A card of ample size and flourished characters, bearing the name of El Marqués de Fuenterrabia, was brought up by Gil Perez.
"Who is he?" Manvers inquired; and Gil waved his hand.
"This olda gentleman," he explained, "'e come Embassador from Don Luis. 'E say, 'What you do next, señor Don Osmundo?' You tell 'im, sir—is my advice."
"But I don't know what I am going to do," said Manvers irritably. "How the deuce should I know?"
"You tell 'im that, sir," Gil said softly. "Thata best of all."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, sir, then 'e tell you what Don Luis, 'e do."
"Show him in," said Manvers.
The Marqués de Fuenterrabia was a white-whiskered, irascible personage, of stately manners and slight stature. He wore a blue frock-coat, and nankeen trousers over riding-boots. His face was one uniform pink, his eyes small, fierce, and blue. They appeared to emit heat as well as light; for it was a frequent trick of their proprietor's to snatch at his spectacles and wipe the mist from them with a bandana handkerchief. Unglazed, his eyes showed a blank and indiscriminate ferocity which Manvers found exceedingly comical.
They bowed to each other—the Marqués with ceremonious cordiality, Manvers with the stiffness of an Englishman to an unknown visitor. Gil Perez hovered in the background, as it were, on the tips of his toes.
The Marqués, having made his bow, said nothing. His whole attitude seemed to imply, "Well, what next?"
Manvers said that he was at his service; and then the Marqués explained himself.
"My friend, Don Luis Ramonez de Alavia," he said, "has entrusted me with his confidence. It appears that a series of occurrences, involving his happiness, honour and dignity at once, can be traced to your Excellency's intromission in his affairs. I take it that your Excellency does not deny——"
"Pardon me," Manvers said, "I deny it absolutely."
The Marqués was very much annoyed. "Que! Que!" he muttered and snatched off his spectacles. Glaring ferociously at them, he wiped them with his bandana.
"If Don Luis really imagines that I compassed the death of his son," said Manvers, "I suppose he has his legal remedy. He had better have me arrested and have done with it."
The Marqués, his spectacles on, gazed at the speaker with astonishment. "Is it possible, sir, that you can so misconceive the mind of a gentleman as to suggest legal process in an affair of the kind? Whatever my friend Don Luis may consider you, he could not be guilty of such a discourtesy. One may think he is going too far in the other direction, indeed—though one is debarred from saying so under the circumstances. But I am not here to bandy words with you. My friend Don Luis commissions me to ask your Excellency, for the name of a friend, to whom the arrangements may be referred for ending a painful controversy in the usual manner. If you will be so good as to oblige me, I need not intrude upon you again."
"Do you mean to suggest, señor Marqués," said Manvers, after a pause, "that I am to meet Don Luis on the field?"
"Pardon?" said the Marqués, in such a way as to answer the question.
"My dear sir," he was assured, "I would just as soon fight my grandfather. The thing is preposterous." The Marqués gasped for air, but Manvers continued. "Had your friend's age been anywhere near my own, I doubt if I could have gratified him after what took place the other day. He caused a man of his to stab me in the back as I was walking down a dark street. In my country we call that a dastard's act."
The Marqués started, and winced as if he was hurt; but he remembered himself and the laws of warfare, and when he spoke it was within the extremes of politeness.
"I confess, sir," he said, "that I was not prepared for your refusal. It puts me in a delicate position, and to a certain extent I must involve my friend also. It is my duty to declare to you that it is Don Luis' intention to break the laws of Spain. An outrage has been committed against his house and blood which one thing only can efface. Moved by extreme courtesy, Don Luis was prepared to take the remedy of gentlemen; but since you have refused him that, he is driven to the use of natural law. It will be in your power—I cannot deny—to deprive him of that also; but he is persuaded that you will not take advantage of it. Should you show any signs of doing so, I am to say, Don Luis will be forced to consider you outside the pale of civilisation, and to treat you without any kind of toleration. To suggest such a possibility is painful to me, and I beg your pardon very truly for it."
In truth the Marqués looked ashamed of himself.
Manvers considered the very oblique oration to which he had listened. "I hope I understand you, señor Marqués," he said. "You intend to say that Don Luis means to have my life by all means?"
The Marqués bowed. "That is so, señor Don Osmundo."
"But you suggest that it is possible that I might stop him by informing the authorities?"
"No, no," said the Marqués hastily, "I did not suggest that. The authorities would never interfere. The British Embassy might perhaps be persuaded—but you will do me the justice to admit that I apologised for the suggestion."
