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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 4957 ***
+
+
+
+
+THE HEART’S SECRET
+
+Or, The Fortunes Of A Soldier.
+
+
+By Lieutenant Murray Ballou
+
+
+
+
+Boston
+
+1852
+
+
+
+
+PUBLISHER’S NOTE.—The following Novellette was originally published in the
+PICTORIAL DRAWING-ROOM COMPANION, and is but a specimen of the many deeply
+entertaining Tales, and gems of literary merit, which grace the columns of that
+elegant and highly popular journal. The COMPANION embodies a corps of
+contributors of rare literary excellence, and is regarded as the ne plus ultra,
+by its scores of thousands of readers.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+ PREFACE
+ THE HEART’S SECRET
+ CHAPTER I.—THE ACCIDENT
+ CHAPTER II.—THE BELLE AND THE SOLDIER
+ CHAPTER III.—A SUDDEN INTRODUCTION
+ CHAPTER IV.—CUBAN BANDITTI
+ CHAPTER V.—THE WOUNDED SOLDIER
+ CHAPTER VI.—THE CHALLENGE
+ CHAPTER VII.—THE PRISONER
+ CHAPTER VIII.—THE FAREWELL
+ CHAPTER IX.—THE EXECUTION SCENE
+ CHAPTER X.—THE BANISHMENT
+ CHAPTER XI.—THE PROMOTION
+ CHAPTER XII.—THE QUEEN AND THE SOLDIER
+ CHAPTER XIII.—UNREQUITED LOVE
+ CHAPTER XIV.—THE SURPRISE
+ CHAPTER XV.—THE SERENAPE
+ CHAPTER XVI.—A DISCOVERY
+ CHAPTER XVII.—THE ASSASSIN
+ CHAPTER XVIII.—THE DISGUISE
+ CHAPTER XIX.—THE AVOWAL
+ CHAPTER XX.—HAPPY FINALE
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The locale of the following story is that gem of the American
+Archipelago; the Island of Cuba, whose lone star, now merged in the
+sea, is destined yet to sparkle in liberty’s hemisphere, and radiate
+the light of republicanism. Poetry cannot outdo the fairy-like
+loveliness of this tropical clime, and only those who have partaken of
+the aromatic sweetness of its fields and shores can fully realize the
+delight that may be shared in these low latitudes. A brief residence
+upon the island afforded the author the subject-matter for the
+following pages, and he has been assiduous in his efforts to adhere
+strictly to geographical facts and the truthful belongings of the
+island. Trusting that this may prove equally popular with the author’s
+other numerous tales and novelettes, he has the pleasure of signing
+himself,
+
+Very cordially,
+
+THE PUBLIC’s HUMBLE SERVANT.
+
+DEDICATED TO THE READERS OF GLEASON’S PICTORIAL DRAWING-ROOM COMPANION,
+FOR WHICH JOURNAL THESE PAGES WERE ORIGINALLY WRITTEN, BY THEIR VERY
+HUMBLE SERVANT, LIEUTENANT MURRAY.
+
+
+
+
+THE HEART’S SECRET.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+THE ACCIDENT.
+
+
+The soft twilight of the tropics, that loves to linger over the low
+latitudes, after the departure of the long summer’s day, was breathing
+in zephyrs of aromatic sweetness over the shores and plains of the
+beautiful Queen of the Antilles. The noise and bustle of the day had
+given place to the quiet and gentle influences of the hour; the slave
+had laid by his implements of labor, and now stood at ease, while the
+sunburnt overseers had put off the air of vigilance that they had worn
+all day, and sat or lounged lazily with their cigars.
+
+Here and there strolled a Montaro from the country, who, having
+disposed of his load of fruit, of produce and fowls, was now preparing
+to return once more inland, looking, with his long Toledo blade and
+heavy spurs, more like a bandit than an honest husbandman. The evening
+gun had long since boomed over the waters of the land-locked harbor
+from the grim, walls of Moro Castle, the guard had been relieved at the
+governor’s palace and the city walls, and now the steady martial tread
+to the tap of the drum rang along the streets of Havana, as the guard
+once more sought their barracks in the Plaza des Armes.
