CHAPTER XXI.
“MY LORD OF ALVA!”
Unknowing Doña de Alva’s plans for his welfare, her sweetheart, like prudent man, goes about getting together the little fortune with which he intends to begin housekeeping; and next morning in Antwerp remains on his vessel taking charge of the storage and tallying the bags of gold that a few hours before belonged to his future father-in-law and now are his.
These come on board packed securely in wool and done up in the sailors’ bedding, and were it not for their weight, would seem very much like what they pretend to be; however, they are all handled by Chester’s own crew, and the heavier the sack the better pleased is the seaman who carries it. In truth, it is only by the sternest command and threatening to kill the first one who cheers that Chester keeps the delight of his tars from becoming evident to the surrounding vessels.
Corker himself brings down the first load.
“Bodé Volcker is as grand a buccaneer as ever walked the plank,” whispers that mariner as he makes report to Chester. “He would fight to the death for the gold bags. He’s already given Jamaica twice to old Mother Sebastian, and it’ll be the devil looking after his own if she doesn’t die of rum before we get the last sack out of the house. Bodé’s got cords to tie her with if the worst comes to the worst; her being without squeal makes the thing neat and easy. No need of gags, just simply bind her to the bed-posts and she’s fixed.”
All that day the gold comes steadily on board and by the evening, for the men work very hard, Chester finds he has beneath the cabin floor of the Esperanza one hundred and seventy-nine bags of gold sealed with Alva’s arms; and calculating them at twenty thousand crowns each, he finds he has three million five hundred and eighty thousand crowns. This tallies exactly with Corker’s counting of the sacks.
Then leaving the men under Niklaas to get out the silver and the chest of unknown valuables, Martin Corker being kept in charge of the ship, as the Esperanza with the gold on board is very precious now, Chester takes boat and passing down the Schelde again arrives at Sandvliet, eagerly impatient for sight of sweetheart.
In this respect Doña Hermoine seems equally anxious. Apparently on the lookout for the boat, she runs down with happy eyes to meet Guy at the landing, crying, with joyous voice: “Good news! Good news!”
“What news?” Chester asks anxiously—almost any news is bad news to him now.
“Papa is coming—he will be here soon. Then you shall ask him in person.”
“When will my lord duke be here?”
“In three or four days his letter said.”
“A—ah!” This is a big sigh of relief, for Guy now knows the next night will settle his business one way or the other with this fair being, who clings to his arm as he strides up the path to the house, her little feet making two steps to his one.
He has determined that the succeeding night will settle whether she shall be his wife and joy during all his life, or it will be the last of her. This thought makes his manner very tender to her, for come what may he knows she loves him.
Then tête-à-tête in the oriel window over the Schelde, they have pleasant converse together, though he tells her his time with her must be short.
“Short? Why?” she pouts to this suggestion.
“Because I am making arrangements about my fortune; you know, to make proper showing to your father.”
“Oh yes, I’ve heard that before! My lord of Alva has always been to me loving and indulgent. As such he will not refuse my request. I have heard him speak of you, my Guido, as the bravest man in the army of Spain; that means a great deal where so many men are brave. That march you made will make him love you as it does me.”
This praise of the dead man in whose shoes he stands drives from Guy’s tongue a confession that has been almost upon it once or twice in these last two days. He fears the effect of revelation upon his sweetheart and thinks tremblingly: “God help me if she loves my name, not me!”
Perhaps later in the evening he might tell his story to Hermoine, for he thinks it almost a justice to her that she know the truth—did not an incident come to these two that seems trivial, but has greater effect than either guesses upon their lives.
Guy has laughingly inquired about the Countess de Pariza.
