CHAPTER XXII.

PEREZ, THE POTTER; OR, THE ADVENTURES OF A NIGHT.

"When Massena retired before the impetuous advance of Lord Wellington, and left behind the boasted lines of Torres Vedras, you may remember that he selected the position of Santarem as one admirably adapted to keep in check the advance of your troops through the Portuguese frontier. While his division occupied their trenches on the hill above the Tagus, I was one day despatched on duty to the officer commanding the Cuirassier Brigade at Torres Novas, a town five leagues from Santarem, situated in the middle of a beautiful plain. It is surrounded by walls, and is overlooked by the castle with the nine towers, from which it takes its name.

"I rode without an orderly, or other followers, for the whole country was covered with our troops, and I had no dread of molestation, though desired by Marshal Massena to take with me a section of dragoons, as part of the country through which I had to pass was rendered very unsafe by the residence and outrages of a certain Don Julian d'Aviero, a half-mad student of Alcala, who had gathered a band of deserter guerillas, and become a captain of robbers in the woods of Santarem. There his name had become terrible through all the Spanish and Portuguese Estremaduras, Alentejo and Beira. His midnight expeditions and attacks upon the detached houses and solitary quintas of friend and foe were characterised by singular and wanton cruelty; and in a state of warfare, where the country was possessed by two hostile armies, the pretexts of treason and espionage were never wanting.

"A wild yell informed the inmates that their dwelling was surrounded by the banditti of Don Julian; the doors were dashed in; the men, half-starting from their beds, were hewn to pieces; their wives and daughters were dragged away to suffer worse than death; the houses were pillaged, and then reduced to ashes. And many of these atrocities were doubtless attributed by us to you, and by you to us. Captives were carried off daily, but they were generally ransomed; if not, a shot from a carbine, or a stab from a poniard, and all was over!

"I thought of all these things as I pursued my solitary way by the foot of the mountains that skirt the plain of Torres Novas; but it was with less of alarm than pleasure. To me there seemed something charming in the lonely and knight-errant-like fashion in which I had thus ridden forth, in a strange country, among dangerous ways, and an unscrupulous people, with neither friend nor ally save my sabre and horse.

"The sun was verging towards the darkening mountains of Alentejo; but the atmosphere was still exceedingly close and sultry, for, hot and bright, the rays of the western sun were poured from a clear and cloudless sky, scorching with their warmth the waving corn, and the myriads of wild flowers that covered the beautiful plain of Torres Novas.

"I was still far from the lines of Massena: the country seemed desolate and depopulated. I had no guide, and became apprehensive of losing my way, and wandering towards the British outposts. Once or twice I questioned a passing peasant, but was provoked by their sullenness and ignorance of their own locality.

"'Señor,' said I, to a paisano, whom I met driving two mules harnessed in a rude cart, which was simply composed of the rough stem of a tree, from which two branches in the form of a fork rested, one on each wheel, and formed the axle--'Señor, how many leagues is it from this place to Santarem?'

"'Three, señor Caballero,' replied the man, holding up three fingers.

"'Bueno! are they long or short?'

"'Short, señor.'

"There is, I know not why, a difference in the length of the Spanish leagues, as many a time and oft we found on the long line of march. After riding four or five miles further, and, being still uncertain, on meeting another peasant driving a borrico (an ass), laden with kid-skins of the mountain-wine, I inquired of him the distance from Santarem on the Tagus.

"'Five long leagues, señor,' he replied, displaying four fingers and a thumb.

"'Diable!' I muttered, and spurred on, for the sun had now sunk behind the blue waving line of the western Sierra.

"Near a roadside fountain I passed the bodies of three or four French soldiers, who had been wounded in a recent encounter with the outlaws of Julian Aviero, and had crawled there to quench their thirst and die. They had been completely stripped by the Spaniards, and their gory but honourable scars were blackening in the heat of the sultry day.

"On the velvet turf that bordered the road I softly drew up my horse, on observing behind the pedestal of the fountain a villanous son of Israel practising dental surgery, by robbing the jaws of the dead; for the soldiers being generally young men, their teeth brought a good price in the dentist shops of Paris and Madrid. I had frequently heard of this revolting practice, but never till that moment had ocular proof that such existed.