+
+The pretty senoritas sat at their grated windows, nearly on a level
+with the street, and chatted through the bars, not unlike prisoners, to
+those gallants who paused to address them. And now a steady line of
+pedestrians turned their way to the garden that fronts the governor’s
+palace, where they might listen to the music of the band, nightly
+poured forth here to rich and poor.
+
+At this peculiar hour there was a small party walking in the broad and
+very private walk that skirts the seaward side of the city, nearly
+opposite the Moro, and known as the Plato. It is the only hour in which
+a lady can appear outside the walls of her dwelling on foot in this
+queer and picturesque capital, and then only in the Plaza, opposite to
+the palace, or in some secluded and private walk like the Plato. Such
+is Creole and Spanish etiquette.
+
+The party referred to consisted of a fine looking old Spanish don, a
+lady who seemed to be his daughter, a little boy of some twelve or
+thirteen years, who might perhaps be the lady’s brother, and a couple
+of gentlemen in undress military attire, yet bearing sufficient tokens
+of rank to show them to be high in command. The party was a gay though
+small one, and the lady seemed to be as lively and talkative as the two
+gentlemen could desire, while they, on their part, appeared most
+devoted to every syllable and gesture.
+
+There was a slight air of hauteur in the lady’s bearing; she seemed to
+half disdain the homage that was so freely tendered to her, and though
+she laughed loud and clear, there was a careless, not to say heartless,
+accent in her tones, that betrayed her indifference to the devoted
+attentions of her companions. Apparently too much accustomed to this
+treatment to be disheartened by it, the two gentlemen bore themselves
+most courteously, and continued as devoted as ever to the fair creature
+by their side.
+
+The boy of whom we have spoken was a noble child, frank and manly in
+his bearing, and evidently deeply interested in the maritime scene
+before him. Now he paused to watch the throng of craft of every nation
+that lay at anchor in the harbor, or which were moored; after the
+fashion here, with their stems to the quay, and now his fine blue eye
+wandered off over the swift running waters of the Gulf Stream, watching
+for a moment the long, heavy swoop of some distant seafowl, or the
+white sail of some clipper craft bound up the Gulf to New Orleans, or
+down the narrow channel through the Caribbean Sea to some South
+American port. The old don seemed in the meantime to regard the boy
+with an earnest pride, and scarcely heeded at all the bright sallies of
+wit that his daughter was so freely and merrily bestowing upon her two
+assiduous admirers.
+
+“Yonder brigantine must be a slaver,” said the boy, pointing to a
+rakish craft that seemed to be struggling against the current to the
+southward.
+
+“Most like, most like; but what does she on this side? the southern
+shore is her ground, and the Isle of Pines is a hundred leagues from
+here,” said the old don.
+
+“She has lost her reckoning, probably,” said the boy, “and made the
+first land to the north. Lucky she didn’t fall in with those Florida
+wreckers, for though the Americans don’t carry on the African trade
+nowadays, they know what to do with a cargo if it gets once hard and
+fast on the reefs.”
+
+“What know you of these matters?” asked the old don, turning a curious
+eye on the boy.
+
+“O, I hear them talk of these things, and you know I saw a cargo ‘run’
+on the south side only last month,” continued the boy. “There were
+three hundred or more filed off from that felucca, two by two, to the
+shore.”
+
+“It is a slaver,” said one of the officers, “a little out of her
+latitude, that’s all.”
+
+“A beautiful craft,” said the lady, earnestly; “can it be a slaver, and
+so beautiful.”
+
+“They are clipper-built, all of them,” said the old don. “Launched in
+Baltimore, United States.”
+
+Senorita Gonzales was the daughter of the proud old don of the same
+name, who was of the party on the Plato at the time we describe. The
+father was one of the richest as well as noblest in rank of all the
+residents of the island, being of the old Castilian stock, who had come
+from Spain many years before, and after holding high office, both civil
+and military, under the crown, had at last retired with a princely
+fortune, and devoted himself to the education of his daughter and son,
+both of whom we have already introduced to the reader.