“Since last night she has not spoken to me. She keeps to her own suite of apartments,” answers the young lady. “That woman, if she dared, would betray me; as it is I pity her Moorish slave girls. You know when papa gave me present of Zora he made Alida gift to the Countess de Pariza. But I liked Alida best, and to take her away from her tyrant—for that’s what my duenna is—you needn’t stay my lips at every word, though it is pleasant, Guido mio—I have succeeded in exchanging their services and Alida waits on me and Zora on the Countess. It was a bargain, though no writing passed between us. But to-day, this very morning, she claimed again the duty of Alida. Is it to revenge herself on her?” she goes on intensely. “If so; if she puts hands on the poor girl, let her beware of Hermoine de Alva.”
As she speaks the girl, springing from Guy’s arms, starts up and whispers: “What’s that? Hark! My heaven, it is Alida!”
For a faint wailing sigh seems to come floating to the room from some distant apartment. “It is Alida! That coward has struck her!” she cries as the sound of agony comes floating in again.
And in a flash, with blazing eyes and vengeance on her face, Hermoine de Alva darts from the room, Guy following her, his feet scarce keeping up with her rapid flight. Turning up a passage, he finds himself—for the girl has hurriedly dashed open a door—gazing on a curious picture.
It is the chamber of the duenna; in it stands Doña de Pariza, with vicious whip upraised, and cowering before her crouches Alida, the Moorish slave. But the lash does not descend. With the spring of a young tigress Hermoine plucks the whip from the astounded Countess.
“How dare you intrude into my chamber?” cries the duenna.
“How dare you strike one that belongs to me?”
“Your pardon, Doña de Alva,” sneers La Pariza. “This girl is the gift of your father to me. Give me my whip, that I may continue my correction.”
“Never! Alida is mine; you made her over to me in words; she is mine to love, mine to protect, she is my Alida. Cruel one! you have asked for your whip! YOU SHALL HAVE IT!” And an avenging goddess is standing over the shuddering duenna, who gives an affrighted scream.
But Guy has hand upon the white arm that is upraised.
“I’ll do it if she dares to touch her again!” says Hermoine savagely to Guy; then whispers gently: “Alida, go to my chamber and stay; there you are safe,” next breaks out: “Let her dare to lay hand on you and I’ll not respect even her gray hairs!”
“Perdition! my wig!” screams La Pariza, and they leave her tearing her scant locks. They have intruded into the apartment of romantic old age, and the Countess without false hair and other artifices for effacing the traces of decay makes an ugly picture that now becomes an awful one; for on her face is now added to the ravages of time—demoniac hate.
As Guy leads his sweetheart away he whispers: “Did you note her countenance? She is now your enemy for life.”
“Pish! What care I?” laughs Doña de Alva haughtily. Then she murmurs: “I’m glad you stopped me from degrading myself to her level. Had I touched her I should have been ashamed of it. When I’m thine by the rights of Mother Church, bring a man’s forbearance to bear upon my woman’s weakness.”
This kind of adulation makes Guy feel ashamed of himself, for he is in his brawls with equals very headstrong and sometimes cruel and bloodthirsty, and among his sailors he is not light of hand with marling-spike and rope’s end when it is necessary for discipline of ship.
Hermoine’s very glorification of him makes Chester hesitate to tell her that he has been, in all his wooing of her, another being than the Guido Amati she thinks she loves. But all the same he would not lose her for the world, and will take the chance even of her reproach and anger to make her his by right of church in face of man and God.
To do this he has many preparations still to make. And getting from her arms once more he bids her adieu, saying: “To-morrow evening at nine o’clock precisely. Remember, I shall have for you a little water fête. The moon will not be up, but it will rise before we return. Will you go for a sail on the water with me to-morrow night, my love?”
“Yes, and to-night if you would ask me,” laughs the girl. Then she says wistfully: “If papa were only here, we could take him with us.”
“I—I pray heaven no,” answers her lover with a start.
“Oh, don’t fear, I am omnipotent over my Lord of Alva!”
Kissing her hand to Guy and filled with this idea, Doña Hermoine runs back to the house.
