His Unknown Wife by Louis Tracy (little readers .TXT) 📕

“The señor signified that he would return soon,” said the jailer.

“He’s gone for the clothes!” mused Maseden, his thoughts promptly reverting to the fantastic marriage project. “The sly old fox is devilish anxious to get me spliced before my number goes up. I wonder why? And where in the world will he raise a suitable rig? Hang it all, I wish I had a little longer to live. This business becomes more interesting every minute!”

Though he was sure the attempt would be hopeless, Maseden resolved to make one last effort. He looked the half-caste squarely in the face.

“Get me out of this before Señor Steinbaum comes back and I’ll give you twenty thousand dollars gold,” he said quietly.

The man met his glance without flinching.

“I could not help you, señor, if you paid me a million dollars,” he answered. “It is your life or mine-those are my orders. And it is useless to think of attacking me,” he added, because for one moment black despair scowled menacingly from Maseden’s strong features. “There are ten men at each door of the corridor ready to shoot you at the least sign of any attempt to escape.”

“The preparations for the wedding are fairly complete, then?”

Maseden spoke Spanish fluently, and the half-caste grinned at the joke.

“It will soon be over, señor,” was all he could find to say.

The condemned man knew that the fellow was not to be bribed at the cost of his own life. He turned again and grew interested once more in the shaft of sunlight. How quickly it moved! He calculated that before it reached a certain crack in the masonry he would have passed into “yesterday’s seven thousand years.”

It was not a pleasing conceit. In self-defense, as it were, he bent his wits on to the proposed marriage. He was half inclined to regret the chivalrous impulse which spurred him to agree to it. Yet there was a spice of humor in the fact that a man who was regarded as an inveterate woman-hater by the dusky young ladies of San Juan should be led to the altar literally at the eleventh hour.

What manner of woman could this unknown bride be? What motive swayed her? Perhaps it was better not to ask. But if the knot were tied by a priest, a notary and a European financier, it was evidently intended to be a valid undertaking.

And why was Steinbaum so interested? Was the would-be Mrs. Maseden so well endowed with this world’s goods that she spared no expense in attaining her object?

The most contrary emotions surged through Maseden’s conscience. He was by turns curious, sympathetic, suspicious, absurdly eager to learn more.

In this last mood he resolved to have one straight look at the lady. Surely a man was entitled to see his bride’s face! Yes, come what might, he would insist that she must raise the “thick, white veil” which had hitherto screened her features from Steinbaum’s goggle eyes—supposing, that is, the rascal had told the truth.

A hinge creaked, and the half-caste announced that the señor was returning. In a few seconds Steinbaum panted in. He was carrying a gorgeous uniform of sky-blue cloth with facings of silver braid. As he dumped a pair of brilliant patent-leather top-boots on the stone floor a glittering helmet fell from among the clothes and rolled to Maseden’s feet.

“See here, Steinbaum, what tomfoolery is this?” cried the American wrathfully.

“It is your tomfoolery, not mine,” came the heated retort. “Where am I to get a suit of clothes for you? These will fit, I think. I borrowed them from the President’s aide-de-camp, Captain Ferdinando Gomez.”

Maseden knew Captain Gomez-a South American dandy of the first water. For the moment the ludicrous side of the business banished all other considerations.

“What!” he laughed, “am I to be married in the giddy rig of the biggest ass in Cartagena? Well, I give in. As I’m to be shot at eight, Ferdinando’s fine feathers will be in a sad mess, because I’ll not take ‘em off again unless I’m undressed forcibly. Good Lord! Does my unknown bride realize what sort of rare bird she’s going to espouse?…

“Yes, yes, we’re losing time. Chuck over those pants. Gomez is not quite my height, but his togs may be 0. K.”

As a matter of fact, Philip Alexander Maseden looked a very fine figure of a man when arrayed in all the glory of the presidential aide-decamp. The only trouble was that the elegant top-boots were confoundedly tight, being, in truth, a size too small for their vain owner; but the bridegroom-elect put up with this inconvenience.

He had not far to walk. A few steps to the right lay the “great hall” in which, according to Steinbaum, the ceremony would take place. Very little farther to the left was the enclosedpatio, or courtyard, in which he would be shot within thirty minutes!

“I’m dashed if I feel a bit like dying,” he said, as he strode by Steinbaum’s side along the outer corridor. “If the time was about fourteen hours later I might imagine I was going to a fancy dress ball, though I wouldn’t be able to dance much in these confounded boots.”

The stout financier made no reply. He was singularly ill at ease. Any critical onlooker, not cognizant of the facts, would take him and not Maseden to be the man condemned to death.

A heavy, iron-clamped door leading to the row of cells was wide open. Some soldiers, lined up close to it in the hall, were craning their necks to catch a first glimpse of the Americano who was about to marry and die in the same breath, so to speak.

