies were anxious to propitiate men who would prove their main defence, and threw down showers of all sorts of gay flowers from the windows and balconies; some of the young señoritas even meeting the procession at unexpected corners, and flinging orange water into the knight’s face, who would have been more gratified by the ablution (it being a hot June day) had not the thought of his best ruff growing limper at each sprinkling interfered with the enjoyment.

“Better smell of gunpowder.” he said shortly, to a French gentleman from the court, whose nose was audibly expressing its delight at the fine perfume.

But the satisfaction of the Portuguese was as nothing compared with the joy of a few hundred Frenchmen, a remnant of the Strossy expedition of the year before, who had lost all hope of ever leaving the Azores again, and, having little money at the first, had been treated with any thing but hospitality by their unwilling hosts. These poor fellows mixed with the crowd in the streets, kept the commandant’s company in sight, and running into the quarters assigned the latter, met them with such antics and embraces as caused the Gallic army to suppose at first that they had fallen into an ambuscade of madmen. Their two captains gave De Chaste a full narration of their sufferings, which was impartial in the main, and tended very little to elevate the Portuguese residents in the eyes of their audience, whose fancy for that people was not great from the beginning.

“Sirs,” replied the commandant at the end, with his customary high-toned suavity, looking around him, “we must only remember this is done at the will of our queen, and act as loyal gentlemen should. For my part, I will be content with brown bread and water and living in the open air, as we are all accustomed to, to have the satisfaction of defeating the landing of so good a soldier as the Marquis of Santa-Cruz, and to-morrow I will examine in person the accessible points of the island, which are only three in number.”

“Three!” cried Capt. Baptista, an Italian, one of the Strossy fugitives, “there are thirty! He must have been a rank liar, who told you so, M. le Commandant.”

“That can hardly be,” returned De Chaste, gravely, “for it was the king of Portugal himself who gave the information.”

“Oh, if it comes to that one had best bite his tongue,” grumbled the Italian to De Haye, who stood next him. “But a parrot’s word is no better than a magpie’s, and so our general will find out.”

[To be continued.