This confidence in her power over Philip’s Viceroy brings sudden changes over love’s young dream.
The very next afternoon, with clanking spurs and covered with the dust of travel, escorted by some thirty dashing horsemen, my lord of Alva comes galloping up to Hermoine’s country house, there to receive a daughter’s welcome and a daughter’s love.
And oh! the happiness of that meeting!
The girl runs out to him, crying: “I didn’t think you would be here so soon; your letter said four days, My Lord of Alva!” And courtesies to him; but he springs off war horse, his serpent’s eyes aflame with the one love of his declining years, and taking to his heart his piquant child, whispers: “Then you, my Hermoine, are sorry?”
“Sorry that you have come?—delighted!”
“You must know,” remarks the Duke as he passes into the house with her, “after I had written to you I received courier from Antwerp that brought me such news from D’Avila, in command, that made it necessary for me to return to the Citadel for a day or two.”
This is true; for beneath a long account of military advices as to reinforcements, arms and munitions of war, and the various details of the garrisons of Brabant and Flanders, Sancho D’Avila had chanced to write almost as a postscript to the letter: “By the by, Your Highness will be concerned to learn your old pensioner, the venerable Roderigo, died four days ago.”
It is this careless line that has brought My Lord of Alva so suddenly from Nijmegen, where he has been forwarding munitions to the besieging army round Haarlem. Within an hour of receipt of this Alva, with some muttered execrations, has taken horse and journeyed from the town on the Waal with his body guard, getting relays of horses at Hertogenbosch, Breda and Bergen, and by quickest route coming up the Schelde from that place to Antwerp. The road passing through Sandvliet, and it being but five minutes’ ride to this thing he loves best upon the earth, my lord has turned his bridle and is now in his daughter’s arms.
“I cannot stay long,” he remarks hurriedly; “I must be in Antwerp to-night.”
“To-morrow morning will do much better. Your chamber is always prepared for you. It is never occupied by anyone else.” Here the girl blushes suddenly, remembering that her Guido had usurped it for some fifteen minutes of his time. “Sup with me you shall!”
“Impossible, I must go on.”
“You shan’t, papa, YOU SHAN’T! You’ve been away so long from orders you’re becoming mutinous and undisciplined.”
With this she treats him in a way that Alva loves from her, but would permit from no one else upon this earth, man nor woman. While she is speaking to him, despite his protestations, Doña Hermoine has got his helmet off and is patting his gray locks and pulling the two long tresses of his silver beard with her white hands and crying: “Now I have you a prisoner! Ten kisses for your ransom!”
“Santos y demonios! you’re the worst rebel in the Netherlands,” laughs the Duke.
“Yes, the most defiant and the only one who will conquer YOU!”
This pleases my lord of Alva, who is in what is for him a jovial humor, and he says: “You’re right; I have Haarlem now as surely in my grasp as if I had my troops in that dogged town. De Bossu has defeated Marinus Brandt upon the lake, the town is now cut off from provisions—it must be mine. Then when I have trampled out these rebels and can hand over this land unstained by sedition to my lord, Philip the King, we’ll go back to Spain together, and away from the fogs of this northern country, among the pomegranates, the vines, the cork trees and the olives, we’ll forget there ever has been war.”
“Yes,” cries the girl, “and we’ll take him with us.”
“Him? Who?”
“My coming husband.”
“Thy coming husband! Of whom are you talking, child?” says Alva in astounded voice. “Never saw I woman that was so free from earthly loves!” Then he laughs: “This is a rare change. Last time you were drooping. You had psalm-book in your hand and ritual, and talked of being the bride of Mother Church.”
“But that has all gone away.”
“I am glad of it, though I should not have said you nay. My Hermoine would have made a curious nun.”
“Yes, she will make a better bride,” purrs the girl, going back to her subject. “But I won’t tell you all about it unless you dine with me, and only after dinner. See! Your escort are dismounting. They have had a long ride. They are taking refreshment. Will not my lord have the same mercy for himself he gives his soldiers? Besides, you look ill, worried.”