"The operator was a man about forty, lean and hollow-visaged, with the brow of a villain, the eyes of a snake, the nose of an eagle, and beard like a cossacque; he was enveloped in a loose blue gown, and his head was surmounted by a steeple-crowned sombrero, that had long lost every trace of its original colour. Near him lay a square mahogany box, like a pedlar's wallet, in which he carried his instruments and stock of dental wares.

"He was so busy with the relaxed jaws of a young soldier that he did not perceive my approach.

"You know how jealous we soldiers are of the treatment given to the remains of our dead comrades. Maladetto! my blood boiled. Dashing spurs into my horse, I plunged him right upon the dog of an Israelite; a kick from a hoof laid bare his skull, and stretched him prostrate on the earth. As he fell backwards I obtained a glimpse of his wallet, which bristled with poniards and pistols, from which I concluded him to be a robber of the living as well as of the dead; and I soon discovered my conclusions to be just.

"This rencontre occurred near a great olive wood, which was known to be the haunt of Aviero; and I rode as fast as possible to leave it behind before nightfall; but I had not gone half-a-mile from the fountain, when a sharp rifle shot whistled from a grove of olives on my right. My horse gave a snort of agony, and fell heavily forward, stone dead. A bullet had pierced his brain. I disengaged myself from the stirrups, and drew my sabre, but ere I could strike one blow in my defence, a hundred hands were upon me, and I was a prisoner, in the power of a band of savage frontier guerillas--half soldiers, half robbers, and wholly demons. Diable! my life hung by a hair.

"Some wore broad hats, embroidered jackets, and yellow scarfs, with plush breeches; others had little other garment than their olive skins, and wore their flowing hair of the deepest black, gathered in netted cauls; but all were armed with rifles, daggers, and pistols, or with all manner of military weapons gathered from the fields of those battles which were every day fought in their vicinity.

"Oh, Monsieur! what a moment of misery was that when I found myself so completely at the mercy of those ruffian Spaniards, whom I equally despised and abhorred.

"Many a knife was drawn and many a blow struck at me; but in their very fury and anxiety to destroy me these wretches retarded, impeded, and wounded each other.

"'Down with him! down with the Frenchman! Death to the Buonapartist! Maladetto!' was the cry on every side.

"'Caramba!' cried one in a voice of thunder, 'I will blow out the brains of the first that injures him. Frenchman and dog as he is, our laws must be respected. Away with him to the mountains, for Don Julian d'Aviero must decide his fate.'

"Aviero! my heart sunk; I was then quite in the power of the devil.

"Amid a storm of growling and swearing, and even fisticuffs, I was conducted through the wood, which was almost pathless and covered the face of the Sierra by which we ascended, to an old and ruined villa, belonging to the Duke of Aviero. It stood on the edge of a precipice that overhung the Tagus, and there Don Julian had for the present established his head-quarters. A recent attempt had been made, by a detachment of ours, under Jacques Chataigneur, to dislodge him; these had been repulsed with great slaughter; and on approaching the villa, I could discern vivid traces of the conflict--traces which its amiable and philosophical inmates cared not to trouble themselves as yet in removing.

"This noble residence of Don Julian's ancestors, with its marble vestibule and stately portico, its frescoed chambers and arcades of columns, round which the vine and the rose were clambering, had been no way improved by his occupation thereof. A balustraded terrace encircled it, and within and around it the dead French and guerillas were lying across each other in scores--many of them yet grasping their adversaries, just as they had fallen, without their hold relaxing, or the fierce expression which distorted their features at the hour of death passing away.

"Many of these men were my comrades, grenadiers of the 23rd, whom I could recognise, notwithstanding the alteration of their features.

"In the assault and defence, the doors and windows of this beautiful villa had all been blown to pieces; the walls were studded with bullets and spattered with blood, which appeared to have run like a rivulet down the staircase, to mingle with the waters of a shattered jet d'eau in the vestibule. At the head of the stair a barricade had been formed by a sideboard, a piano, and other furniture, wedged with bolsters and pillows, and books; and this point of assault had been fought for, like any breach in the glacis of Badajoz. Everywhere the bills and axes of the pioneers had been at work; but Chataigneur had been repulsed, and Don Julian remained impregnable and triumphant.

