CHAPTER XXIII.
DON BALTASAR DE SALDOS.
"We must not fail, we must not fail,
However fraud or force assail;
By honour, pride, or policy,
By Heaven itself! we must be free.
We spurned the thought, our prison burst,
And dared the despot to the worst;
Renewed the strife of centuries,
And flung our banner to the breeze."—DAVIS.
A start of extreme astonishment deepening into a black scowl, which anon changed to something of a scornful smile in the Spaniard's sallow visage, was Quentin Kennedy's first greeting from the Guerilla Chief, who then bowed haughtily, and said with an unpleasant emphasis—
"Oho, senor; so you are the messenger! Santos—why didn't you tell me your errand on the day we met by the cross of King Alphonso? You would thus have saved yourself a devil of a journey and me this knock on the head."
"It would have been unwise to reveal my mission to the first stranger I met; I deplore the result of our second interview, senor; but I would not stand by and see an unarmed man killed without interfering."
"A Frenchman!" said Baltasar with intense scorn.
"Maledito," said the Padre Trevino, a man with a pair of quiet and deeply set, but the most treacherous looking dark eyes that ever glanced out of a human head,. "Maledito!" he repeated, while playing with the knife in his sash, "so this is the fellow who wounded you and rescued the French officer?"
"Yes, Padre; but that is my affair, not yours," said Baltasar, haughtily.
"And your precious Frenchman—you conducted him no doubt to Valencia?" said the Padre, anxious apparently to make mischief.
"I left him very near it—indeed, he was my guide part of the way here," replied Quentin with composure.
"Very accommodating of him, certainly," said Baltasar, in whose face the scowl returned; it was evident, apart from his indignation at Quentin, that he had found some of the wrong eggs, the legends on which foretold the early abandonment of the entire Peninsula by the British, for his mind was full of ill-concealed anger and apprehension. "You see now, senor," he resumed with a malevolent grimace, "you see now that the spit has become a sword, and the sword only a spit. Por vida del demonio! but Don Tomaso Yriarte was right after all, for we must never take men or things for what they may appear."
While Quentin was pondering what reply to make to this strange speech, a drop of blood fell from the wound in Baltasar's head, and made a large scarlet spot on the open map of Alentejo. On seeing this the eyes of the Spaniard flashed fire, his nostrils seemed to dilate, and, striking the table with the haft of his dagger, he exclaimed—
"But that the fact of shooting the bearer of a British despatch—a messenger of Don Juan Hope, as Lazarillo says you are—might compromise me with the Junta of Castile as well as with your general, and thus injure the budding Spanish cause, by the Holy Face of Jaen! I would send you to keep company with those sixteen dogs whom Trevino shot to-night!"
"Senor, I was innocent of intending evil against you," urged poor Quentin.
"And this despatch which you bring, if it be as my soul forebodes, a notification that I am only to cover the retreat of the British when falling back upon Lisbon and the sea, then say over any prayer your heretic mother may have taught you, for you, Inglese, shall not see the sun of to-morrow rise. I never forgive an insult—a word or a blow!"
Though Quentin had been told at Portalegre somewhat of the contents of the despatch, he knew so little of the great game of war and politics about to be played in Spain that his mind misgave him, and he trembled in his heart lest the treasured paper which he now handed to this ferocious Spaniard, might indeed prove his death-warrant, and seal his doom! He thought of his pistols, and cast a glance around him—escape was hopeless, and a cruel smile wreathed the thin wicked lips of the Padre Trevino.
Baltasar tore open the long official sheet of paper, and when his piercing eyes had run rapidly over the contents, to Quentin's great relief of mind, a smile that was almost pleasant spread over his sallow visage, like sunshine on a lake.
"Hombres," he exclaimed to those around him, "listen! There are none here but true Castilians, so all may share my joy. On the second day of the ensuing November, the first division of the British army which is to rescue Spain will enter Castile by the Badajoz road, led by Sir John Hope, whose advance we are to cover by a collateral movement along the mountains by the hill ef Albuera. Long live Ferdinand the Seventh!"
"Viva el Rey de Espana!"
"Viva el nombre de Jesus!"