“Not at all. There’s only one thing on my mind; the errand I came for, and that, though important, is not, I pray God, immediate.”
“Then stay to dinner. I gave orders as I saw you ride up to the house.” At this, clapping her hands, the curtains are drawn up, and the Duke, taking his daughter’s arm, goes into the pleasures of the banquet. Here for the first time since the night before, Hermoine sees the Countess, and looking in her eyes knows that oath, or no oath, in some way she will get word of what has happened unto my lord of Alva.
But to Hermoine’s delight Don Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, Lord of Alva and Duke of Huesca, spurred by curiosity, wishes tête-à-tête with his lovely child, and to the astonishment and rage of her duenna says very shortly: “Countess, I am glad to see you in your usual health. My daughter and I, having weighty matters to discuss, would be alone. Good afternoon, Doña de Pariza, I kiss your hand,” and he bows her to the door with stately Spanish etiquette; then says: “Hermoine, your story. Is it a jest about a lover, child?”
“No jest.”
“Tell me.”
“After dinner, papa; not until wine has made your heart a little softer. You have hardened it in Holland.”
“Not unto thee,” says my Lord. “Tell me, pretty one.”
“Not unless you let me sit upon your august knee.”
With this she is upon his lap and with soft caresses and cooing words of love and kisses and “Papa darlings” tells him of her lover.
At which he opens his eyes and remarks: “Your Guido Amati; he was reported dead after the battle on the ice, I think.”
“Yes, but he has recovered from his wounds. Oh, it would take a great deal to kill him! Remember his march across the Drowned Lands up there. You passed the place to-day,” she points her hand.
“Yes, I recollect. That was a feat worthy of the Cid,” says Alva, who, above all, is a military tactician.
“Ah! then give me to the Cid; the Cid would be worthy even of the daughter of Alva. If Guido was worthy of the Cid he is worthy of me!” And with pleadings, coaxings and caresses Hermoine wins from this man who she thinks can refuse her naught, promise that he will grant her hand to Colonel Guido Amati de Medina.
“Now you must not go,” she pleads. “He is coming here this evening. You must see him. You must make him as happy as I am. Father, I never loved you until now.”
“Oho!—If I had refused I suppose you would have hated me.”
“I never think of hate with you; but then, you never do refuse. And as you never say me nay, you’ll stay and meet him. Give him your blessing; father, promise me as you love me, you will give Guido Amati as my promised husband, your blessing.”
“Then if I must do so, and you say I must,” mutters the Duke, a tremble on his lips and a quiver in his eyelids, “I must first ride on to Lillo and send from there a message to Sancho d’Avila.”
“You’ll come back? He will be here at nine. You will come back—promise it, swear it!”
“I promise by this kiss.”
“Then take two to make sure,” prattles Miss Hermoine with happy eyes.
A moment after his escort being ready, pursued by kisses thrown from fairy hands, the Duke mounts charger and canters off from the villa of his daughter, whose eyes are streaming with happy tears and whose lips are murmuring: “Father and future husband both together. To-night will be a happy one for me!”
Alva rides on to Lillo, and having word with Mondragon, the commandant, charges him to send courier at once with a note he writes to Sancho d’Avila, commandant of the Citadel at Antwerp. Then with a father’s natural instinct of curiosity in regard to coming son-in-law, Don Fernando, chatting with the officer in command, one of his favorites, says: “Mondragon, do you know a certain Guido Amati, Colonel in Romero’s Legion?”
“Of course, your excellency, he was under me before he went to Holland.”
“Ah! Tell me of him.”
“That’s little good, except that he was the bravest of the brave, and as fine a swordsman as ever handled Toledo blade; but a more undisciplined, gambling, rake and debauchee I never met, and I’m an old campaigner.”
