CHAPTER XXIX.

THE LAST OF DON FABRIQUE.

A week or two after our return from Seville to Gibraltar, Jack Slingsby received a note from a Spanish officer, who commanded a detachment of the Grenadiers of Jaen, to the effect that the famous bandit Fabrique de Urquija had been taken, and was condemned to die by the spirited Alcalde of San Roque; that his execution was to take place on the day after to-morrow, and that if we wished to behold the mode of punishing such criminals in Spain, it would afford him much pleasure if we joined his party, which was ordered to assist in guarding the scaffold.

Though neither of us were animated by a love of cruelty or taste for the morbid, we were somewhat curious to see how this romantic vagabond, who so pitilessly had meted out death to so many others, would encounter his own terrible doom, and availing ourselves of the Spanish officer's polite offer, we procured a day's leave, rode over to breakfast with him, and marched with his detachment to San Roque, a little town, which lies, as I have elsewhere said, about six miles from our garrison on the Spanish side.

As we proceeded, the Spanish capitano told us the little episode of Don Fabrique's capture.

It happened thus.

The Alcalde of San Roque was reputed to be immensely wealthy, and to have in a secret place a strong box full of yellow doubloons and rich silver duros, piled up in shining pillars to its brim, like the treasure chests which the Moors are supposed to have hidden in all the old castles and ruined atalayas in Spain, and all of which are occasionally visible to those who have the fortune of being born on Good Friday, as every Spaniard knows.

The rumour of this wealth could not fail to reach the ears of Don Fabrique, and to excite the cupidity of that enterprising gentleman; but concealing his intentions from his band, whom he intended to leave, as he proposed to himself a little trip to Paris or Peru, if he relieved the Alcalde of those cares which are inseparable from the possession of wealth, he reconnoitred the house, and found an entrance to a room wherein he secreted himself beneath a bed, which stood in an alcove off it. In this bed the portly alcalde and his buxom wife were wont to take their repose; so Don Fabrique had not been very long in this place of concealment, when the lady came in with a lamp in her hand, and placing it on the toilet table, proceeded to divest her charming person of her habiliments.

She threw the fag end of her cigar into the brassero; hung her wig upon a knob of the mirror, et cetera. She then dipped a finger into the little font of holy water which hung at the head of her bed, and stepped in, to await the coming of her worthy spouse, who was lingering over the 'Heraldo' and a glass of Valdepenas in the dining-room below.

Now as the bed had a canvas bottom like a hammock, and the lady therein was equal in size and weight to three ordinary women, Don Fabrique, with natural consternation, reflected on what he should have to endure, when the gorbellied alcalde was added to the superincumbent load of the señora.

"Demonio!" thought he, "what is to be done? I shall be suffocated before that brute the señor patron is half asleep!"

The panting robber stirred uneasily, and the stout lady above him started.

"Madre de Dios, what is that!" she whispered to herself.

There was no response; but on Fabrique stirring again, the señora fairly sprang in terror from her bed. Fabrique dared not breathe, but with one hand on his stiletto and the other on his lips, he lay still as death. The lady now obtained a glimpse of his foot. and uttering one of those shrill cries, which most women can utter at any time, she rushed from the chamber to seek her husband; but first she took the precaution of double-locking the door.

Finding himself discovered, and aware that all was over now, Fabrique hastened to escape by his place of entrance, the window. Alas! it was now secured by a shutter crossed by iron bars on the outside, and these resisted all his efforts. There was no chimney; again he rushed to the door. It was firm--fast as a rock, and he might as well have rushed against the stone wall. He heard the clank of feet and of halberts as the hastily-summoned alguazils came into the room below; true, he had his dagger; but what would that avail him against so many? The perspiration burst over his brow and he cursed the avarice which brought him on such errand unassisted by that faithful and determined band he was about to leave for ever.

Fertile in expedients, he at last thought of one.

He threw off all his clothes and popped into the bed of the señor alcalde, and scarcely had he tucked himself cosily in when the door was burst open, and in marched the portly patron, his eyes dilated with vengeance, and his paunch swollen with official dignity and purple valdepenas, while the grim alguazils with pointed halberts and cocked trabujas came behind, and with them was the terrified lady in her night-dress, holding a candle in one trembling hand, her rosary and a case of reliques in the other.

