"Not yet—I never knew till now
How precious life could be;
My heart is full of love—O Death,
I cannot come with thee!
Not yet—the flowers are in my path,
The sun is in the sky;
Not yet, my heart is full of hope—
I cannot bear to die."—L.E.L.
On recovering from the insensibility that had come upon him, Quentin had no idea of what period of time had elapsed since the occurrence of the episode we have just described. In fact, he had considerable difficulty in remembering where he was, so maddened was he by a burning heat, by pricking pains through all his system, an intolerable thirst, an aching head, and a throat and tongue that were rough and dry. His temples throbbed fearfully, his pulse was quick; there was a clamorous anxiety in his mind he knew not why or wherefore; he had a recurrent hiccough; and, though he knew it not, these were all the symptoms of being dangerously poisoned.
The morning was bright and sunny. Refreshed by the past rains, the rows of orange-trees around the stately terrace, the lawn of the villa, the acacias that covered its walls, and the clumps of arbutus and beech about it, looked fresh and green.
Producing a grateful sensation, the cool morning breeze fanned his throbbing temples, and on rousing himself, Quentin found that he was lying on the marble terrace near the bronze fountain, of the cool and sparkling water of which he drank deeply, as he had frequently done before, while almost unconscious, by mere instinct, for now he had no memory of it.
Weak, faint, and giddy, and feeling seriously ill, he staggered up and laved his hands and brow in the marble basin; then he endeavoured to reflect or consider how his present predicament came about. Donna Isidora, where was she? and where was Flora Warrender? for he had misty memories of the endearments of both.
It seemed that overnight he had a strange dream that the former—or could it be the latter?—had been carried off by French soldiers, and that he had neither the power to succour or to save her.
This, however, was no dream, but a reality, for a patrol of French cavalry, seeing lights in the villa, which they believed to be deserted, had ridden upon the terrace and proceeded to search the place. A few dismounted, and, armed with their swords and pistols, entered the house. Amid her terror on witnessing the unexpected stupefaction that had come over Quentin, the donna heard the clank of hoofs on the terrace, and then the jingle of spurs and steel scabbards on the tesselated floor of the vestibule.
Alarm lest her brother had come in search of her, and had tracked them hither, was her first emotion. Covering the insensible form of Quentin with the blue damask drapery of a window, near which he had sunk to sleep upon a fauteuil, she stooped and kissed his flushed forehead; then taking a lamp, she endeavoured to make her way to the room of the Padre Florez, which she considered alike remote and secure; but her light was seen flashing from story to story up the great marble staircase.
"En avant, mes braves," cried an officer, laughing; "'tis only a petticoat—follow, and capture."
The dismounted Chasseurs uttered a shout, and giving chase, soon secured the unfortunate Isidora.
Shrieking, she was borne into the open air; her resistance, which was desperate, only serving to provoke much coarse laughter and joking. A few minutes after this, she found herself trussed like a bundle of hay to the crupper of a troop-horse, and en route for Valencia de Alcantara, the captive of a smart young officer of Chasseurs à cheval, who further secured her close to his own person by a waist-belt. By alternate caresses and jests, he endeavoured to soothe her fears, her grief, and her passion; but seeing that the girl was beautiful, he was determined not to release her, for he was no other than our former jovial acquaintance, Eugene de Ribeaupierre, the sous-lieutenant of the 24th Chasseurs.
Partially roused by the noise and by her cries, Quentin had staggered to the terrace like one in a dream, and had fallen beside the fountain, so that his misty memories of having seen her carried off by French Chasseurs was no vision, but reality. Yet, somehow, he thought she might be in the villa after all, and he called her by name repeatedly.
And then there were memories of Flora Warrender that floated strangely through his brain. It seemed that he had but recently seen her, spoken with her, heard her voice, had embraced and clasped her to his breast—that Flora, whom he thought was far, far away—the Flora for whom he sorrowed and longed through the dreary hours of many a march by night and day, whom he had dreamed of and prayed for.
What mystery—what madness was this?
The musical jangling of mule-bells was now heard, and ere long other actors came upon the scene, as some jovial muleteers, cracking their whips and their jokes, ascended the steps of the terrace, accompanied by a tall, thin, and reverend-looking padre, wearing a huge shovel hat and a long black serge soutan, the buttons of which, a close row, extended from his chin to his ankles.
The old Condesa de Maciera, who, after being again and again terrified and harassed by the outrages of the plundering French patrols and foraging parties, had at last fled with all her household to the small Portuguese town of Marvao, had now sent her chaplain, the Padre Florez, back to see what was the state of matters at her villa, and he arrived thus most opportunely for Quentin Kennedy, whose uniform at once secured him the interest both of the padre and the muleteers.