“A debauchee undisciplined, a roué drunkard,” gasps His Highness, his face growing even more pallid than is usual to his sallow cheeks. “You are sure you know what you say, Mondragon?”
“Certainly, I knew him well. But what matters it? Guido Amati is dead.”
“Impossible; though I heard the rumor.”
“It’s marked upon the muster-rolls of Romero’s command.”
“Are you sure?”
“Certainly!”
“Then if alive his name would surely be on the roster of his regiment?”
“As sure as there is paymaster in the army. Guido Amati is not a gentleman to let his pay lapse by any negligence of his; but he is surely dead. There are men, I think, in the garrison who saw him fall.”
“Ah! in the battle on the ice?”
“Yes. Young De Busaco, a lieutenant here on sick leave, and Sergeant Gomez.”
“Send for them at once,” says Alva, quite astounded and shaken at these curious words.
And De Busaco, coming into the apartment, salutes.
“Lieutenant De Busaco, I believe?” remarks Don Fernando.
“Yes, Your Highness, just promoted.”
“You were at the battle on the ice?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Who commanded there?”
“Colonel Guido Amati.”
“Was he killed there?”
“I think so, Your Highness; I saw him fall.”
“That’s very curious, when my daughter says he lives!” mutters the Viceroy in an amazed tone. At this Mondragon and De Busaco open their eyes, and the latter knows the catastrophe that he has sometimes guessed might take place, will come.
“You saw him fall?” queries Don Fernando, as if he can’t believe his ears.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“And you think he is dead?”
“Yes, Your Highness, the Dutch butchered all our wounded.”
“As they always do,” answers Alva. “I’m afraid I taught them that trick. They’re ready students. Is Gomez in waiting?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
And the bluff Sergeant stepping in, salutes with military precision my lord of Alva and gives him information thus:
“Yes, I saw Guido Amati fall. I tried to save him, but slipped and broke my head on the ice in doing it, but by the blessing of God, escaped.”
“You know this man is dead.”
“Yes—ten saints could not have saved him.”
“Speak respectfully of the church! How do you know it?”
“Because I saw three pikes driven through his body.”
“That is sufficient,” mutters Alva in a dazed manner. “You can go, Gomez.”
“And three pikes through the body would kill even as tough a fighter as Guido Amati,” remarks Mondragon; but as the sergeant turns his back the commandant suddenly says: “What is the matter, Your Highness. You have had bad news from Haarlem?”
“Oh no, the best. They are eating grass in the streets now. We’ve beaten Orange on the lake and dominate it. It is not Haarlem.” Then Alva suddenly commands: “Order my escort at once. Is Gomez able to take horse?”
“Yes, your Excellency.”
“Let him accompany them.”
And followed by thirty men armed with lance and arquebus, my lord of Alva clatters back to the dwelling of his daughter. On the way he calls to his side the bluff Gomez and questions him: “What kind of a looking man was this Guido Amati?”
“Tall, well built, short crisp dark hair, eyes very black and reckless, and a skin as swarthy as a washed-out Morisco.”
“He had the manners of a gentleman, of course,” remarks the Viceroy.
“As well as a soldier like myself could guess, your Highness, and the tongue of one. It was said he spoke Castilian as purely as a priest.”
“Very good, that will do, sergeant,” says the Viceroy. And they soon arrive at the country house.
But being a wary old tactician, my lord of Alva says nothing of the strange revelation that has come to him at the Fort at Lillo, and striding into Hermoine’s apartment, remarks: “My daughter, as we promised we have returned to see this gentleman you love, Guido Amati; who must be of wondrous strong frame.”
“How so?” asks the girl.
“He was desperately wounded at the Battle on the Ice.”
“I should think so! Haven’t I seen the wounds? They’re awful!” This last is a piquant shudder.
“Seen the pike wounds through his body?”
“No, but there was a cut upon his head that would have let out the life of any but a Paladin.”
“Humph! they say your Paladin is a dissipated fellow.”