"Oh, by all means," said Manvers. "You thought pretty badly of me—but not so badly as all that."
"Quite so," said the Marqués; and then the surprising Gil Perez descended from mid-air, and lowed to the stranger.
"My master, Don Osmundo, señor Marqués, is incapable of such conduct," said he—and looked to Manvers for approval.
He struggled with himself, but failed. His guffaw must out, and exploded with violent effect. It drove the Marqués back to the door, and sent Gil Perez scudding on tiptoe to the window.
"You are magnificent, all of you!" cried Manvers. "You flatter me into connivance. Let me state the case exactly. Don Luis is to stab or shoot me at sight, and I am to give him a free hand. Is that what you mean? Admirable. But let me ask you one question. Am I not supposed to protect myself?"
The Marqués stared. "I don't think I perfectly understand you, Don Osmundo. Reprisals are naturally open to you. We declare war, that is all."
"Oh," said Manvers. "You declare war? Then I may go shooting, too?"
"Naturally," said the Marqués. "That is understood."
"No dam fear about that," said Gil Perez to his master.
Sister Chucha, the nun who took first charge of newcomers to the Penitentiary, was fat and kindly, and not very discreet. It was her business to measure Manuela for a garb and to see to the cutting of her hair. She told the girl that she was by far the most handsome penitent she had ever had under her hands.
"It is a thousand pities to cut all this beauty away," she said; "for it is obvious you will want it before long. So far as that goes you will find the cap not unbecoming; and I'll see to it that you have a piece of looking-glass—though, by ordinary, that is forbidden. Good gracious, child, what a figure you have! If I had had one quarter of your good fortune I should never have been religious."
She went on to describe the rules of the Institution, the hours and nature of the work, the offices in Chapel, the recreation times and hours for meals. Manuela, she said, was not the build for rope and mat work.
"I shall get Reverend Mother to put you to housework, I think," she said. "That will give you exercise, and the chance of an occasional peep at the window. You don't deserve it, I fancy; but you are so handsome that I have a weakness for you. All you have to do is to speak fairly to Father Vicente and curtsey to the Reverend Mother whenever you see her. Above all, no tantrums. Leave the others alone, and they'll let you alone. There's not one of them but has her scheme for getting away, or her friend outside. That's occupation enough for her. It will be the same with you. Your friends will find you out. You'll have anoviospending the night in the street before to-morrow's over unless I am very much mistaken." She patted her cheek. "I'll do what I can for you, my dear."
Manuela curtseyed, and thanked the good nun. "All I have to do," she said, "is to repent of my sin—which has become very horrible to me."
"La-la-la!" cried Sister Chucha. "Keep that for Father Vicente, if you please, my dear. That is his affair. Our patroness led a jolly life before she was a saint. No doubt, you should not have stabbed Don Bartolomé, and of course the Ramonez would never overlook such a thing. But we all understand that you must save your own skin if you could—that's very reasonable. And I hear that there was another reason." Here she chucked her chin. "I don't wonder at it," she said with a meaning smile.
The girl coloured and hung her head. She was still quivering with the shame of her public torture. She could still see Manvers' eyes stare chilly at the wall before them, and believe them to grow colder with each stave of her admissions. Her one consolation lay in the thought that she could please him by amendment and save him by a conviction; so it was hard to be petted by Sister Chucha. She would have welcomed the whip, would have hugged it to her bosom—the rod of Salvation, she would have called it; but compliments on her beauty, caresses of cheek and chin—was she not to be allowed to be good? As for escape, she had no desire for that. She could love her Don Osmundo best from a distance. What was to be gained, but shame, by seeing him?
Her shining hair was cut off; the cap, the straight prison garb were put on. She stood up, slim-necked, an arrowy maid, with her burning face and sea-green eyes chastened by real humility. She made a good confession to Father Vicente, and took her place among her mates.
It was true, what Sister Chucha had told her. Every penitent in that great and gaunt building was thrilled with one persistent hope, worked patiently with that in view, and under its spell refrained from violence or clamour. There was not one face of those files of grey-gowned girls which, at stated hours, entered the chapel, knelt at the altar, or stooped at painful labour through the stifling days, which did not show a gleam. Stupid, vacant, vicious, morose, pretty, sparkling, whatever the face might be, there was that expectation to redeem or enhance it, to make it human, to make it womanish. There was, or there would be, some day, any day, a lover outside—to whom it would be the face of all faces.
Manuela had not been two hours in the company of her fellow-prisoners before she was told that there were two ways of escape from the Recogidas. Religion or marriage these were; but the religious alternative was not discussed.