Such were the kind of shouts that were raised by a hundred voices, while sundry faces, ere while darkened by hostile and suspicious scowls, were now wreathed with broad smiles, and many a battered sombrero and greasy bandanna were flourished aloft, while to the triumphant vivas the musket-butts clattered an accompaniment on the esparto-covered floor; and many a somewhat dingy hand shook Quentin's with energy, while, in token of friendship and alliance, wine, cigaritos, and tobacco pouches were proffered him on all sides.
When the hubbub was somewhat over, Quentin (with some anxiety for his departure, as the atmosphere of the guerilla head-quarters seemed a dangerous one) said to the chief—
"Don Baltasar, my orders were and my most earnest wishes are to join my regiment at Portalegre, so I should wish to set out by daybreak to-morrow."
"But the army will soon be advancing—why not remain with us till it comes up?"
"Impossible!" said Quentin, whose heart sank at the suggestion.
"Perhaps you think that you have seen enough of us; but in a war of independence, the invaded must not be too tender-hearted."
"Nay, senor; but if it would please you to give me to-night your reply to the general commanding our division, it would favour me greatly."
This simple question seemed to raise some undefinable suspicion, or recall something unpleasant to the Spaniard's mind, for, knitting his thick black brows over his deeply-set and lynx-like eyes, he regarded Quentin with a steady scrutiny, and said:
"You are not an officer, it would seem? (How often had this remark stung poor Quentin.) You have no sash, gorget, or epaulettes?"
"No, senor," replied Quentin, with a sigh; "I have not the good fortune."
"What are you then—a simple soldado?"
"Senor," replied Quentin, with growing irritation, for, in truth, he was very weary of his long day's journey, and its exciting episodes; "the letter you have just read, I believe, tells you what you require to know."
"Santos! you are a bold fellow to bear yourself thus to me."
"I am a British soldier on military duty," replied Quentin, loftily, as he saw that hardihood was the only quality appreciated by his new acquaintances.
"What is this? You are styled, voluntario del Regimiento Viente y Cinco—Fronteros del Rey—is that it?"
"A volunteer of the King's Own Borderers—yes."
"An English corps, of course, by your uniform?" remarked Baltasar, while twisting up a cigarito.
"No, senor."
"Maledito—what then?" he asked, pausing, as he lit it.
"Escotos."
"Demonio! I saw them at Vimiera, and thought all the Escotos were bare-legged, and wore Biscayner's bonnets with great plumes. But you shall have the answer you wish this instant. I am not a man for delay."
"A guide also, senor, will be necessary, so that I may avoid the French patrols."
"You made your way here without one," said the Spaniard, with one of his keen and suspicious glances; "moreover, I suppose you are not without at least one French friend in Valencia; but a guide you shall have, if we can spare one," he added, dipping a pen in an ink-horn, and, drawing before him a sheet of paper, he wrote hastily the following brief despatch, for El Estudiente, as he was sometimes named, had been well educated by his father, a professor at the University of Salamanca.
"SENOR GENERAL,—I have had the high honour of receiving your despatch announcing the day of your march into Castile, and, with the help of God, Madonna, and the saints, I shall be in motion at the same time towards the hill of Albuera, with my guerilla force, now two thousand strong, with five 12-pounders, to cover your flank, if necessary, from the cavalry of Ribeaupierre, who occupy all the district in and about Valencia. With the most profound esteem, I have the honour to be, illustrious Senor and General, &c. &c.—
"BALTASAR DE SALDOS Y SALAMANCA."
While addressing this letter, which he handed to Quentin, he turned to the Padre Trevino, who had stood all the while leaning on his long musket, and said, with a sombre expression on his dark face:—
"Padre, now that I have a moment to spare, I shall be glad to learn how your plan for ridding us of General de Ribeaupierre has failed, and what has become of your remarkably luxuriant beard and whiskers, which were ample enough to have frightened Murillo himself? You are now shaven as bare——"
"As when I threw my gown and sandals over the Dominican gate at Salamanca," interrupted the ex-friar, with a grin.
"Exactly so."
