Part 11

To which Hilo replied with some contempt: the boy was ferocious, as has been elsewhere said, only on provocation—

“You’re fitter for a hangman than a soldier, serjeant.”

A truth Wolfang took for a compliment.

“Hey?” cried that cidevant free-captain suddenly, “here’s one of our officers, let’s turn him over. A hole in the back of his casque by Lucifer; it served him right for turning his back on the enemy.”

Hilo may have recognized the whereabouts sufficiently to make a tolerably fair guess before the other added:

“Oh—oh—the maître-de-camp, De Haye!” But if he did he held his peace, and assisted in ridding the dead cavalier of a few personals.

The Walloon was thick-skulled, but his long service in villany had increased his cunning as a matter of course, and a duller man than he, acquainted with Señor de Ladron’s peculiarities, might have jumped to a like conclusion.

“Bah! he wasn’t a coward after all. The arquebuse that sent this ball was behind him while he faced the Dons. The man you owe a grudge to had better keep awake, Hilo, my lad.”

“You’re a fool,” Hilo returned. “Hold your tongue. Do you wish to bring the Spaniards upon us with your noise?”

To which the other answered sullenly—“You talk as if I wasn’t more than your slave. You’d better mind what you’re about. I aint going to stand it always, even if—here now, what’s to be done with these papers?”

“What is that shining in your hand?”

“A locket, or something of the sort, he had in his breast. Hang it, you want every thing!”

“A locket!” cried his comrade quickly. “Give it here.” Which the other did unwillingly, and the other pocketed after holding it up to the light. Hilo’s mood up to this moment had been none of the sweetest, as the captain could testify, but some virtue existed in the appropriation which was quite irresistible.

“Come, old fellow,” he cried to the serjeant, in high good-humor, “I was rather sharp with you just now, wasn’t I? You know I’m quick and all that, and musn’t mind me. Here’s a handful of ducats for your locket, as you found it; I fancy the thing, and don’t grudge paying for it.”

A gift the captain took with a growl half of resentment, for _he_ had not found a charm for himself, and could not so easily forget an offense as his master.

It was wonderful what a dog to fetch and carry that uncouth animal was to Hilo; how he followed him about, drew dagger in his service, and exposed his life any time rather than suffer the latter to embark alone in a perilous venture, a thing his youthful friend was much given to. It would have been an unanswerable proof of the existence in all men of some good trait, some capacity to love a brother, for a worse rogue than the captain would be difficult to select. But, unhappily, this Netherlandish Damon had sounder, if less sentimental, reasons for sticking by his Pythias. Hilo, a wonderfully precocious youth, had fallen in with the honest captain some three or four years back, and dexterously turned to his personal advantage a comfortable sum brought over from Peru by the other. “I like the boy, he’s full of pluck. I’ll school him into the ways of the world, look ye,” the captain used to say, at the very time his protégé was scheming to possess his ingots.

“I knew his father in Peru very well, a man of money. He lent me a helping hand once, and I don’t mind turning about and lending the boy any thing I have,” he spoke later. And so, not because of the helping hand, as the captain wished understood—which, to be sure, was Carlo’s beginning in life, the elder De Ladron having taken him into temporary partnership in the matter of a forced _repartimiénto_ which turned out golden—but because he had entire reliance in the magnitude of the senior’s estate, he made over to Hilo the bulk of his possessions, on conditions legally witnessed, of a fourfold return immediately on the other’s receiving his own. No doubt Hilo acted in good faith, less from inclination possibly than necessity, his money affairs having become rather intricate about that time, and there could be no question of the repayment of the full amount—the original was no trifle—at the season specified.

But when was that to arrive? A question Carlo asked himself with growing dissatisfaction not long after the last ducat had slipped through his debtor’s fingers. Hilo was in no hurry to marry the girl, and since signing the captain’s bond, had bestowed his affections elsewhere, as people say. A French countess, black-eyed and brisk, took his fancy much more than the blonde his betrothed, and during the stay of the French embassage at Madrid, the young gentleman was on good behavior—ostensibly at least. Of all her gallants none excited his jealousy so much as a cavalier who had accompanied the count unofficially, and stood high in his daughter’s favor.