Fabrique gazed at them with well-feigned surprise, which was reflected in the faces of all on beholding the place of his retreat, though it soon turned to resentment in the wife of the alcalde; her eyes flashed; her plump cheeks and bosom became crimson with anger.

"How now, señor raterillo," thundered the alcalde; "what am I to understand by all this?"

"By what, most worthy señor," whined the robber, with affected simplicity and shame.

"Why--your being here--here, señor--in the bed of the señora--in my bed?" continued the alcalde, gathering courage from the loudness of his own voice; "speak, rascal--why are you here?"

"Ask the señora, who invited me," replied Fabrique. with the coolest assurance in the world.

"Morte de Dios, what is this I hear?" muttered the overwhelmed alcalde.

"Yes, ask her, for I did not come here unexpected, believe me, most worthy and much-injured Señor Patron," continued the cunning rogue as he leaped out of bed, and assisted by the tittering alguazils, put on his garments with all haste, while the wife of the poor alcalde gazed upon him speechless with rage at the inference and his accusation, while the magistrate himself was baffled and blanched by a new and vague sense of shame and consternation.

"My dear señora," said Fabrique, in a bland tone, as he tied on his sash and assumed his sombrero, "I regret extremely that you are weary of me--that my company is no longer pleasing to you, as of old; but it is very cruel of you to bring the neck of a poor lover so faithful as I into such deadly jeopardy, and I shall treasure this lesson of female perfidy, revenge, and caprice to my latest hour. Muchas gracias, señora, much good may your trick do you."

The lady was choking with anger and unmerited shame, while the cunning rogue continued,--

"Most worthy Señor Alcalde, most faithless and fickle señora, and you, most paltry and pitiful señores alguazils, I have the honour to wish you all a very good evening."

With a low bow and a mocking smile, he was about to depart, when one of the alguazils exclaimed,--

"Stop--seize him; by Santiago, 'tis Fabrique de Urquija!"

The face of the robber became black with fury; he drew his stiletto and rushed upon his discoverer, but was soon beaten down by the halberts and clubbed blunderbusses of the officials, by whom he was bound with cords and dragged to prison without delay.

He was soon tried in due form, and though the whole town rang with his terrible exploits, and the women praised his handsome figure, his reckless courage, and the great tact and skill by which he had so nearly eluded the pot-bellied Alcalde, he was sentenced "to be garotted at twelve o'clock to-day."

Such was the detail given to us by the Spanish officer.

As we neared San Roque, we found great crowds from remote parts of the judicial partido, all clad in the picturesque and antique costumes of the province, ascending the mountain on which the town is situated, and all anxious to behold the dying demeanour of the most famous of Spanish bandits--the greatest since Manuel Francisco was shot at Cordova two years ago.

The mountain of San Roque stands at the head of a beautiful bay of the same name; and on looking back as we ascended, we had a charming view of the sea, with several large Xebecques floating like gigantic white birds with wings outspread upon its shining azure surface.

A clear and brilliant morning sun poured a flood of light athwart the picturesque plaza of San Roque, into which, as one may easily imagine, the whole male population of the town--about eight thousand--were crowded. This plaza resembled a sea of human heads covered with black or brown sombreros; though there were many who wore only their own coarse black hair in netted cauls, and a few had scarlet forage caps. Above this crowd glittered the bayonets and the glazed shakoes of a battalion of Infantry of the Spanish line, from the adjacent barracks. These surrounded the high wooden platform of the garotte. Within their line were the poor old ecclesiastics of the two suppressed convents and three hospitals of San Roque, wearing the remarkable monastic costumes of a past age.

The principal place was occupied by the commandant of the fortified camp of San Roque, who, upon our appearing among the crowd in our British uniform, sent his aide-de-camp, with a polite invitation for us to join his staff, which we immediately accepted.

On the centre of the platform, which was about twenty feet square, and covered with black cloth, sat the fallen Fabrique de Urquija upon a little wooden stool, with his back placed against the upright post of the garotte, the iron collar of which encircled his brawny naked neck. His broad low brow was black as a thunder cloud; his eyes were fierce and keen, and with a lowering glance of scornful pride, he surveyed the masses who crowded on every inch of space that afforded footing. His ancles were chained to an eyebolt on the floor of the platform. Near him stood the old confessor José de Torquemada of Medina, barefooted; his cowl thrown back; in his wrinkled hands an ivory crucifix, which ever and anon he placed to the quivering lips of the doomed man in the interval of prayer.