+
+The daughter, beautiful, intelligent, and witty to a most extraordinary
+degree, had absolutely broken the hearts of half the men of rank on the
+island; for though yet scarcely twenty years of age, Senorita Isabella
+was a confirmed coquette. It was her passion to command and enjoy a
+devotion, but as to ever having in the least degree cherished or known
+what it was to love, the lady was entirely void of the charge; she had
+never known the tenderness of reciprocal affection, nor did it seem to
+those who knew her best, that the man was born who could win her
+confidence.
+
+Men’s hearts had been Isabella Gonzales’s toys and playthings ever
+since the hour that she first had realized her power over them. And yet
+she was far from being heartless in reality. She was most sensitive,
+and at times thoughtful and serious; but this was in her closet, and
+when alone. Those who thought that the sunshine of that face was never
+clouded, were mistaken. She hardly received the respect that was due to
+her better understanding and naturally strong points of character,
+because she hid them mainly behind an exterior of captivating
+mirthfulness and never ceasing smiles.
+
+The cool refreshing sea breeze that swept in from the water was most
+delicious, after the scorching heat of a summer’s day in the West
+Indies, and the party paused as they breathed in of its freshness,
+leaning upon the parapet of the walk, over which they looked down upon
+the glancing waves of the bay far beneath them. The moon was stealing
+slowly but steadily up from behind the lofty tower of Moro Castle,
+casting a dash of silvery light athwart its dark batteries and grim
+walls, and silvering a long wake across the now silent harbor, making
+its rippling waters of golden and silver hues, and casting, where the
+Moro tower was between it and the water, a long, deep shadow to
+seaward.
+
+Even the gay and apparently thoughtless Senorita Isabella was struck
+with delight at the view now presented to her gaze, and for a moment
+she paused in silence to drink in of the spirit-stirring beauty of the
+scene.
+
+“How beautiful it is,” whispered the boy, who was close by her side.
+
+“Beautiful, very beautiful,” echoed Isabella, again becoming silent.
+
+No one who has not breathed the soft air of the south at an hour such
+as we have described, can well realize the tender influence that it
+exercises upon a susceptible disposition. The whole party gazed for
+some minutes in silence, apparently charmed by the scene. There was a
+hallowing and chastening influence in the very air, and the gay
+coquette was softened into the tender woman. A tear even glistened in
+Ruez’s, her brother’s eyes; but he was a thoughtful and delicate-souled
+child, and would be affected thus much more quickly than his sister.
+
+The eldest of the two gentlemen who were in attendance upon Don
+Gonzales and his family, was Count Anguera, lieutenant-governor of the
+island; and his companion, a fine military figure, apparently some
+years the count’s junior, was General Harero of the royal infantry,
+quartered at the governor’s palace. Such was the party that promenaded
+on the parapet of the Plato.
+
+As we have intimated, the two gentlemen were evidently striving to
+please Isabella, and to win from her some encouraging smile or other
+token that might indicate a preference for their attentions. Admiration
+even from the high source that now tendered it was no new thing to her,
+and with just sufficient archness to puzzle them, she waived and
+replied to their conversation with most provoking indifference,
+lavishing a vast deal more kindness and attention upon a noble
+wolf-hound that crouched close to her feet, his big clear eye bent ever
+upon his mistress’s face with a degree of intelligence that would have
+formed a theme for a painter. It was a noble creature, and no wonder
+the lady evinced so much regard for the hound, who ever and anon walked
+close to her.
+
+“You love the hound?” suggested General Harero, stooping to smooth its
+glossy coat.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“He is to be envied, then, upon my soul, lady. How could he, with no
+powers of utterance, have done that for himself, which we poor gallants
+so fail in doing?”
+
+“And what may that be?” asked Isabella, archly tossing her head.