Don Hilo’s way of removing an obstacle of this sort, was admirably illustrative of his sense of wrong, although sometimes, as in this instance, liable to miscarry. He first picked a quarrel with De Haye, and that gentleman refusing point-blank to fight so disreputable a party, was waylaid and killed by proxy in the person of Villenos, who was of much the same figure, and, as it chanced that night, similarly attired. The eclat of this mistake, added to the departure of the lady, took him to France, where information of De Haye’s joining the commandant induced him to enlist under the same knight’s pennon, in pursuance of his vengeful purpose, and the young blood-hound was of course nothing molified by the remonstrance of his enemy to De Chaste on shipboard, which Carlo repeated with some little exaggeration, to be expected from the mouth of so affectionate a friend.

The heavy, cunning, ex-free-captain was brow-beaten and domineered over by his former protégé in a truly surprising manner to one not in the secret. It was wonderful how much he bore, how assiduously followed at the heels of his junior when off duty, uneasy at losing sight of the latter. The truth was, the captain having gambled and squandered himself into poverty again, looked to the money to be derived from Hilo’s fortune for a means of reputable living, as he said.

“I was an honest soldier till I met that Hilo!” was his lament years after, while awaiting the hour of his execution. And it was the obduracy of the same young gentleman, aided by his own failure to win the heiress, which had reduced him to the necessity of relying upon Hilo’s attaining his twenty-fifth year and sole right of property; a fib, by the way, of the party interested, which the captain was by this time too near gone not to catch at with proverbial eagerness.

“If I can only keep him in sight,” he used to think fifty times a day with an oath, “until I get back my ducats, I’ll take pay for my dog’s life;” and at nights he would wake muttering the words and feeling the edge of his weapon, when Hilo would exclaim—“Can’t you leave off grinding your tusks in that savage fashion, you Dutch boar!”

The captain saw how a little misadventure in the shape of his dear young friend’s decease, might deprive him of all chance of restoration, and no mother could be more precious of her charge: Hilo might involve himself in difficulties and be slain in a brawl; it was this worthy soul’s chief business to guard against such a mishap, or extricate him when fairly in: or he might fly into an ungovernable rage and harm himself, or tempt the captain into doing so; so the latter eschewed all cause of contention, and humbled himself where humility became a necessity. For Carlo’s phlegmatic temperament was incapable of fear, and nothing would have gratified him more than a bout with the young gentleman—who, seeing his advantage, or from mere recklessness, tried his ability to bear and forbear to the utmost limit.

“Wait till I get my ducats back!” Wolfang consoled himself with muttering under his breath on such occasions, champing his jaws and keeping his fingers stalwortly from his dagger-hilt.

The pair were standing over the body of the maître-de-camp, Carlo with the papers in his hand taken from the breast of the dead lieutenant’s doublet, when Hilo cried:

“Hark! the camp is in motion yonder above. Come, Wolf, stir your clumsy legs before we are missed.”

And Wolfang trotting after his master thrust the crumpled missives into his own doublet—“It’s no use to throw away any thing in the dark,” he said; “I did a note of hand once so, and somebody else got the good of it; one of these days I’ll find time to spell it out”—where they remained many days, now and then taken out and returned, without much progress made in their elucidation, for the warlike captain was not much of a scholar, and found opportunity for only cursory examinations.

A destination very different was the captain’s pocket, it may be remarked, from that designed by the writer, Don Pedro, who, about the time Carlo pocketed the letters, was conversing with Señor Inique as to their efficiency in De Haye’s hands.