Beyond, near a table in the center of the spacious chamber, stood a group that arrested the eye-a Spanish priest, in vestments of semi-state; an olive-skinned man whom Maseden recognized as a legal practitioner of fair repute in a community where chicanery flourished, and a slenderly-built woman of middle height, though taller than either of her companions, whose stylish coat and skirt of thin, gray cloth, and smart shoes tied with little bows of black ribbon, were strangely incongruous with the black lace mantilla which draped her head and shoulders, and held in position a double veil tied firmly beneath her chin.

Maseden was so astonished at discovering the identity of the lawyer that he momentarily lost interest in the mysterious woman who would soon be his wife.

“Señor Porilla!” he cried. “I am glad you are here. Do you understand—”

“It is forbidden!” hissed Steinbaum. “One more word, and back you go to your cell!”

“Oh, is that part of the compact?” said Maseden cheerfully. “Well, well! We must not make matters unpleasant for a lady—must we, Steinbaum?… Now, madam, raise your veil, and let me at least have the honor of knowing what sort of person the future Mrs. Philip Alexander Maseden will be!”

The only answer was a stifled but quite audible sob, and Maseden had an impression that the lady might put a summary stop to the proceedings by fainting.

Steinbaum, however, had recovered his nerve in the stronger light of the great hall, especially since the soldiers had gathered around.

“The senora declines to unveil,” he growled in Spanish. “Begin, padre! There is not a moment to spare.”

The ecclesiastic opened a book and plunged forthwith into the marriage service. Maseden was aware that the shrinking figure by his side was trembling violently, and a wave of pity for her surged through his heart.

“Cheer up!” he whispered. “It’s only a matter of form, anyhow; and I’m glad to be able to help you. I don’t care a red cent what your motive is.”

Steinbaum gurgled ominously, and the bridegroom said no more. Clearly, though he had given no bond, he was imperiling the fulfillment of this unhappy girl’s desire if he talked.

But he kept his wits alert. It was evident that the lady understood little Latin and no Spanish. She was quite unable to follow the sonorous phrases. When the portly priest, who seemed to have small relish for the part he was compelled to play in this amazing marriage, asked Maseden if he would have “this woman” to be his wedded wife, the bridegroom answered “Yes,” in Spanish; but a similar question addressed to the bride found her dumb.

“Say ‘I will,’ “murmured Maseden in her ear.

She turned slightly. At that instant their heads came close together, and the long, unfamiliar fragrance of a woman’s well-tended hair reached him.

It had an extraordinary effect. Memories of his mother, of a simple old-world dwelling in aVermont village, rushed in on him with an almost overwhelming force.

His superb self-possession nearly gave way. He felt that he might break down under the intolerable strain.

He feared, during a few seconds of anguish, that he might reveal his heartache to these men of inferior races.

Then the pride of a regal birthright came to his aid, and a species of most vivid and poignant consciousness succeeded. He heard Steinbaum’s gruff sponsorship for the bride, obeyed smilingly when told to take her right hand in his right hand, and looked with singular intentness at the long, straight, artistic fingers which he held.

It was a beautifully modeled hand, well kept, but cold and tremulous. The queer conceit leaped up in him that though he might never look on the face of his wedded wife he would know that hand if they met again only at the Judgment Seat!

Then, in a dazed way which impressed the onlookers as the height of American nonchalance, he said, after the celebrant: “I, Philip Alexander, take thee, Madeleine—”

Madeleine! So that was the Christian name of the woman whom he was taking “till death do us part,” for the Spanish liturgy provided almost an exact equivalent of the English service. Madeleine! He had never even known any girl of the name. Somehow, he liked it. Outwardly so calm, he was inwardly aflame with a new longing for life and all that life meant.

His jumbled wits were peremptorily recalled to the demands of the moment by the would-be bride’s failure to repeat her share of the marriage vow, when it became her turn to take Maseden’s hand.

The priest nodded, and Steinbaum, now carrying himself with a certain truculence, essayed to lead the girl’s faltering tongue through the Spanish phrases.

“The lady must understand what she is saying,” broke in Maseden, dominating the gruff man by sheer force of will.

“Now,” he said, and his voice grew gentle as he turned to the woman he had just promised “to have and to hold,” “to love and cherish,” and thereto plighted his troth-“when the priest pauses, I will translate, and you must speak the words aloud.”

He listened, in a waking trance, to the clear, well-bred accents of a woman of his own people uttering the binding pledge of matrimony. The Spanish sentences recalled the English version, which he supplied with singular accuracy, seeing that he had only attended two weddings previously, and those during his boyhood.

“Madeleine”-he would learn her surname when he signed the register-was obviously hard pressed to retain her senses till the end. She was sobbing pitifully, and the knowledge that her distress was induced by the fate immediately in store for the man whom she was espousing “by God’s holy ordinance” tested Maseden’s steel nerve to the very limit of endurance.

But he held on with that tenacious chivalry which is the finest characteristic of his class, and even smiled at Steinbaum’s fumbling in a waistcoat pocket for a ring. He was putting the ring on the fourth finger of his wife’s left hand and pronouncing the last formula of the ceremony, when he caught an agonized whisper:

“Please,