"In a noble apartment, the windows of which overlooked the Tagus and the vast plain that spread in its beauty towards the castle and city of Torres Novas, the ramparts of which were tipped with the last gleam of the set sun, Don Julian, with several of his desperadoes, sat over their cups of country wine, muffled in their mantles, and enjoying paper cigars, while their feet rested on a great copper brassero of charcoal that stood in the centre of the marble floor.

"Don Julian, a remarkably handsome young man, but with a bold, reckless, and ferocious cast of features, received me with a low bow, which I could perceive to be partly ironical. His jacket of green velvet was richly brocaded and fastened with silver clasps; his breast was displayed by an open shirt, and had a crucifix engraven on it by gunpowder. He wore yellow breeches girt by a sash, red stockings and abarcas; but had no weapons save his sabre.

"When he addressed me, I expected to hear but my death warrant; judge how agreeably I was surprised by his saying,--

"'Señor, though you are a Frenchman, and I might this moment put you to death as an invader of Spain, and as a revenge in some sort for the recent attempt made by your ruthless marshal on my residence here, I know you to be the officer who spared the mansion of old Don Juan Lerma, when empowered by your orders to destroy it. Don Juan is the only man for whom a lingering feeling of humanity has left in my breast an atom of regard, for he loved the old cavalier, my father, well. Being anxious to requite to you the kindness so lately done to him, and to prove whether his gratitude surpasses that of a robber, I request that you will write to him from this, my Villa of Aviero, and beg the ransom of one hundred dollars to free you from my troop, as I question very much if the state of Massena's commissariat will enable you to have so much loose cash about you.'

"'You are right, señor; a hundred dollars! Diable! I never had so much money at any time. But what if the cavalier Lerma refuses?'

"'You must die.'

"'Morbleu!' said I, shrugging my shoulders.

"'Such is the law of capture to which we have bound ourselves, by such oaths as men seldom hear. You will be accommodated with writing materials; address a letter to the Cavalier Don Juan Lerma, and one of my people will convey it immediately to the city of Santarem.'

"Upon this, I wrote a hurried but anxious note to the old hidalgo, begging him to consider the kindness I had done him, the danger by which I was menaced, and pledging my honour to repay the hundred duros out of my first prize money. This system of kidnapping and extortion had become so common that, being doubtful of the answer, I saw the messenger depart with an anxiety which I laboured in vain to conceal by folding my arms and planting my feet on the brassero, by smoking a cigar, sipping the Lisbon vino, and joining in the half frivolous and wholly ruffian chit-chat of Don Julian and his squalid myrmidons.

"In the midst of this I was a little startled to find my acquaintance, the Jew dentist, enter, with his box under his arm, a bloody cloth encircling his head and half concealing his basilisk eyes, which bent on me a demoniacal scowl of recognition; and I discovered to my consternation that this worthy, in virtue of being a greater fiend than his fellows, was no other than the lieutenant of Julian d'Aviero. But, without seeming to observe me, he advanced to the side of the latter, and whispered a few words in his ear.

"'Ha,' said Don Julian, 'is it so? then our hellish compact must be observed. I am sorry for the little paisana, but there is no remedy. Hold, there, cammarados! bring in the prisoners of Santarem--the potter Perez and the girl who was captured with him last night by our worthy Teniente Isacco Zendono.'

"'The girl is his sister,' growled the Jew robber, in husky Spanish, as he threw off his blue gown and revealed his gaudy Spanish dress, and sash bristling with pistols and knives, 'and a fair sample of mother Eve's flesh she is--Bueno!'

"'Curses blast you! bring them in, or'--and Julian, who always assumed the blustering ruffian to his own people, grasped a pistol.

"The lieutenant quitted his presence; but almost immediately returned, dragging in a stout peasant about three or four and twenty years of age. He had all the lofty air, the well-knit and erect figure of those peasantry on frontiers where the Portuguese are improved by intermarriage with the Spaniards. He wore a brown vest with loose sleeves, and breeches of bright yellow cotton, tied about the middle by a red silk scarf. His long raven hair was gathered in a wide silk netting, and hung in a heavy mass upon his neck. His hands were tightly pinioned by a cord, but he gazed about him with an air of reckless defiance, which, however, failed to intimidate the thieves, or to encourage his sister, a pretty-looking girl of sixteen, or thereabout, who clung to his arm in the utmost terror.