Sister Chucha, it transpired, had chosen that way—"But do you wonder?" cried the girl who told Manuela, with shrill scorn. Most of the sisters had once been penitents—"Vaya! Look at them, my dear!" cried this young Amazon, conscious of her own charms.
She was a plump Andalusian, black-eyed, merry, and quick to change her moods. Love had sent her to Saint Mary Magdalene, and love would take her out again.
That Chucha, she owned, was a kind soul. She always put the pretty ones to housework—"it gives us a chance at the windows. I have Fernando, who works at the sand-carting in the river. He never fails to look up this way. Some day he will ask for me." She peered at herself in a pail of water, and fingered her cap daintily. "How does my skirt hang now, Manuela? Too short, I fancy. Did you ever see such shoes as they give you here! Lucky that nobody can see you."
This was the strain of everybody's talk in the House of Las Recogidas—in the whitewashed galleries where they walked in squads under the eye of a nun who sat reading a good book against the wall, in the court where they lay in the shade to rest, prone, with their faces hidden in their arms, or with knees huddled up and eyes fixed in a stare. They talked to each other in the hoarse, tearful staccato of Spain, which, beginning low, seems to gather force and volume as it runs, until, like a beck in flood, it carries speaker and listener over the bar and into tossing waves of yeasty water.
Manuela, through all, kept her thoughts to herself, and spoke nothing of her own affairs. There may have been others like her, fixed to the great achievement of justifying themselves to their own standard: she had no means of knowing. Her standard was this, that she had purged herself by open confession to the man whom she loved. She was clean, sweetened and full of heart. All she had to do was to open wide her house that holiness might enter in.
Besides this she had, at the moment, the consciousness of a good action; for she firmly believed that by her surrender to the law she had again saved Manvers from assassination. If Don Luis could only cleanse his honour by blood, he now had her heart's blood. That should suffice him. She grew happier as the days went on.
Meanwhile it was remarked upon by Mercédes and Dolores, and half a dozen more, that distinguished strangers came to the gallery of the chapel. The outlines of them could be descried through thegrille; for behind thegrillewas a great white window which threw them into high relief.
It was the fixed opinion of Mercédes and Dolores that Manuela had anovio.
It is true that Manvers had gone to the Chapel of the Recogidas to look for, or to look at, Manuela. This formed the one amusing episode in his week's round in Madrid, where otherwise he was extremely bored, and where he only remained to give Don Luis a chance of waging his war.
To be shot at in the street, or stabbed in the back as you are homing through the dusk are, to be sure, not everybody's amusements, and in an ordinary way they were not those of Mr. Manvers. But he found that his life gained a zest by being threatened with deprivation, and so long as that zest lasted he was willing to oblige Don Luis. The weather was insufferably hot, one could only be abroad early in the morning or late at night—both the perfection of seasons for the assassin's game.
Yet nothing very serious had occurred during the week following the declaration of war. Gil Perez could not find Tormillo, and had to declare that his suspicions of a Manchegan teamster, who had jostled his master in the Puerta del Sol and made as if to draw his knife, were without foundation. What satisfied him was that the Manchegan, that same evening, stabbed somebody else to death. "That show 'e is good fellow—too much after 'is enemy," said Gil Perez affably. So Manvers felt justified in his refusal to wear mail or carry either revolver or sword-stick; and by the end of the week he forgot that he was a marked man.
On Sunday he told Gil Perez that he intended to visit the Chapel of the Recogidas.
The rogue's face twinkled. "Good, sir, good. We go. I show you Manuela all-holy like a nun. I know whata she do. Look for 'eaven all day. That Chucha she tell me something—and theportero, 'e damgood fellow."
Resplendent in white duck trousers, Mr. Manvers was remarked upon by a purely native company of sightseers. Quick-eyed ladies in mantillas were there, making play with their fans and scent-bottles; attendant cavaliers found something of which to whisper in the cool-faced Englishman with his fair beard, blue eyes, and eye-glass, his air of detachment, which disguised his real feelings, and of readiness to be entertained, which they misinterpreted.
The facts were that he was painfully involved in Manuela's fate, and uncomfortably near being in love again with the lovely unfortunate. She was no longer a pretty thing to be kissed, no longer even a handsome murderess; she was become a heroine, a martyr, a thing enskied and sainted.