“That’s a falsehood! some rival sends forth this story about him every time. Why, even at the house of Bodé Volcker,” goes on Hermoine, “that fibbing merchant told me he was drunk, when two seconds after my Guido strides up to me as sober as you are, and a good deal happier looking, and not with that extraordinary benumbed expression that’s on your dear old face.” Here the girl kisses it.
“Tell me how you met him.”
Thus encouraged Doña Hermoine who, sweetheart like, loves to prattle of her adored, sits down and makes confession to her father; during which he asks her one or two questions she thinks are foolish, but he thinks pertinent. “You say you first met him on the day of the spring flood of 1572?”
“Yes, papa; that was the night I told you of, when he protected me from the Gueux.”
“A—ah—ah This gentleman you love has dark hair and eyes?”
“No, bright blue eyes, and his hair is for a Spaniard very blonde—Did I not tell you so, Goosey!”
“Oh, yes; I meant bright eyes, I had forgotten. Light chestnut hair, you say, and a free and easy manner. He walks like a sailor.”
“Like a cavalryman!”
“Ah, yes; they both have rolling gaits. The day you met him was the one I came so hurriedly in from Brussels?”
“Yes, you came very hastily. It was the day Floris the Painter had that drinking bout, and drank one of his opponents even unto death.”
“Yes, I recollect,” says His Highness slowly. “The day Guerra would have made revelation to me, but died. This gentleman you say you love,” my lord of Alva’s manner has a kind of forced lightness in it, “speaks the patois of Hispaniola?”
“Yes, it is poor Spanish, but sounds very sweet to me.”
“Humph! when this gentleman arrives, bring him to me.” And going from the apartment Alva gives some pertinent directions to the lieutenant in command of his escort.
Then he returns to the dining-room, and, as it is nearly eight o clock—has supper served to him.
To minister to his wants comes running in his daughter, her face as radiant as a sunbeam. She who had been before to him as the lily is now blushing as a rose.
As he sits down there is a very curious expression in my lord of Alva’s face, and as he drinks there is a lump in his throat that nearly chokes him, though he is abstemious this evening, his daughter notes, as she serves papa with loving hands.
“You—you do not grieve at losing me?” she whispers, a ripple of concern running over her face.
“No, it—it isn’t that.” His face has an expression Hermoine cannot understand.
“By the by,” she says, “adored papa, another promise.”
“What?”
“Take off that reward for the Englishman’s head. You remember I told you he saved my Guido’s life.”
“After to-morrow; then it may not be needed,” mutters His Highness, though his eyes do not meet the girl’s; he keeps them on his wine cup.
“Thanks, dear papa,” answers the young lady. Then suddenly she says: “But I must go.”
“Why?”
“To make toilet for my coming husband.”
“Humph!”
“I shall be dressed as a bride.”
“You love this man so very much, my Hermoine?” There is a sob in the father’s voice.
“With my whole heart,” she answers; then suddenly cries: “Perhaps I shall have another surprise for you to-night, if you’ll grant it, but then papa you grant me everything!—you dear old papa who will make your daughter’s happiness so very great this night.”
With this she puts tender kiss upon his brow and runs away, leaving her father wondering to himself whether he has guessed right or not.
But all the same there are tears in his eyes that never shed them; and once or twice when he hears his daughter’s voice from neighboring apartment giving orders as to her toilet and other preparations for the reception of the man she loves, his face has a horrified expression on it. Then a minute after a gleam comes into the serpent’s eyes, and his long hands clench themselves together as if seizing some enemy long sought for and difficult to grasp, but very pleasant to his grip and talons, and he mutters to himself: “If it is he who stole my gold for that Jezebel Elizabeth; if it is he by whose advice the Gueux were ordered out of England with no food, no water, but only cannon balls and powder to stir up rebellion in this land, I’D SOONER HAVE HIM THAN EVEN WILLIAM THE SILENT!”