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

curse of us, the weight which is crushing out the very life of Spain. No man dares speak. No man dares trust his neighbor, no, not his child, or the wife of his bosom. It avails nothing to be a good Catholic, as I trust I am,” and he crossed himself, “when any villain whom you may offend, any unnatural son or wife who wishes to be rid of you, has but to hint heresy against you, and you vanish into the Holy Office—and then God have mercy on you, for man has none. Noble ladies of my family, sir, have vanished thither, carried off by night, we know not why; we dare not ask why. To expostulate, even to inquire, would have been to share their fate. There is one now, senor— Heaven alone knows whether she is alive or dead!—It was nine years since, and we have never heard; and we shall never hear.”

And the commandant’s face worked frightfully.

“She was my sister, senor!”

“Heavens! sir, and have you not avenged her?”

“On churchmen, senor, and I a Catholic? To be burned at the stake in this life, and after that to all eternity beside? Even a Spaniard dare not face that. Beside, sir, the mob like this Inquisition, and an Auto-da-fe is even better sport to them than a bull-fight. They would be the first to tear a man in pieces who dare touch an Inquisitor. Sir, may all the saints in heaven obtain me forgiveness for my blasphemy, but when I saw you just now fearing those churchmen no more than you feared me, I longed, sinner that I am, to be a heretic like you.”

“It will not take long to make a brave and wise gentleman who has suffered such things as you have, a heretic, as you call it—a free Christian man, as we call it.”

“Tempt me not, sir!” said the poor man, crossing himself fervently. “Let us say no more. Obedience is my duty; and for the rest the Church must decide, according to her infallible authority—for I am a good Catholic, senor, the best of Catholics, though a great sinner.—I trust no one has overheard us!”

Amyas left him with a smile of pity, and went to look for Lucy Passmore, whom the sailors were nursing and feeding, while Ayacanora watched them with a puzzled face.

“I will talk to you when you are better, Lucy,” said he, taking her hand. “Now you must eat and drink, and forget all among us lads of Devon.”

“Oh, dear blessed sir, and you will send Sir John to pray with me? For I turned, sir, I turned: but I could not help it—I could not abear the torments: but she bore them, sweet angel—and more than I did. Oh, dear me!”

“Lucy, I am not fit now to hear more. You shall tell me all tomorrow;” and he turned away.

“Why do you take her hand?” said Ayacanora, half-scornfully. “She is old, and ugly, and dirty.”

“She is an Englishwoman, child, and a martyr, poor thing; and I would nurse her as I would my own mother.”

“Why don’t you make me an Englishwoman, and a martyr? I could learn how to do anything that that old hag could do!”

“Instead of calling her names, go and tend her; that would be much fitter work for a woman than fighting among men.”

Ayacanora darted from him, thrust the sailors aside, and took possession of Lucy Passmore.

“Where shall I put her?” asked she of Amyas, without looking up.

“In the best cabin; and let her be served like a queen, lads.”

“No one shall touch her but me;” and taking up the withered frame in her arms, as if it were a doll, Ayacanora walked off with her in triumph, telling the men to go and mind the ship.

“The girl is mad,” said one.

“Mad or not, she has an eye to our captain,” said another.

“And where’s the man that would behave to the poor wild thing as he does?”

“Sir Francis Drake would, from whom he got his lesson. Do you mind his putting the negro lass ashore after he found out about—”

“Hush! Bygones be bygones, and those that did it are in their graves long ago. But it was too hard of him on the poor thing.”

“If he had not got rid of her, there would have been more throats than one cut about the lass, that’s all I know,” said another; “and so there would have been about this one before now, if the captain wasn’t a born angel out of heaven, and the lieutenant no less.”

“Well, I suppose we may get a whet by now. I wonder if these Dons have any beer aboard.”

“Naught but grape vinegar, which fools call wine, I’ll warrant.”

“There was better than vinegar on the table in there just now.”

“Ah,” said one grumbler of true English breed, “but that’s not for poor fellows like we.”

“Don’t lie, Tom Evans; you never were given that way yet, and I don’t think the trade will suit a good fellow like you.”

The whole party stared; for the speaker of these words was none other than Amyas himself, who had rejoined them, a bottle in each hand.

“No, Tom Evans. It has been share and share alike for three years, and bravely you have all held up, and share alike it shall be now, and here’s the handsel of it. We’ll serve out the good wine fairly all round as long as it lasts, and then take to the bad: but mind you don’t get drunk, my sons, for we are much too short of hands to have any stout fellows lying about the scuppers.”

But what was the story of the intendant’s being murdered? Brimblecombe had seen him run into a neighboring cabin; and when the door of it was opened, there was the culprit, but dead and cold, with a deep knife-wound in his side. Who could have done the deed? It must have been Tita, whom Brimblecombe had seen loose, and trying to free her lover.