He had seen more than he had been meant to see during his ordeal in the Audiencia—her consciousness of himself, for instance, as revealed in that last dying look she had given him, that long look before she turned and followed her gaolers out of court. He guessed at her agonies of shame, he understood how it was that she had courted it; in fine, he knew very well that her heart was in his keeping—and that's a dangerous possession for a man already none too sure of the whereabouts of his own.
When the organ music thrilled and opened, and the Recogidas filed in—some hundred of them—his heart for a moment stood still, as he scanned them through the gloom. They were dressed exactly alike in dull clinging grey, all wore close-fitting white caps, were nearly all dead-white in the face. They all shuffled, as convicts do when they move close-ordered to their work afield.
It shocked him that he utterly failed to identify Manuela—and it brought him sharply to his better senses that Gil Perez saw her at once. "See her there, master, see there my beautiful," the man groaned under his breath, and Manvers looked where he pointed, and saw her; but now the glamour was gone. Gil was her declared lover. The Squire of Somerset could not stoop to be his valet's rival.
The Squire of Somerset, however, observed that she held herself more stiffly than her co-mates, and shuffled less. The prison garb clothed her like a weed; she had the trick of wearing clothes so that they draped the figure, not concealed it, were as wax upon it, not a cerement. That which fell shapeless and heavily from the shoulders of the others, upon her seemed to grow rather from the waist—to creep upwards over the shoulders, as ivy steals clinging over a statue in a park. Here, said he, is a maiden that cannot be hid. Call her a murderess, she remains perfect woman; call her convict, Magdalen, she is some man's solace. He looked: at Gil Perez, motionless and intent by his side, and heard his short breath: There is her mate, he thought to himself, and was saved.
They filed out as they had come in. They all stood, turned towards the exit, and waited until they were directed to move. Then they followed each other like sheep through a gateway, looking, so far as he could see, at nothing, expecting nothing, and remembering nothing. A down-trodden herd, he conceived them, their wits dulled by toil. He was not near enough to see the gleam which kept them alive. Nuns gave them their orders with authoritative hands, quick always, and callous by routine, probably not intended to be so harsh as they appeared. He saw one girl pushed forward by the shoulder with such suddenness that she nearly fell; another flinched at a passionate command; another scowled as she passed her mistress. He watched to see how Manuela, who had come in one of the first and must go out one of the last, would bear herself, and was relieved by a pretty and enheartening episode.
Manuela, as she passed, drew her hand along the top of the bench with a lingering, trailing touch. It encountered that of the nun in command, and he saw the nun's hand enclose and press the penitent's. He saw Manuela's look of gratitude, and the nun's smiling affection; he believed that Manuela blushed. That gratified him extremely, and enlarged his benevolent intention.
Had Gil Perez seen it? He thought not. Gil Perez' black eyes were fixed upon Manuela's form. They glittered like a cat's when he watches a bird in a shrubbery. The valet was quite unlike himself as he followed his master homewards and asked leave of absence for the evening—for the first time in his period of service. Manvers had no doubt at all how that evening was spent—in rapt attention below the barred windows of the House of the Recogidas.
That was so. Gil Perez "played the bear," as they call it, from dusk till the small hours—perfectly happy, in a rapture of adoration which the Squire of Somerset could never have realised. All the romance which, if we may believe Cervantes, once transfigured the life of Spain, and gilded the commonest acts till they seemed confident appeals for the applause of God, feats boldly done under Heaven's thronged barriers, is nowadays concentred in this one strange vigil which all lovers have to keep.
Gil Perez the quick, the admirable servant, the jaunty adventurer, the assured rogue, had vanished. Here he stood beneath the stars, breathing prayers and praises—not a little valet sighing for a convicted Magdalen, but a young knight keeping watch beneath his lady's tower. And he was not alone there: at due intervals along the frowning walls were posted other servants of the sleeping girls behind them; other knights at watch and ward.
The prayer he breathed was the prayer breathed too for Dolores or Mercédes in prison. "Virgin of Atocha, Virgin of the Pillar, Virgin of Sorrow, of Divine Compassion, send happy sleep to thy handmaid Manuela, shed the dew of thy love upon her eyelids, keep smooth her brows, keep innocent her lips. Dignify me, thy servant, Gil Perez, more than other men, that I may be worthy to sustain this high honour of love."
His eyes never wavered from a certain upper window. It was as blank as all the rest, differed in no way from any other of a row of five-and-twenty. To him if was the pride of the great building.