"Her coal-black hair was plaited somewhat after the fashion of the Basque women, in two gigantic braids, and reached below the flounces of her yellow skirt, which was short enough to expose, half-way up to the knee, her very handsome legs, encased in bright scarlet stockings which were elaborately covered with white braiding. Her little feet and ankles were equipped with open cut abarcas, interlaced with thongs of morocco leather, like the hose of your Highland soldiers. Her teeth and lips were a miracle, and her terror made her dark eyes glitter like diamonds. Ah! merci, monsieur, she was excessively captivating, that little paisana.

"Though such a little beauty is not uncommon in Spain, the robbers of Don Julian gazed upon her with gloating eyes of evil admiration and longing; many of them licked their huge blubber lips with grim and grotesque glee, as if anticipating kisses; while the poor sinking girl shrunk from their bold and villainous gaze, as she would have done from the eyes of so many serpents or fiends.

"'Teresa, hold up your head, my dear girl; do not droop before these base ladrones, stained as they are by a thousand atrocities. Dios! should innocence quail before guilt?' said the young peasant with a fearlessness that at once gained him my sympathy and admiration; and for a time I forgot my own troubles in those of the strangers. 'Be bold of heart, my sweet sister! We are possessed of that which can touch even the hearts of these bad men, and unlock the doors of their prison-house.'

"'You are mistaken in this idea, Señor Perez el Cantarero,' said Don Julian, with a quiet sneer, while his band crowded round with lowering brows and gloating eyes. 'Quite mistaken, allow me to inform you. Your honest uncle, the abagado (O most honest lawyer of Santarem!) has refused to ransom you. Our messenger, the very reverend rabbi, Isacco Zendono, has come back just now empty-handed.'

"The girl shrieked and hid her face in the bosom of her brother, who gazed around him with a look of rage, astonishment, and stupefaction.

"Isacco, the Jew, burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, in which Don Julian and his comrades joined.

"'Out upon ye, villains,' exclaimed Perez the potter, shaking his clenched hand at them.

"'O Perez, por amor de mi,' urged his sister, in a breathless voice.

"'Teresa, my poor Teresa,' muttered the brother through his hard-set teeth, 'I had doubts, dreadful doubts; but I expected not this. Answer, Señor Don Julian d'Aviero, does this black-hearted slave of Mammon, this villain of an abagado, forget that he retains in his repositories the inheritance left us by old Gil Perez, the alcalde of Santarem?'

"'In truth, most blustering señor, most valiant cavalier of crocks and cans, your father's honest brother has not forgotten that important fact,' replied Julian d'Aviero, in his cool, dry way. 'The abagado will act true to his trade, by deceiving those who trust him. His trade! May the great Devil confound it, for it has stripped me of as fair an heritage as ever came from a miserly sire to a spendthrift son. Well, Señor Perez, in short, to possess himself of your two thousand dollars, and practise a little profitable conveyancing, your relative the lawyer has stoutly declined to ransom you, saith our messenger, swearing by the bones of St. James, he would not yield the hundredth part of a pezzo to save you from the jaws of hell.'

"'Be it so,' muttered Perez, between his clenched teeth; 'in the world that is to come, he will meet with his reward.'

"'Were it but to provoke the abagado, I would willingly set you free, Señor Potter; but the laws of this free community say nay.'

"'But my sister----'

"'Has found no more favour than yourself. Santos! You are a strange fellow, Señor Perez. Who the devil ever expects to find an apostle in the carcase of an abagado?'

"'Madre de Dios! my poor Teresa!' said the young man, folding his sister to his breast; while she responded by an agony of grief and terror, such as I had never before witnessed.

"On her knees she bent before Julian d'Aviero, imploring him to spare her only brother, and to slay her, if he pleased; but her piteous cries and supplications, rendered yet more plaintive by the beautiful language of Spain, were drowned by the brutal jests, and whoops, and yells of the Portuguese robbers.

"When the hubbub subsided, 'Señor Cantarero,' said Don Julian, in his wonted cold and sarcastic manner, 'I have said that your ransoms are refused.'

"'And what then, Señor Ladrone?' asked the paisano sternly.

"You must die--that is all," replied the captain, quietly knocking the ashes from his fragrant cuba.

"'Die!'

"'Si, morir, Micer Perez el Cantarero,' said he, with an ironical bow.