No man is absolutely penitent at the start; some fear for character, personal safety, or the like, is the prime mover, after which—it may be moments or years after—enters in a godly sorrow for sin committed. Sift your motives, exemplary reader, and satisfy yourself for once, your conscience is not the tender prompter to your most virtuous deeds you imagine: something to the effect, what it, or the world, or the church, or your wife at home will think, has its due influence. Human nature is not to be taken to task on this account; we are all more selfish than we choose to admit even to ourselves, or there would be an end straightway of all murders, thefts and villanies great and small and of every kind; and there is so little native good in us it is best not to cavil at the source of any redeeming trait, whatever it may be.

So Don Augustino after ten years’ penitence of fear, made confession for the first time of the same; not with the best conclusion or purpose in view, it may be objected, but the honest knight’s expressions of opinion were scarcely adapted to producing a better feeling at the beginning. Sir Pedro thought as much himself when he reviewed the conversation, and his after arguments were such as the mild expression of his fine gray eyes lent effect to, a thing they very seldom did when his speech was pointed with sarcasm. The soldier was first molified, then thoroughly subdued, and in the end inclined to adopt the counsel of his ancient companion-in-arms, who now, as always, took the shortest available course to the doing away of a bad deed by substitution of a good. Not that all this ripening of virtue in the veteran sinner’s breast was much hastened by the knight’s eloquence; it was mainly by the inexplicably swift thaw after the ice has been broken through with throes of dissolution, and something the knight’s words may have done at the beginning to aid the breaking up, something at the end to temper the freshet. What he saw when he entered the inner cabin of Inique’s ship, of that blank face and imbecility, I have nothing to relate; let the door remain shut upon him as it was in Inique’s time, and all likeness and constraint of the unhappy inmate be left to the imagination.

Entire restitution of name and property on one side, and public avowal of his paternity on the other, was what the straight-forward adviser urged, and Inique consented ultimately to perform. Avowed penitence strangely humbled the misshapen pride of the man. Once he said:

“You were right, Padilh; I was a coward from first to last. I begin to perceive there are two sorts of courage, one infinitely superior to the other, and God alone knows how much braver than I this poor boy might have proved.”

The main obstacle now to be overcome was the will of the supposititious Hilo, whose rage at finding himself heir to nothing would be likely to exceed all bounds.

“It must be opened gently,” said the knight. “The boy has an ill name for violence, and some gain must be shown as an equivalent for so much pecuniary loss; which last, I fear, will be the chief occasion of regret with him.”

“I have some little property of my own remaining,” answered the other, “and would gladly relinquish it in his favor, but for the claims of my other child. As for me, I am sick of this world’s honors—”

“Pooh!” cried Padilh cheeringly, “is this your new-found bravery? Look how you retreat before the enemy, and hope to shelter yourself behind a wall with monks. And as for your blue-eyed daughter, have no concern at all, for by this time I am sure that motherless countess of mine would stand a siege rather than surrender her unconditionally: we have more than we want in property and less in children, so you and I can each satisfy the other’s need and our own pleasure, which will be stealing a march at the start.”

The man of care and crime was sensibly touched by this offer.

“Many thanks!” was all he said, but he took his associate by the hand with a grasp that would make you or I wince.

“I think with you; he must be appealed to indirectly at first, that his suspicions may not be awakened too soon,” Don Pedro said shortly after, in answer to Inique. “In the French camp is a gentleman whose honor is unquestionable, and who entertains such friendship for me, he would not hesitate to undertake the service. If you do not oppose the design, I will write him a short narrative of the events, leaving the manner and time of communication to his judgment to determine. Until his jealousy of your present purpose is overruled, we may scarcely hope to meet the wretched boy in person, and I can see no better way of gaining our end.”

“Let it be so, I oppose nothing honorable,” replied the maître-de-camp.

“I am not referring to my old scale of honor,” he added presently, with something like a blush. There is hope for the man, thought Padilh thereupon; which was true enough.