The latter proved luckily to be Ramon Campillo, of Miranda del Ebro, his confrère Ignacio Noain, and others, whom Quentin had met before, and who at once recognised him and overwhelmed him with questions, to which he found the utter impossibility of giving satisfactory replies.
His present state was as puzzling to himself as to the padre, who had him conveyed within doors, and, strangely enough, into the boudoir, the features of which brought back to Quentin's memory some of the exciting and bewildering passages of last night. The unextinguished lamp yet smoked on the table, broken crystal cups and champagne flasks, chairs overturned, and a phial of very suspicious aspect, all attracted the attention of Padre Florez. As he examined the latter, and applied his nose and lips to the mouth, while endeavouring to discover what the contents had been, he changed colour, and became visibly excited.
"Look to the stranger—what a mere boy he is!—but look to him, Ramon, mi hijo," said he, "while I go to my room—my laboratory—and see what I can do for him."
The padre, who had a deep and friendly interest in the household of his patrona the countess-dowager, and of the young Conde now serving with the guerilla band of Baltasar de Saldos, looked anxiously through the suites of rooms as he proceeded, sighing over the slashed Murillos and smashed mirrors, and the too evident sabre-cuts in the richly-carved cabinets of oak and ebony, in the gilded consoles, the beautiful tables of marqueterie; and he groaned at last over the ruins of some alabaster statuettes and great jars of Sèvres and majolica, which, in the last night's search, the French had wantonly dashed to pieces.
Ere long, he reached his own room, and on looking about, he missed at once his quarto volume on poisons, the work he had been studying—particularly that fatal passage from Celius—when the French dragoons drove the whole household from the villa. It was gone; but in its place on the desk he found the two bottles left by Isidora, the decoctions of mandrake and henbane. Here was a clue to the illness of the Ingles below; but how had the matter come to pass? Had he poisoned himself? This the padre doubted; but as an instant remedy was necessary, an inquiry and explanation would follow the cure.
Selecting certain simples, the Padre Florez hurried back to his patient, who was stretched on the sofa of the boudoir in a very bewildered condition, endeavouring to understand and reply to the somewhat earnest and impetuous inquiries of Ramon and his brother muleteers, who were now en route from Marvao to Portalegre—news which could not fail to interest Quentin; but he replied only by a languid and haggard smile.
He told them, however, that the sister of Don Baltasar de Saldos was in the villa, and implored them to search for her, which they did, in considerable excitement and surprise, leaving, as Ramon said, not even a rat-hole unexamined, but no trace of her could be found. Then Quentin rather surprised them by saying, impetuously, that she had been carried off by the French.
"Is it a dream, is she dead, or has she fled?" he asked of himself again and again; "no, no; she would never leave me willingly, her insane love forbids the idea."
Ramon, in searching for the sister of the formidable guerilla chief, whose name was already finding an echo in every Castilian heart, found Quentin's cap, sabre, and pistols, and fortunately the despatch or reply of Don Baltasar to Sir John Hope. Ignacio Noain found a lady's shoe of Cordovan leather, which the padre identified as having belonged to Donna Isidora. This served to corroborate the strange story of Quentin; but Florez remembered that the donna was in the habit of visiting the countess at the villa, and this little slipper might have been left behind by her on some occasion. It was found, however, in the vestibule, where it had fallen from her foot as the dragoons somewhat roughly dragged her away.
"In what way came this young stranger to speak of De Saldos' sister at all? Had they eloped together? If so," thought the padre, "then Heaven help the Englishman, for his doom is sealed!"
"I am ill—ill, padre—ill in body and sick at heart!" said Quentin faintly, as Florez, watch in hand, felt his pulse.
"You appear to have been poisoned, my poor boy," said he.
"Poisoned?" repeated Quentin, as a terrible fear and suspicion of Isidora's revengeful pride rushed upon him.
"Yes—beyond a doubt."
"Shall I die, padre?" he asked in an agitated voice.
"Oh no, my son, there is no fear of that—I shall cure you by a few simple remedies."
Quentin felt greatly relieved in mind on hearing this; but at present thirst was his chief merit, with an internal heat and pain that gave him no rest.
"Of what were you partaking last night?"
"Of wine only—champagne, which I found in a cabinet of the comedero (dining-room)."
"There is but one crystal cup remaining here unbroken."
"From that I drank it," said Quentin, who, in his delirium, had smashed a supper equipage of his own collecting.
