Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley (christmas read aloud .txt) 📕

“Well,” said the colonel, “they had the law of us, the cunning rascals, for we forgot to mention anything but the town, in the agreement. Who would have dreamed of such a fetch as that?”

“So I told my good friend the prior, when he came to me to borrow the thousand crowns. It was Heaven’s will. Unexpected like the thunderbolt, and to be borne as such. Every man must bear his own burden. How could I lend him aught?”

“Your holiness’s money had been all carried off by them before,” said the intendant, who knew, and none better, the exact contrary.

“Just so—all my scanty savings! desolate in my lone old age. Ah, senors, had we not had warning of the coming of these wretches from my dear friend the Marquess of Santa Cruz, whom I remember daily in my prayers, we had been like to them who go down quick into the pit. I too might have saved a trifle, had I been minded: but in thinking too much of others, I forgot myself, alas!”

“Warning or none, we had no right to be beaten by such a handful,” said the sea-captain; “and a shame it is, and a shame it will be, for many a day to come.”

“Do you mean to cast any slur, sir, upon the courage and conduct of his Catholic majesty’s soldiers?” asked the colonel.

“I?—No; but we were foully beaten, and that behind our barricades too, and there’s the plain truth.”

“Beaten, sir! Do you apply such a term to the fortunes of war? What more could our governor have done? Had we not the ways filled with poisoned caltrops, guarded by Indian archers, barred with butts full of earth, raked with culverins and arquebuses? What familiar spirit had we, sir, to tell us that these villains would come along the sea-beach, and not by the highroad, like Christian men?”

“Ah!” said the bishop, “it was by intuition diabolic, I doubt not, that they took that way. Satanas must need help those who serve him; and for my part, I can only attribute (I would the captain here had piety enough to do so) the misfortune which occurred to art-magic. I believe these men to have been possessed by all fiends whatsoever.”

“Well, your holiness,” said the colonel, “there may have been devilry in it; how else would men have dared to run right into the mouths of our cannon, fire their shot against our very noses, and tumble harmless over those huge butts of earth?”

“Doubtless by force of the fiends which raged with them,” interposed the bishop.

“And then, with their blasphemous cries, leap upon us with sword and pike? I myself saw that Lieutenant-General Carlisle hew down with one stroke that noble young gentleman the ensign-bearer, your excellency’s sister’s son’s nephew, though he was armed cap-a-pie. Was not art-magic here? And that most furious and blaspheming Lutheran Captain Young, I saw how he caught our general by the head, after the illustrious Don Alonzo had given him a grievous wound, threw him to the earth, and so took him. Was not art-magic here?”

“Well, I say,” said the captain, “if you are looking for art-magic, what say you to their marching through the flank fire of our galleys, with eleven pieces of ordnance, and two hundred shot playing on them, as if it had been a mosquito swarm? Some said my men fired too high: but that was the English rascals’ doing, for they got down on the tide beach. But, senor commandant, though Satan may have taught them that trick, was it he that taught them to carry pikes a foot longer than yours?”

“Ah, well,” said the bishop, “sacked are we; and San Domingo, as I hear, in worse case than we are; and St. Augustine in Florida likewise; and all that is left for a poor priest like me is to return to Spain, and see whether the pious clemency of his majesty, and of the universal Father, may not be willing to grant some small relief or bounty to the poor of Mary—perhaps—(for who knows?) to translate to a sphere of more peaceful labor one who is now old, senors, and weary with many toils—Tita! fill our glasses. I have saved somewhat—as you may have done, senors, from the general wreck; and for the flock, when I am no more, illustrious senors, Heaven’s mercies are infinite; new cities will rise from the ashes of the old, new mines pour forth their treasures into the sanctified laps of the faithful, and new Indians flock toward the life-giving standard of the Cross, to put on the easy yoke and light burden of the Church, and—”

“And where shall I be then? Ah, where? Fain would I rest, and fain depart. Tita! sling my hammock. Senors, you will excuse age and infirmities. Fray Gerundio, go to bed!”

And the Dons rose to depart, while the bishop went on maundering,—

“Farewell! Life is short. Ah! we shall meet in heaven at last. And there are really no more pearls?”

“Not a frail; nor gold either,” said the intendant.

“Ah, well! Better a dinner of herbs where love is, than—Tita!”

“My breviary—ah! Man’s gratitude is short-lived, I had hoped— You have seen nothing of the Senora Bovadilla?”

“No.”

“Ah! she promised:—but no matter—a little trifle as a keepsake—a gold cross, or an emerald ring, or what not—I forget. And what have I to do with worldly wealth!—Ah! Tita! bring me the casket.”

And when his guests were gone, the old man began mumbling prayers out of his breviary, and fingering over jewels and gold, with the dull greedy eyes of covetous old age.