"O fortunate stars!" he whispered to himself, "that can look through these and see my love upon her bed. O rays too much blessed, that can kiss her eyelids, and touch lightly upon the scented strands of her hair! O breath of the night, that can fan in her white neck and stroke her arm stretched out over the coverlet! To you, night-wind, and to you, stars, I give an errand; you shall take a message from me to lovely Manuela of the golden tresses. Tell her that I am watching out the dark; tell her that no harm shall come to her. Whisper in her ear, mingle with her dreams, and tell her that she has a lover. Tell her also that the nights in Madrid are not like those in Valencia, and that she would do well to cover her arm and shoulder up lest she catch cold, and suffer."
There spoke the realist, the romantic realist of Spain; for it is to be observed that Gil Perez did not know at all whereabouts Manuela lay asleep, and could not, naturally, know whether her arm was out of bed or in it. He had forgotten also that her hair had been cut off—but these are trifles. Happy he! he had forgotten much more than that.
When Manvers told him that he intended to pay Manuela a visit on the day allowed, Gil Perez suffered the tortures of the damned. Jealous rage consumed his vitals like a corroding acid, which reason and loyalty had no power to assuage. Yet reason and loyalty played out their allotted parts, and it had been a fine sight to see Gil grinning and gibbering at his own white face in the looking-glass, shaking his finger at it and saying to it, in English (since it was his master's shaving-glass), "Gil Perez, my fellow, you shut up!" He said it many times, for he had nothing else to say—jealousy deprived him of his wits; and he felt better for the discipline. When Manvers returned there was no sign upon Gil's brisk person of the stormy conflict which had ravaged it.
Manvers had seen her and, by Sister Chucha's charity, had seen her alone. The poor girl had fallen at his feet and would have kissed them if he had not lifted her up. "No, my dear, no," he said; "it is I who ought to kneel. You have done wonders for me. You are as brave as a lion, Manuela; but I must get you away from this place."
"No, no, Don Osmundo," she cried, flushing up, "indeed I am better here." She stood before him, commanding herself, steeling herself in the presence of this man she loved against any hint of her beating heart.
He had himself well in hand. Her beauty, her distress and misfortune could not touch him now. All that he had for her was admiration and pure benevolence. Fatal offerings for a woman inflamed: so soon as she perceived it her courage was needed for another tussle. Her blood lay like lead in her veins, her heart sank to the deeps of her, and she must screw it back again to the work of the day.
He took her hand, and she let him have it. What could it matter now what he had of hers? "Manuela," he said, "there is a way of freedom for you, if you will take it. A man loves you truly, and asks nothing better than to work for you. I know him; he's been a good friend to me. Will you let me pay you off my debt? His name is Gil Perez. You have seen him, I know. He's an honest man, my dear, and loves you to distraction. What are you going to say to him if he asks for you?"
She stood, handfasted to the man who had kissed her—and in kissing her had drawn out her soul through her lips; who now was pleading that another man might have her dead lips. The mockery of the thing might have made a worse woman laugh horribly; but this was a woman made pure by love. She saw no mockery, no discrepancy in what he asked her. She knew he was in earnest and wished her nothing but good.
And she could see, without knowing that she saw, how much he desired to be rid of his obligation to her. Therefore, she reasoned, she would be serving him again if she agreed to what he proposed. Here—if laughing had been her mood—was matter for laughter, that when he tried to pay her off he was really getting deeper into debt. Look at it in this way. You owe a fine sum, principal and interest, to a Jew; you go to him and propose to borrow again of him in order that you may pay off the first debt and be done with it. The Jew might laugh but he would lend; and Manuela, who hoarded love, hugged to her heart the new bond she was offered. The deeper he went into debt the more she must lend him! There was pleasure in this—shrill pleasure not far off from pain; but she was a child of pleasure, and must take what she could get.
Her grave eyes, uncurtained, searched his face. "Is this what you desire me to do? Is this what you ask of me?"
"My dear," said he, "I desire your freedom. I desire to see you happy and cared for. I must go away. I must go home. I shall go more willingly if I know that I have provided for my friend."
She urged a half-hearted plea. "I am very well here, Don Osmundo. The sisters are kind to me, the work is light. I might be happy here——"
"What!" he cried, "in prison!"
"It is what I deserve," she said; but he would not hear of it.
"You are here through my blunders," he insisted. "If I hadn't left you with that scoundrel in the wood this would never have happened. And there's another thing which I must say——" He grew very serious. "I'm ashamed of myself—but I must say it." She looked at her hands in her lap, knowing what was coming.
"They said, you know, that Estéban must have thought me your lover." She sat as still as death. "Well—I was."