Poor Urquija! I forgot all his atrocities and the evil he would once have done to Slingsby and myself; and now I felt only pity for his terrible situation.

"I saw your glance of commiseration," said Jack quietly, as he prepared a cigarito; "but be assured, Ramble, you may as well feel pity for a bruised wolf. I have not forgotten the Rio de Muerte, and that night on the hills above Trohniona."

"Noble Caballeros--buenos Christianos," said a venerable Franciscan, placing before us the wooden platter on which he was receiving the reals and pence of the faithful; "por neustra Señora Santissima, one little medio for the sinful soul of Fabrique de Urquija."

Jack and I--though believing but little in monk or mass--were taught as soldiers to respect the religious prejudices of all men; thus we were touched by the honest piety of these old pillars of a dying creed---dying at least in Spain; and we each threw in a gold coin. This raised an approving murmur among the people, and the prisoner gave us a glance full of recognition and gratitude. We had paid enough for fifty masses!

The church bell now began to toll a passing knell.

Then the alguazils, who wore the cavalier costume of other times--the broad hat, the long locks, the white vandyke collar over a little shoulder mantle, the short knee-breeches and buckled shoes, of the days of Cervantes, advanced their halberts and ascended the scaffold, accompanied by the executioner, who was dressed in the deepest black. All present now murmured and looked round, and several officers drew their swords, for rumours of a projected rescue were current in San Roque and its vicinity.

The confession was ended, and if all the horrors which rumour ascribed to the unhappy Urquija were true, what a revelation it must have been! What a volume it would have made!

José Torquemada remained on his knees beside the penitent, who turned to him ever and anon, anxiously and hurriedly to pour into his ear some newly-remembered act of guilt, or perhaps to spin out the thread of life a little--a very little longer.

Meanwhile the solemn bell continued tolling; the people around the scaffold were nearly all upon their knees, and the grasp of the executioner was laid upon the iron wrench or screw of the garotte. The face of the culprit flushed as he did so, and then grew pale as marble.

The hand of the church clock indicated the hour of noon; then a cannon pealed from the fortifications of San Roque and the priest pointed with his crucifix to Heaven, while the executioner, at that instant, gave the screw a vigorous twist, and the head of Urquija fell suddenly on his breast. It heaved a little, and all was over.

A "viva" mingled with the prayers of the people; but the dead man remained motionless and still, under that bright sunshine of noon; and then rose the hum of many voices as if a load had been taken off every breast; while the bayonets flashed and the sharp brass drums beat merrily, as the Spanish Infantry wheeled from hollow square into open column of companies, and marched by sections through the Plaza to the fortified camp of San Roque; then the crowd, who, up to the last moment had foretold and expected a rescue from the band of Urquija, who were hovering and vowing vengeance on the Sierra de Ronda, began to disperse.

Such was the last act in the terrible career of Fabrique de Urquija, the student of Alcala; and such was the last episode of Jack Slingsby's Spanish adventures and mine.

We dined with the Commandant at the fortified camp of San Roque, and in the evening rode back to Gibraltar, where we found the garrison in a buzz of excitement.

"What is the matter?" I asked of a sentinel at the lower fortifications as we rode in; "and for what reason was that heavy cannon fired after sunset?"

"The Himalaya has come in, sir, with Sir Henry Slingsby and a detachment of the Guards on board; she is at anchor in the roads, and your regiment is ordered to embark for the Crimea by gunfire to-morrow."

"Hurrah!" cried Jack, and we dashed at full speed to our barracks, where the clusters of our soldiers in the square, laughing and talking gaily, the colonel's orderly running after the adjutant, the adjutant calling for the Serjeant major, and the evident excitement and satisfaction visible in every face, corroborated the information of the sentinel, and impressed upon us the necessity of immediately packing our baggage; but before doing so, I dispatched at once to press these little tales and episodes which have lightened and beguiled our mess-table in old Gibraltar; and if they please my readers, and win from them but half the praise they won from my light hearted and brave brother officers, my task in collecting them will be more than recompensed.

WYMAN AND SONS, PRINTERS, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LONDON.