“Ah!—it may buy the red hat yet!—Omnia Romae venalia! Put it by, Tita, and do not look at it too much, child. Enter not into temptation. The love of money is the root of all evil; and Heaven, in love for the Indian, has made him poor in this world, that he may be rich in faith. Ah!—Ugh!—So!”

And the old miser clambered into his hammock. Tita drew the mosquito net over him, wrapt another round her own head, and slept, or seemed to sleep; for she coiled herself up upon the floor, and master and slave soon snored a merry bass to the treble of the mosquitoes.

It was long past midnight, and the moon was down. The sentinels, who had tramped and challenged overhead till they thought their officers were sound asleep, had slipped out of the unwholesome rays of the planet to seek that health and peace which they considered their right, and slept as soundly as the bishop’s self.

Two long lines glided out from behind the isolated rocks of the Morro Grande, which bounded the bay some five hundred yards astern of the galleon. They were almost invisible on the glittering surface of the water, being perfectly white; and, had a sentinel been looking out, he could only have descried them by the phosphorescent flashes along their sides.

Now the bishop had awoke, and turned himself over uneasily; for the wine was dying out within him, and his shoulders had slipped down, and his heels up, and his head ached! so he sat upright in his hammock, looked out upon the bay, and called Tita.

“Put another pillow under my head, child! What is that? a fish?”

Tita looked. She did not think it was a fish: but she did not choose to say so; for it might have produced an argument, and she had her reasons for not keeping his holiness awake.

The bishop looked again; settled that it must be a white whale, or shark, or other monster of the deep; crossed himself, prayed for a safe voyage, and snored once more.

Presently the cabin-door opened gently, and the head of the senor intendant appeared.

Tita sat up; and then began crawling like a snake along the floor, among the chairs and tables, by the light of the cabin lamp.

“Is he asleep?”

“Yes: but the casket is under his head.”

“Curse him! How shall we take it?”

“I brought him a fresh pillow half-an-hour ago; I hung his hammock wrong on purpose that he might want one. I thought to slip the box away as I did it; but the old ox nursed it in both hands all the while.”

“What shall we do, in the name of all the fiends? She sails tomorrow morning, and then all is lost.”

Tita showed her white teeth, and touched the dagger which hung by the intendant’s side.

“I dare not!” said the rascal, with a shudder.

“I dare!” said she. “He whipt my mother, because she would not give me up to him to be taught in his schools, when she went to the mines. And she went to the mines, and died there in three months. I saw her go, with a chain round her neck; but she never came back again. Yes; I dare kill him! I will kill him! I will!”

The senor felt his mind much relieved. He had no wish, of course, to commit the murder himself; for he was a good Catholic, and feared the devil. But Tita was an Indian, and her being lost did not matter so much. Indians’ souls were cheap, like their bodies. So he answered, “But we shall be discovered!”

“I will leap out of the window with the casket, and swim ashore. They will never suspect you, and they will fancy I am drowned.”

“The sharks may seize you, Tita. You had better give me the casket.”

Tita smiled. “You would not like to lose that, eh? though you care little about losing me. And yet you told me that you loved me!”

“And I do love you, Tita! light of my eyes! life of my heart! I swear, by all the saints, I love you. I will marry you, I swear I will—I will swear on the crucifix, if you like!”

“Swear, then, or I do not give you the casket,” said she, holding out the little crucifix round her neck, and devouring him with the wild eyes of passionate unreasoning tropic love.

He swore, trembling, and deadly pale.

“Give me your dagger.”

“No, not mine. It may be found. I shall be suspected. What if my sheath were seen to be empty?”

“Your knife will do. His throat is soft enough.”

And she glided stealthily as a cat toward the hammock, while her cowardly companion stood shivering at the other end of the cabin, and turned his back to her, that he might not see the deed.

He stood waiting, one minute—two—five? Was it an hour, rather? A cold sweat bathed his limbs; the blood beat so fiercely within his temples, that his head rang again. Was that a death-bell tolling? No; it was the pulses of his brain. Impossible, surely, a death-bell. Whence could it come?

There was a struggle—ah! she was about it now; a stifled cry—Ah! he had dreaded that most of all, to hear the old man cry. Would there be much blood? He hoped not. Another struggle, and Tita’s voice, apparently muffled, called for help.

“I cannot help you. Mother of Mercies! I dare not help you!” hissed he. “She-devil! you have begun it, and you must finish it yourself!”

A heavy arm from behind clasped his throat. The bishop had broken loose from her and seized him! Or was it his ghost? or a fiend come to drag him down to the pit? And forgetting all but mere wild terror, he opened his lips for a scream, which would have wakened every soul on board. But a handkerchief was thrust into his mouth and in another minute he found himself bound hand and foot, and laid upon the table by a gigantic enemy. The cabin was full of armed men, two of whom were lashing up