The ship was searched from stem to stern: but no Tita. The mystery was never explained. That she had leapt overboard, and tried to swim ashore, none doubted: but whether she had reached it, who could tell? One thing was strange; that not only had she carried off no treasure with her, but that the gold ornaments which she had worn the night before, lay together in a heap on the table, close by the murdered man. Had she wished to rid herself of everything which had belonged to her tyrants?

The commandant heard the whole story thoughtfully.

“Wretched man!” said he, “and he has a wife and children in Seville.”

“A wife and children?” said Amyas; “and I heard him promise marriage to the Indian girl.”

That was the only hint which gave a reason for his death. What if, in the terror of discovery and capture, the scoundrel had dropped any self-condemning words about his marriage, any prayer for those whom he had left behind, and the Indian had overheard them? It might be so; at least sin had brought its own punishment.

And so that wild night and day subsided. The prisoners were kindly used enough; for the Englishman, free from any petty love of tormenting, knows no mean between killing a foe outright, and treating him as a brother; and when, two days afterwards, they were sent ashore in the canoes off Cabo Velo, captives and captors shook hands all round; and Amyas, after returning the commandant his sword, and presenting him with a case of the bishop’s wine, bowed him courteously over the side.

“I trust that you will pay us another visit, valiant senor capitan,” said the Spaniard, bowing and smiling.

“I should most gladly accept your invitation, illustrious senor commandant; but as I have vowed henceforth, whenever I shall meet a Spaniard, neither to give nor take quarter, I trust that our paths to glory may lie in different directions.”

The commandant shrugged his shoulders; the ship was put again before the wind, and as the shores of the Main faded lower and dimmer behind her, a mighty cheer broke from all on board; and for once the cry from every mouth was Eastward-ho!

Scrap by scrap, as weakness and confusion of intellect permitted her, Lucy Passmore told her story. It was a simple one after all, and Amyas might almost have guessed it for himself. Rose had not yielded to the Spaniard without a struggle. He had visited her two or three times at Lucy’s house (how he found out Lucy’s existence she herself could never tell, unless from the Jesuits) before she agreed to go with him. He had gained Lucy to his side by huge promises of Indian gold; and, in fine, they had gone to Lundy, where the lovers were married by a priest, who was none other, Lucy would swear, than the shorter and stouter of the two who had carried off her husband and his boat—in a word, Father Parsons.

Amyas gnashed his teeth at the thought that he had had Parsons in his power at Brenttor down, and let him go. It was a fresh proof to him that Heaven’s vengeance was upon him for letting one of its enemies escape. Though what good to Rose or Frank the hanging of Parsons would have been, I, for my part, cannot see.

But when had Eustace been at Lundy? Lucy could throw no light on that matter. It was evidently some by-thread in the huge spider’s web of Jesuit intrigue, which was, perhaps, not worth knowing after all.

They sailed from Lundy in a Portugal ship, were at Lisbon a few days (during which Rose and Lucy remained on board), and then away for the West Indies; while all went merry as a marriage bell. “Sir, he would have kissed the dust off her dear feet, till that evil eye of Mr. Eustace’s came, no one knew how or whence.” And, from that time, all went wrong. Eustace got power over Don Guzman, whether by threatening that the marriage should be dissolved, whether by working on his superstitious scruples about leaving his wife still a heretic, or whether (and this last Lucy much suspected) by insinuations that her heart was still at home in England, and that she was longing for Amyas and his ship to come and take her home again; the house soon became a den of misery, and Eustace the presiding evil genius. Don Guzman had even commanded him to leave it—and he went; but, somehow, within a week he was there again, in greater favor than ever. Then came preparations to meet the English, and high words about it between Don Guzman and Rose; till a few days before Amyas’s arrival, the Don had dashed out of the house in a fury, saying openly that she preferred these Lutheran dogs to him, and that he would have their hearts’ blood first, and hers after.

The rest was soon told. Amyas knew but too much of it already. The very morning after he had gone up to the villa, Lucy and her mistress were taken (they knew not by whom) down to the quay, in the name of the Holy Office, and shipped off to Cartagena.

There they were examined, and confronted on a charge of witchcraft, which the wretched Lucy could not well deny. She was tortured to make her inculpate Rose; and what she said, or did not say, under the torture, the poor wretch could never tell. She recanted, and became a Romanist; Rose remained firm. Three weeks afterwards, they were brought out to an Auto-da-fe; and there, for the first time, Lucy saw Frank walking, dressed in a San Benito, in that ghastly procession. Lucy was adjudged to receive