"''T is hard to die thus, and unrevenged,' said the peasant, looking round as if for a weapon; 'but I am content, so that you release my sister, and swear upon the crucifix that she shall receive no harm.'

"At this demand there was another horrid laugh; and the Jew, turning up his eyes, swore something in Hebrew at a request so unreasonable.

"'Keep your mind quite at ease, Perez, amigo mio,' said Julian d'Aviero, whose potations were now affecting his brain, and imparting to his manner a strange mixture of ferocity and jocose cruelty--'do not be alarmed; your sister shall not die. Maladetto! dost think we have no taste or discrimination?'

"'The Holy Virgin thank you!' said the potter, with an odd mixture of fervour and ferocity; 'my dearest Teresa, will----'

"'Fall to the lot of the fortunate rascal to whom the happy dice assigns her,' said the Jew lieutenant of the gang, pushing forward and jostling me, with such insolence that I had some difficulty in keeping my hands from his throat.

"'Hark you, Master Potter,' he continued, in his husky Spanish, which I cannot imitate. 'We cast lots for the women we capture, if they be young and handsome. The men we poniard, if they cannot ransom their heads and hides, and then we bury them honourably in the chasm of the Tagus. The bones of some stout fellows are bleaching there, so you will find yourself in good company, I promise you I owe you a grudge for the stroke your 'cajado' dealt on my pate yesterday, and so claim the first blow to-day. Arrojarse, camarados! fall on!'

"He unsheathed his poniard and grasped the potter by the collar of his buckram doublet; but the descending blow was arrested by the uplifted arms of Teresa, who hung upon the villanous dog of Israel with the determination, if not with the strength, of a tigress, and poured forth a succession of cries and threats, which astonished even the intended assassin; then, sinking upon her knees, the winning girl pressed the murderer's hideous paw to her beautiful lips, beseeching him, in those accents to which a woman in deadly terror can alone give utterance, to spare her brother, her Perez, her dear and only brother, and she would become the servant, the slave, of the robber for her whole life.

"'Oh, spare my brother; spare him! O Señor Judio; O Señor Don Julian, Caballeros, gracias, bandidos, por Nuestra Señora Santissima!'

"'My slave? Demonios!' chuckled the ruffian Jew; 'that you may be at all events, or I may make short work with you, and so disappoint some honest fellow here. Off, off with you!' and he shook her from him with so much violence, that on sinking to the floor, the blood gushed from her mouth and nostrils.

"The Jew again raised his dagger, but Perez, filled with fury at the treatment of his sister, snapped, as if it had been a straw, the cord that bound him, and, grappling with the athletic ruffian, dashed him on the floor where he placed a foot upon his breast, and trod him down as one would do a serpent. The blood of the potter was up; grasping another by the sash, he hurled him back with such force that the bandit was instantly slain; for, on staggering, his head came so violently in contact with an angle of the wall, that in a moment his brains were dashed out, and he presented a dreadful spectacle as he lay, breathless and quivering, with his battered skull empty, as if struck by a grapeshot, and his blood and brains forming an oozy pool beside him.

"Even the banditti seemed struck with horror for a moment, and a stillness ensued. They glared at their dead comrade and at each other, heedless of the groans and struggles of the half-stifled Zendono. The voice of the girl was again heard supplicating, for I had raised her up; and she implored me to save her brother, for he had done no wrong, but shed blood only in his own defence, and now remained motionless and terrified at his own temerity. The faint and half-articulate voice of Teresa recalled the band from the spell which, as I have said, their comrade's death had cast around them; and simultaneously they rushed with their knives upon the poor potter, and, pierced at once by innumerable and reiterated wounds, he sunk lifeless among their feet; and long after the last vital spark had fled, they continued to stab and slash, and otherwise mutilate the corpse until its bloody garments hung about it in tatters.

"'Tonnere!' thought I, 'if my friend the hidalgo has neither the cash nor the inclination to ransom me, I shall be in a bad way.'

"By order of Don Julian, who had watched this scene of butchery with folded arms and an immovable aspect, the body was tossed over the window, from whence I heard it falling heavily from rock to rock before it reached the deep, dark water of a tributary of the Tagus, that struggled through a chasm in the cliffs, two hundred feet below.