The knight wrote the letter in accordance with this agreement, a brief recapitulation of the events of Inique’s life and his own, many of which De Haye already knew, urging that cavalier to use his discretion in acquainting the false Hilo de Ladron with so much of the truth as would suffice to induce an interview, by assuring him of no harm being plotted against his person, but rather some gain intended. Which letter Don Pedro contrived to have placed in De Haye’s hands the night before the battle in which the latter fell by the arquebuse of the boy whose cause he had at heart; for very nearly the last thought of this generous fellow, forgetting the enmity of Hilo, and perhaps rather careless of his rivalry even when disencumbered of the Señorita Inique, was that, after the day’s work was over, he would play the ambassador to what purpose he might: but it was Capt. Carlo that returned to camp with the letter instead.

The gallant captain hurrying back with his gay companion, found preparations making for a night attack, which were, however, countermanded before the column began the descent. The men had had their fill of fighting for the day, and turned in again wondering and grumbling at the useless disturbance. Meanwhile the commandant and the viceroy were discoursing of what had best be done, in the former’s tent. Senhor de Torrevedros, after the battle, had arrived with about a thousand of his countrymen, and one fourth or so the number of cows.

“The viceroy has brought milk for his babies at last,” the French soldiers said sarcastically; and the officer on duty who announced the arrival to De Chaste, prefixed an epithet to the count’s title by no means delicate or complimentary.

“In the devil’s name, sir count,” the commander exclaimed, with a red spot in either sallow cheek, “do you fetch these cattle to mount your cuirassiers or feed our troops?”

“Neither, at present, Senhor Commander,” the unabashed viceroy replied; “for in neither way could they so much benefit you as in their present condition.”

“Speak your mind freely, we are friends here, sir count,” the commandant answered coldly.

“Our valor is too well known to be questioned—second only to that of the French nation,” the count said braggartly, lifting his plumed cap by way of salute; “and I bring you, Senhor Commander, what no man may cavil at, a thousand men brave as lions and pledged to fall in defense of their king’s honor.”

At which speech a sarcastic smile passed round the group of attentive officers.

“Bah!” cried one to his comrade, “the fellow’s talk sickens me. Let’s go to sleep again, there will be nothing but gabble to-night.” And the two strode away. “Stay,” whispered the more curious, “we must hear the end of this bull story.”

Regardless of all which the viceroy continued.

“Yet, sir, on the word of a knight, these long-horned cows you affect to despise are more to be relied on as allies than twice the number of men I bring.”

“Doubtless,” the veteran rejoined, stroking his grizzled beard.

“I understand your double meaning, Senhor de Chaste,” Torrevedros said, slightly disconcerted. “But had you been present at a former descent of the Spaniards, when we routed five hundred infantry by driving half the number of wild cows upon them, you would not scoff at my design.”

“What! prove ourselves boors, and go to battle behind a herd of cattle with goads for lances!” here broke in the commandant with great indignation. “By St. Dennis and the devil, sir count, sir viceroy, you make my old blood boil to hear you talk. And I tell you once for all before these gentlemen here present, whose scornful laughter, as you may see, is only restrained by their good-breeding, that your offer in no respect suits the style of warfare practiced by knights and Frenchmen, although it may serve the purpose of cowards and Portuguese.”

“Take care! sir commandant,” cried the governor threateningly, stung to anger; “take care what you say in the hearing of a knight of that nation.”

“I have said my say,” the sturdy soldier answered shortly, turning his back on the speaker and stalking into his tent, where the other followed him after some consideration.

There the two commanders conversed at length, and with rather more harmony than the beginning promised; for De Chaste was not apt to bear a grudge long, and the smooth Portuguese would have kissed the other’s shoes if no other way offered for saving his precious life and limbs. The former, apart from his chivalric prejudices, and weighing the proposal simply as an expediency, refused to permit the employment of the horned reinforcement.

“They might as readily be turned against our battalions,” he justly remarked, “as Philip of Macedon’s elephants were, in some battle I’ve forgotten the name of.”

The commandant probably meant Pyrrhus, but his vocation being arms, not letters, he need not be undervalued by recent graduates who know better. One thing was now clear, the French had only themselves to look to, since the long expected recruits of the viceroy turned out to be a herd of cows, and a night attack was secretly ordered, which recalled the captain and Hilo to camp, but which the return of the count and his expostulations caused to be abandoned.