Not a word from her. "My dear," he went on painfully—for Eleanor Vernon's clear grey eyes were on him now, "I must tell you that I did what I had no business to do. There's a lady in England who—whom—I was carried away—I thought——" He stopped, truly shocked at what he had thought her to be. "Now that I know you, Manuela, I tell you fairly I behaved like a villain."
Her face was flung up like that of a spurred horse; she was on the point to reveal herself,—to tell him that in that act of his lay all her glory. But she stopped in time, and resumed her drooping, and her dejection. "I must serve him still—serve him always," was her burden.
"I was your lover truly," he continued, "after I knew what you had risked for me, what you had brought yourself to do for me. Not before that. Before that, I had been a thief—a brute. But after it, I loved you—and then I had your cross set in gold—and betrayed you into Don Luis' mad old hands. All this trouble is my fault—you are here through me—you must be got out through me. Gil Perez is a better man than I am ever likely to be. He loves you sincerely. He loved you before you gave yourself up. You know that, I expect..."
She knew it, of course, perfectly well, but she said nothing.
"He wouldn't wish to bustle you into marriage, or anything of the sort. He's a gentleman, is Gil Perez, and I shall see that he doesn't ask for you empty-handed. I am sure he can make you happy; and I tell you fairly that the only way I can be happy myself is to know that I have made you amends." He got up—at the end of his resources. "Let me leave his case before you. He'll plead it in his own way, you'll find. I can't help thinking that you must know what the state of his feelings is. Think of him as kindly as you can—and think of me, too, Manuela, as a man who has done you a great wrong, and wants to put himself right if he may." He held out his hand. "Good-bye, my dear. I'll see you again, I hope—or send a better man."
"Good-bye, Don Osmundo," she said, and gave him her hand. He pressed it and went away, feeling extremely satisfied with the hour's work. Eleanor Vernon's clear grey eyes smiled approvingly upon him. "Damn it all," he said to himself, "I've got that tangle out at last." He began to think of England—Somersetshire—Eleanor—partridges. "I shall get home, I hope, by the first," he said.
"He's a splendour, yournovio, Manuelita," said Sister Chucha, and emphasised her approval with a kiss. "Fie!" she cried, "what a cold cheek! The cheek of a dead woman. And you with ahidalgofor yournovio!"
Returning from his visit, climbing the Calle Mayor at that blankest hour of the summer day when the sun is at his fiercest, raging vertically down upon a street empty of folk, but glittering like glass and radiant with quivering air, Manvers was shot at from a distance, so far as he could judge, of thirty yards. He heard the ball go shrilling past him and then splash and flatten upon a church wall beyond. He turned quickly, but could see nothing. Not a sign of life was upon the broad way, not a curtain was lifted, not a shutter swung apart. To all intents and purposes he was upon the Castilian plains.
Unarmed though he was, he went back upon his traces down the hill, expecting at any moment that the assassin would flare out upon him and shoot him down at point-blank. He went back in all some fifty yards. There was no man in lurking that he could discover. After a few moments' irresolution—whether to stand or proceed—he decided that the sooner he was within walls the better. He turned again and walked briskly towards the Puerta del Sol.
Sixty yards or so from the greatplaza, within sight of it, he was fired at again, and this time he was hit in the muscles of the left arm. He felt the burning sting, the shock and the aching. The welling of blood was a blessed relief. On this occasion he pushed forward, and reached his inn without further trouble. He sent for Gil Perez, who whisked off for the surgeon; by the time he brought one in Manvers was feverish, and so remained until the morning, tossing and jerking through the fervent night, with his arm stiff from shoulder to finger-points.
"That a dam thief, sir, 'e count on you never looka back," said Gil Perez, nodding grimly. "Capitan Rodney, 'e all the same as you. Walka 'is blessed way, never taka no notice of anybody. See 'im at Sevastopol do lika that all the time. So then this assassin 'e creep after you lika one o'clock up Calle Mayor, leta fly at you twice, three time, four time—so longa you let 'im. You walka backward, 'e never shoot—you see."
Manvers felt that to walk backwards would be at least as tiresome as to walk forwards and be shot at in a city which now held little for him but danger andennui. Not even Manuela's fortunes could prevail against boredom. As he lay upon his hateful bed, disgust with Spain grew upon him hand over hand. He became irritable. To Gil Perez he announced his determination. This sort of thing must end.
Gil bowed and rubbed his hands. "You go 'ome, sir? Is besta place for you. Don Luis, 'e kill you for sure. You go, 'e go 'ome, esleep on 'is olda bed—too mucha satisfy." Under his breath he added, "Poor Manuela—my poor beautiful! She is tormented in vain!"