"While the half-drunken banditti cursed and yelled like fiends, they cast the dead body of their comrade after that of the unfortunate potter, then wiped and sheathed their poniards; and all traces of the horrible occurrence disappeared, save the red blood gouts upon the floor, which these European Thugs never thought of cleansing; but trampled to and fro among that frightful puddle as heedlessly as if it had been so much spring water spilt by accident.

"Teresa had swooned, and hung on my arm in a happy state of insensibility.

"Isacco Zendono, who had suffered severely in the melée, during his prostrate position on the floor, now scrambled up, his heart burning with fury, and his body smarting with pain. He was plastered with the gore of the slain men; and its dripping from his sable beard and matted hair no way improved his personal appearance, or increased the benevolence of his features.

"Growling at the weight of his comrades' heels, he demanded in a stentorian voice that lots should be cast for possession of the Señora Teresa; a proposition at once acceded to.

"Dice were produced, and the beetle-browed banditti crowded round a table, where they rattled and threw the dice in succession.

"The Jew uttered a yell.

"He had won!

"Diable! how like a victorious fiend he seemed, as, with a shout of villanous joy, he snatched the poor insensible victim from my arms, and with his poniard menacing any man who dared to follow, bore her off, bent double over his left arm, as easily as he would have done a folded mantle.

"Poor Teresa! she was so slight and young.

"Monsieur, I am not quite such a bad or wild fellow as, perhaps, you may think me; and I do assure you that I then felt my impetuous blood tingling in every vein. I sprang after the dog Zendono, but was restrained by the powerful and perhaps friendly arm of Don Julian d'Aviero.

"'Señor!' he exclaimed, in a whisper, 'are you mad? Remember your life is at stake, and ponder well on the helplessness of your condition among us.'

"The truth of this came bitterly home to my heart; I gave the speaker a fierce and reproachful glance, and folded my arms in silence.

"My heart bled for the unhappy girl.

* * * * * *

"Frequently in that long and dreary night, when the mountain blast howled drearily through the shattered villa of Aviero, and moaned in the gorge through which the Tagus wound, I heard the cries and lamentations of the miserable girl, and the oaths and revelry of those to whom she was now abandoned.

"Ere daybreak her cries had ceased. Mille Baionettes! they nearly drove me mad.

"What became of her I know not, as I never saw her again.

"Next day, an old Padre of Santarem came with a message from the hidalgo Don Juan Lerma, whose mansion I had spared. The priest had volunteered on this errand of mercy, as no other man in Santarem would venture within the reach of the terrible Aviero, to whom he paid two hundred pillared dollars, and I was conducted to within a few toises of the advanced sentinels of our out-piquets, by Don Julian in person, and we bade each other adieu with a very good grace, but without either tears or regret on my side, as may be well assumed; and so ended my mal-adventure in the wood of Santarem."

The Captain St. Florian concluded his story.

"Parbleu!" said he, "how dry my throat is with speaking so long, and I dare say I have tired you to death. But let us have one more bottle of Janette's champagne, and then we shall decamp soberly to look for more adventures. But I must be cautious, being for guard at the chateau to-morrow. You cannot mean to return to Lagny to-night?"

"I must; and 't is high time we were off, Captain St. Florian; besides, I see Janette is decidedly sleepy."

"Ah! poor girl, yes."

"My horse is at an hotel in a street leading from the Champ Elysées."

"Ouf! a devil of a way from this. There is a church clock striking five. Nombril de Belzebub, 't is morning!"

We hurriedly rose to depart. Janette had fallen fast asleep in the bar, and St. Florian kissed her brow as he passed and deposited the reckoning in her lap. The portière of the cabaret let us out, and we sallied through the street to find my hotel.

At the chateau, as the Parisians name the palace, I bade adieu to the captain, and getting forth my horse, rode off.

The trumpets of the Austrian cavalry and the English drums were ringing on the early morning wind, as the reveille roused the soldiers of the allied host in their several camps and cantonments.

The patrols of the gensd'armes were retiring to their quarters; the sun was coming up in his glory, and ruddily in his morning light, amid the morning smoke of Paris, shone the huge façade of Notre Dame, and the burnished dome of the Hotel des Invalides.

Paris, with its tented parks and guarded barriers, was left behind; and I dashed at full gallop along the dusty road that under the shadow of many a vine trellis, and many an apple bower, led to my cantonments at Lagny on the Marne.