It was a large goblet of Venetian crystal, studded with brilliantly-coloured stones. The Padre Florez looked at the dregs and shook his white head.
"This wine has been drugged—there is a fresh mystery here! And Donna Isidora de Saldos was with you last night—you are assured of that?"
"As sure as that I live and breathe, Senor Padre."
"Alone?" continued the priest, with knitted brows.
"Alone."
"How came it to pass that her brother entrusted her with you?" asked the padre, suspiciously.
Quentin was too ill to explain that she had been sent with him in disguise, as the mother of the guerilla Trevino; and Padre Florez, who naturally conceived the idea that they had eloped as lovers, and had quarrelled, to prevent a great tragedy, set about curing him.
He compelled him to drink quantities of new milk and salad oil, both of which he procured from the muleteers who were bivouacking on the terrace; after this, he gave him warm water mixed with the same oil, and fresh butter, to provoke intense sickness, to destroy the acrimony of the poison, and to prevent it doing injury to the bowels.
"If the pain continues, Ramon, we shall have to kill a sheep," said the padre, "and apply its intestines, reeking hot, to the stomach of the patient; 'tis a remedy I have never known to fail in allaying spasms there, especially if the sheep be a moreno."
By nightfall, however, thanks to the good padre's real skill, which was superior to his superstition in the efficacy of black-faced mutton, Quentin was quite relieved, and after a time related his whole story from the time of his leaving Herreruela. Florez listened to him with considerable interest, approved of all he had done, and gave him much good advice; but added that he feared De Saldos would hold him accountable for the loss of his sister, for whose treatment, and of whose ultimate fate among the French, he had the greatest apprehension. He added that his visit to the villa seemed to have been a special interposition of heaven in Quentin's favour, as he would inevitably have died in mortal agonies but for the prompt and simple applications which saved him.
He desired Ramon to take special charge of the patient to Portalegre; to see that by the way he got nothing stronger for food than milk, gruel, or barley broth, and no wine whatever; and then giving them all his benediction, which the muleteers received on their knees with uncovered heads, he stuck his shovel hat on his worthy old cranium, the thin hairs of which were white as snow, mounted his sleek mule, and pricking its dapple flanks with his box stirrup-irons, departed for Marvao, by the way of Valencia de Alcantara, where he hoped to trace, and perhaps release the unfortunate girl from her captors.
Impatient though the muleteers were to proceed with their train of mules, which were laden chiefly with wine for Sir John Hope's division, they agreed to remain for a night at the villa, where their cattle grazed on the lawn.
With dawn next day they set forth, with Quentin riding at the head of the train, mounted on Madrina, and feeling very much like one in a dream.
"Come, Ignacio Noain, a stirrup-cup ere we go," said Ramon, as he came forth, cracking his enormous whip, a blunderbuss slung on his back, and his sombrero rakishly cocked over his left eye.
Ignacio handed a cupful of wine to his leader.
"Demonio!" said the latter, "this smacks of the borrachio skin."
"To me it was luscious as a melon of Abrantes in June, after the coarse aguardiente we drank last night," said Ignacio, who looked rather bloodshot about the eyes.
"Of course you haven't tried the casks of Valdepenas on the three leading mules?" said Ramon, with a cunning leer.
"They are for the English general and his staff, so every cask is guarded by an outer one."
"And thus your gimlet failed to reach the wine?"
"Precisely so."
"Maldita! the merchant who sold that wine must either be a rogue at heart, or an old muleteer, to be so well up to all the tricks of the road. And now, senor, here is milk for you; no wine; we must remember the orders of Padre Florez," said Ramon, presenting Quentin with a bowl of new goat's-milk, as he sat, pale as a spectre, on the demipique saddle with which Madrina was accoutred, and which, in addition to all her other fringe and worsted trappings, gave that stately pet-mare very much the aspect of a mummer's nag.
Quentin, though refreshed and revived by the cool and delicious morning air, and cheered by the hope of being soon at head-quarters with his present jovial guides, felt sad and bewildered when he thought of Isidora, her beauty, her impetuous spirit, the wild and sudden love she had professed for himself, and the too probable horror of her fate in the hands of the French, who were so unscrupulous towards the Spaniards and Portuguese.
Then the mystery of the poison; it was no doubt, he hoped, some fatal mistake, but one which might never be solved or explained.
In fancy he seemed still to see her wondrous dark eyes, with their thick black upper and lower lashes, while her soft musical voice seemed to mingle with the melodious bells of the long train of mules at the head of which Madrina paced as guide; and as they descended the vine-clad hills towards the frontiers of Portugal, he turned in his saddle to give a farewell glance at the deserted Villa de Maciera.