"Well, Baltasar, amigo mio, when I entered Valencia this morning, I had, as you know, a goodly natural crop of black beard and whiskers, with a wig that for length of matted locks rivalled those of Lazarillo here. Over these I had a high-crowned sombrero, with a tricoloured cockade, emblematical of my zealous loyalty to Joseph, the Corsican. Clad in an old brown mantle, I assumed the character of a poor, meek man, the bearer of a petition to the French general, De Ribeaupierre, whom I meant to stab to the heart as he read it—aye, por Dios! though surrounded by all his staff and quarter-guard, for I was well mounted, and they never would have overtaken or stopped me, save by closing the city gate.
"I reached the head-quarters just as the whole staff were turning out, for tidings had come that the guerillas of that devil of a fellow Baltasar the Salamanquino, had cut off a cavalry patrol, and shot the general's only son, a lieutenant of chasseurs. The excitement was great in the garrison, where there was such mounting and spurring, drumming and so forth, that I was almost unheeded, while noisily importuning the staff-officers that I had a petition for the general.
"'Here, Spaniard, give it to me,' said one who was covered with orders, pausing, as with his foot in the stirrup, he was just about to mount his horse.
"I measured him with a glance—I looked stealthily all round me to see that the streets were clear for a start, as he opened my petition and read it.
"I drew closer; the red cloud I have seemed to see on former occasions, came before my eyes; my heart beat wildly, my hand, hot and feverish, was on my knife. Another moment it was buried in his heart, and I was spurring along the street towards the southern gate, which I reached only to find it shut!"
"A thousand devils!" said Baltasar.
"Por Baccho!" muttered the listeners, with their eyes dilated.
"Dismounting, I quitted my horse, rushed down an alley, where I saw the door of a bodega open, and plunged down into it unseen, scrambled over the borrachio skins into a dark corner and crept behind a heap of them. There I lay panting and breathless, dreading the proprietor (but he had been hanged that morning as a spy), and also the French, armed parties of whom passed and repassed, swearing and threatening; and from what they said, I learned that I had not killed the general——"
"Not killed him? what the devil, Padre!—I thought you always struck home!"
"So I do, and so I did, but the knife had reached only the heart of his military secretary."
"Well, then, 'tis one more Frenchman gone the downward road, the way we hope to send them all. And you——"
"I lay for some time in the cool wine vault, among the cobwebs and dirty borrachio skins. One of them—for the temptation was too great—I pierced with my yet bloody knife, and a long, long draught of the vino de Alicante, cold, dry, mellow, delicious, golden-coloured——"
"Ha, ha, ha! Bravo Padre Trevino!" chorussed all the laughing listeners, as they clattered away with their musket-butts in applause of his atrocious narrative.
"Thou wert revived, no doubt?" said Baltasar, impatiently.
"Amiga mio, I should think so; it brightened my intellects; it gave me new ideas—I drew inspiration from that beloved borrachio skin. I cast away my ample wig, drew from my wallet shaving apparatus, and in a trice I was shaven to the eyes, as you see me. Abandoning my cloak, I concealed my dagger in my left sleeve, took a wine skin under my arm, and walking deliberately to the officer in command of the guard at the south gate, offered the wine for sale at half its value, seeming to all appearance a very quiet citizen, anxious in these hard times to do a little business, even with the enemy. He took the skin from me, bid me go to the devil for payment; the sentinel opened the wicket, and I was thrust out of Valencia—the very thing I wanted. I said nothing about my poor wife or starving little ones, lest their hearts might relent, but turned my face to the mountains, and I am here."
This savage story met, we have said, with great applause, and Quentin, after the scene he had witnessed in the street of the puebla, felt no surprise that it did so; but his horror of the Padre was great, and he felt his repugnance for the guerillas increase every moment.
Policy and necessity forced him to dissemble; yet, in that mountain village there seemed such an atmosphere of blood, dishonourable warfare, and patriotism gone mad, that he longed intensely to be out of it, and once again in the more congenial and civilized society he had left.
"Supper, senor," said Don Baltasar, rising from the table and gathering up his papers; "let us rest now, for you must be weary, and in truth so am I; and then to bed, for the hour is late, and we have both work to do upon the morrow. Trevino, who has the quarter-guard?"
"El Conde de Maciera, senor," replied the Padre.
"Good—not a bat will stir between this and Valencia without his hearing of it. This way, then," added Baltasar, ushering them into an inner apartment, where a very different face from any Quentin had yet seen in the Peninsula shed a light upon the scene.