“You can learn nothing of the force and real position of the enemy, what obstacles lie between, nor who can guide you,” urged the alarmed governor plausibly; “and as for my men, I know not one who will be bribed or forced into a position so perilous.” Which appeared so truthful that the fiery Frenchman, with as bad a grace as any of his subordinates, betook himself to bed again after personally making the round of the Portuguese camp. All these swore by all the saints to stand to their posts. They were terrible fellows, fire-eaters and the like, at their own showing; but the commander was scarce asleep when Torrevedros reappeared with a confused air and the information that the entire division had stolen off and dispersed. Where the French general consigned his allies need not be repeated to polite ears, and I think his confessor, if he had one, should by no means have ordered a severe penance for what he said under provocation so grievous. A council of the chief cavaliers was immediately called. Alas! the most chivalric of them all lay at the foot of the hill without a word to offer.

The count spoke first, and strongly advised retreat to a higher mountain, by which the approaches to the interior might be readily defended, and an abundance of ammunition and provisions could be carried there, with cannon enough to maintain the position.

“Rather let us throw ourselves into the fortress of Angra,” cried Duvick, “Where, with our handful of Frenchmen, we can defy the whole Spanish army, backed by every Portuguese in the Azores.”

This speech drew a murmur of assent from the council, but the viceroy answered with his usual treacherous suavity.

“There is nothing to fear from my countrymen on that score, Messires.”

“No, by the Mass!” cried half a dozen voices, with some sardonic laughter; and the count turned to the commandant again, biting his lip with suppressed rage.

“Do as you please, Senhor de Chaste,” he said, with as much calmness as he could assume. “You are all masters here, I perceive, but I warn you fairly beforehand, that the walls of Angra are no better than a nut-shell, and the cannon of the marquis will bring them down upon your hot heads in less than twelve hours. Moreover, the place can contain not more than two hundred soldiers, as Heaven is my witness.”

Which was as great a fib as ever knight told, but quite as excusable as many, you ladies, are in the habit of telling by proxy at all hours of the day and at your front doors. I cannot see, for my part, how the Count de Torrevedros could possibly have acted otherwise under the circumstances, which approached as nearly as any military predicament may a civil, the not at home of mesdames out of toilette. In short, the count had that same night sent the keys of Angra by a trusty messenger to the Marquis of Santa Cruz, with his complimentary offer of services; an errand which the astute ambassador acquitted himself of to admiration, by leaving out the count and assuming the credit: and at the same moment the viceroy was giving his disinterested advice, no less a personage than Don Augustino Inique was marching in with five hundred men through the wide-open gates of the fortress.

This the commandant learned by daybreak the next morning, at which early hour he was pushing for the mountains in accordance with the advice of Torrevedros, who had gone ahead, as people say taking French leave. At the village of Nostre Dame Dager de Loup, they heard further that the governor had put off in a boat from the coast; and the French army, debarred from the sea on one side and Angra on the other, and now openly deserted by the Portuguese, occupied the little town and began immediately to throw up intrenchments before the arrival of the Spaniards.

“We must not think longer how best to live, but most honorably to die,” De Chaste answered a few of his young officers who grumbled at the want of necessary stores. A fine, heroic answer, which stopped the mouths of those high-spirited gentlemen, but was less efficient in the case of the soldiery. It must be confessed the estimable pair Hilo and the serjeant were not a little responsible for this discontent; hard work agreed with neither of their constitutions, and before nightfall they had found opportunity to exchange their views on the subject.

“I’d as lief be a galley-slave and be done with it,” the serjeant muttered to Hilo, who was helping him lift a load of sand out of the ditch.

“Captain,” returned the other, “you speak my mind; and things are getting in such a state here the sooner we draw our necks out of the noose the better.”

“Good,” replied Carlo, “but how is that to be done, look you? The marquis will hang us up for spies if we go over to them, and the count they say has gone off in the last boat on this coast.”