Manvers told him what had passed in the House of the Recogidas. "I spoke for you, Gil. I think she will listen to you."
Gil lifted up his head. "Every nighta, when you are asleep, sir, I estand under the wall. I toucha—I say 'Keep safa guard of Manuela, you wall.' If she 'ave me I maka 'er never sorry for it. I love 'er too much. But I think she call me dirt. I know all about 'er too much."
What he knew he kept hidden; but one day he went to the Recogidas and asked to see Sister Chucha. He was obsequious, but impassioned, full of cajolery, but not for a moment did he try to impose upon his countrywoman by any assumption of omniscience. That was reserved for his master, and was indeed a kind of compliment to his needs. Sister Chucha heard him at first with astonishment.
"Then it was for you, Gil Perez, that the gentleman came here?"
Gil nodded. "It was for me, sister. How could it be otherwise?"
"I thought that the gentleman was interested."
Gil peered closely into her face. "That gentleman is persecuted. Manuela can save him from the danger he stands in—but only through me. Sister, I love her more than life and the sky, but I am content, and she will be content, that life shall be dumb and the sky dark if that gentleman may go free. Let me speak with Manuela—you will see."
The nun was troubled. "Too many see Manuela," she said. "Only yesterday there came here a man."
"Ha!" said Gil Perez fiercely. "What manner of a man?"
"A little man," she told him, "that came in creeping, rounding his shoulders—so, and swimming with his hands. He saw Manuela, and left her trembling. She was white and grey—and very cold."
"That man," said Gil, folding his arms, "was our enemy. Let me now see Manuela."
It was more a command than an entreaty. Sister Chucha obeyed it. She went away without a word, and returned presently, leading Manuela by the hand. She brought her into the room, released her, and stood, watching and listening.
Eyes leaped to meet—Manuela was on fire, but Gil's fire ate up hers.
"Señorita, you have surrendered in vain. These men must have blood for blood. The patron lies wounded, and will die unless we save him. Señorita, you are willing, and I am willing—speak."
She regarded him steadily. "You know that I am willing, Gil Perez."
"It was Tormillo you saw yesterday?"
"Yes, Tormillo—like a toad."
"He was sent to mock you in your pain. He is a fool. We will show him a fool in his own likeness. Are you content to die?"
"You know that I am content."
He turned to the nun. "Sister Chucha, you will let this lady go. She goes out to die—I, who love her, am content that she should die. If she dies not, she returns here. If she dies, you will not ask for her."
The sister stared. "What do you mean, you two? How is she to die? When? Where?"
"She is to die under the knife of Don Luis," said Gil Perez. "And I am to lay her there."
"You, my friend! And what have you to do with Don Luis and his affairs?"
"Manuela is young," said Gil, "and loves her life. I am young, and love Manuela more than life. If I take her to Don Luis and say, 'Kill her, Señor Don Luis, and in that act kill me also,' I think he will be satisfied. I can see no other way of saving the life of Don Osmundo."
"And what do you ask me to do?" the nun asked presently.
"I ask you to give me Manuela presently for one hour or for eternity. If Don Luis rejects her, I bring her back to you here—on the word of an old Christian. If he takes her, she goes directly to God, where you would have her be. Sister Chucha," said Gil Perez finely, "I am persuaded that you will help us."
Sister Chucha looked at her hands—fat and very white hands. "You ask me to do a great deal—to incur a great danger—for a gentleman who is nothing to me."
"He is everything to Manuela," said Gil softly. "That you know."
"And you, Gil Perez—what is he to you?" This was Sister Chucha's sharpest. Gil took it with a blink.
"He is my master—that is something. He is more to Manuela. And she is everything to me. Sister, you may trust me with her."
The nun turned from him to the motionless beauty by her side.
"You, my child, what do you say to this project? Shall I let you go?"
Manuela wavered a little. She swayed about and balanced herself with her hands. But she quickly recovered.
"Sister Chucha," she said, "let me go." The soft green light from her eyes spoke for her.
By moonlight, in the sheeted park, four persons met to do battle for the life of Mr. Manvers, while he lay grumbling and burning in his bed, behind the curtains of it. Don Luis Ramonez was there, the first to come—tall and gaunt, with undying pride in his hollow eyes, like a spectre of rancour kept out of the grave. Behind him Tormillo came creeping, a little restless man, dogging his master's footsteps, watching for word or sign from him. These two stood by the lake in the huge empty park, still under its shroud of white moonlight.
Don Luis picked up the corner of his cloak and threw it over his left shoulder. He stalked stately up and down the arc of a circle which a stone seat defined. Tormillo sat upon the edge of the seat, his elbows on his knees, and looked at the ground. But he kept his master in the tail of his eye. Now and again, furtively, but as if he loved what he feared, he put his hand into his breast and felt the edge of his long knife.
Once indeed, when Don Luis on his sentry-march had his back to him, he drew out the blade and turned it under the moon, watching the cold light shiver and flash up along it and down. Not fleck or flaw was upon it; it showed the moon whole within its face. This pair, each absorbed in his own business, waited for the other.
Tormillo saw them coming, and marked it by rising from his seat. He peered along the edge of the water to be sure, then he went noiselessly towards them, looking back often over his shoulder at Don Luis. But his master did not seem to be aware of anyone. He stood still, looking over the gloomy lake.
Tormillo, having gone half way, waited. Gil Perez hailed him. "Is that you, Tormillo?" The muffled figure of a girl by his side gave no sign.
"It is I, Gil Perez. Be not afraid."
"If I were afraid of anything, I should not be here. I have brought Manuela of her own will."
"Good," said Tormillo. "Give her to me. We will go to Don Luis."
"Yes, you shall take her. I will remain here. Señorita, will you go with him?"
Manuela said, "I am ready."
Tormillo turned his face away, and Gil Perez with passion whispered to Manuela.
"My soul, my life, Manuela! One sign from you, and I kill him!"
he turned him her rapt face. "Nosign from me, brother—no sign from me."
"My life," sighed Gil Perez. "Soul of my soul!" She held him out her hand.
"Pray for me," she said. He snatched at her hand, knelt on his knee, stooped over it, and then, jumping up, flung himself from her.
"Take her you, Tormillo."
Tormillo took her by the hand, and they went together towards the semicircular seat, in whose centre stood Don Luis like a black statue. Soft-footed went she, swaying a little, like a gossamer caught in a light wind. Don Luis half-turned, and saluted her.
"Master," said Tormillo, "Manuela is here." As if she were a figure to be displayed he lightly threw back her veil. Manuela stood still and bowed her head to the uncovered gentleman.
"I am ready, señor Don Luis," she said. He came nearer, watching her, saying nothing.
"I killed Don Bartolomé, your son," she said, "because I feared him. He told me that he had come to kill me; but I was beforehand with him there. It is true that I loved Don Osmundo, who had been kind to me."
"You killed my son," said Don Luis, "and you loved the Englishman."
"I own the truth," she said, "and am ready to requite you. I thought to have satisfied you by giving myself up—but you have shown me that that was not enough. Now then I give you myself of my own will, if you will let Don Osmundo go free. Will you make a bargain with me? He knew nothing of Don Bartolomé, your son."
Don Luis bowed. Manuela turned her head slowly about to the still trees, to the sleeping water, to the moon in the clear sky, as if to greet the earth for the last time. For one moment her eyes fell on Gil Perez afar off—on his knees with his hands raised to heaven.
"I am ready," she said again, and bowed her head. Tormillo put into Don Luis' hands the long knife. Don Luis threw it out far into the lake. It fled like a streak of light, struck, skimmed along the surface, and sank without a splash. He went to Manuela and put his hand on her shoulder. She quivered at his touch.
"My child," said he, "I cannot touch you. You have redeemed yourself. Go now, and sin no more."
He left her and went his way, stately, along the edge of the water. He stalked past Gil Perez at his prayers as if he saw him not—as may well be the case. But Gil Perez got upon his feet as he went by and saluted him with profound respect.
Immediately afterwards he went like the wind to Manuela. He found her crying freely on the stone seat, her arms upon the back of it and her face hidden in her arms She wept with passion; her sobs were pitiful to hear. Tormillo, not at all moved, waited for Gil Perez.
"Esa te quiere bien que te hace llorar," he said: "She loves thee well, that makes thee weep."
"I weep not," said Gil Perez; "it is she that weeps. As for me, I praise God."
"Aha, Gil Perez," Tormillo began—then he chuckled. "For you, my friend, there's still sunlight on the wall."
Gil nodded. "I believe it." Then he looked fiercely at the other man. "Go you with God, Tormillo, and leave me with her."
Tormillo stared, spat on the ground. "No need of your 'chuck chuck' to an old dog. I go, Gil Perez.Adios, hermano."
Gil Perez sat on the stone seat, and drew Manuela's head to his shoulder. She suffered him.