+
+“Win thy love,” half whispered the officer, drawing closer to her side.
+
+The answer was lost, if indeed Isabella intended one, by the father’s
+calling the attention of the party to some object on the Regla shore,
+opposite the city, looming up in the dim light.
+
+Ruez had mounted the parapet, and with his feet carelessly dangling on
+the other side, sat gazing off upon the sea, now straining his eye to
+make out the rig of some dark hull in the distance, and now following
+back the moon’s glittering wake until it met the shore. At this moment
+the hound, leaving his mistress’s side, put his fore paws upon the top
+of the parapet and his nose into one of the boy’s hands, causing him to
+turn round suddenly to see what it was that touched him; in doing which
+he lost his balance, and with a faint cry fell from the parapet far
+down to the water below. Each of the gentlemen at once sprang upon the
+stone work and looked over where the boy had fallen, but it would have
+been madness for any one, however good a swimmer; and as they realized
+this and their helpless situation, they stood for a moment dumb with
+consternation.
+
+At that moment a plunge was heard in the water from the edge of the
+quay far below the parapet, and a dark form was traced making its way
+through the water with that strong bold stroke that shows the effort of
+a confident and powerful swimmer.
+
+“Thank God some one has seen his fall from below, and they will rescue
+him,” said Don Gonzales, springing swiftly down the Plato steps,
+followed by Isabella and the officers, and seeking the street that led
+to the quay below.
+
+“O hasten, father, hasten!” exclaimed Isabella, impatiently.
+
+“Nay, Isabella, my old limbs totter with fear for dear Ruez,” was the
+hasty reply of the old don, as he hurried forward with his daughter.
+
+“Dear, dear Ruez,” exclaimed Isabella, hysterically.
+
+Dashing by the guard stationed on the quay, who presented arms as his
+superiors passed, they reached its end in time to see, through the now
+dim twilight, the efforts of some one in the water supporting the half
+insensible boy with one arm, while with the other he was struggling
+with almost superhuman effort against the steady set of the tide to
+seaward. Already were a couple of seamen lowering a quarter-boat from
+an American barque, near by, but the rope had fouled in the blocks, and
+they could not loose it. A couple of infantry soldiers had also come up
+to the spot, and having secured a rope were about to attempt some
+assistance to the swimmer.
+
+“Heave the line,” shouted one of the seamen. “Give me the bight of it,
+and I’ll swim out to him.”
+
+“Stand by for it,” said the soldier, coiling it in his hand and then
+throwing it towards the barque. But the coil fell short of the mark,
+and another minute’s delay occurred.
+
+In the meantime he who held the boy, though evidently a man of cool
+judgment, powerful frame, and steady purpose, yet now breathed so
+heavily in his earnest struggle with the swift tide, that his panting
+might be distinctly heard on the quay. He was evidently conscious of
+the efforts now making for his succor and that of the boy, but he
+uttered no words, still bending every nerve and faculty towards the
+stemming of the current tint sets into the harbor from the Gulf Stream.
+
+The hound had been running back and forth on the top of the parapet,
+half preparing every moment for a spring, and then deterred by the
+immense distance which presented itself between the animal and the
+water, it would run back and forth again with a most piteous howling
+cry; but at this moment it came bounding down the street to the quay,
+as though it at last realized the proper spot from which to make the
+attempt, and with a leap that seemed to carry it nearly a rod into the
+waters, it swam easily to the boy’s side.
+
+An exclamation of joy escaped from both Don Gonzales and Isabella, for
+they knew the hound to have saved a life before, and now prized his
+sagacity highly.
+
+As the hound swung round easily beside the struggling forms, the
+swimmer placed the boy’s arm about the animal’s neck, while the noble
+creature, with almost human reason, instead of struggling fiercely at
+being thus entirely buried in the water, save the mere point of his
+nose, worked as steadily and as calmly as though he was merely
+following his young master on shore. The momentary relief was of the
+utmost importance to the swimmer, who being thus partially relieved of
+Ruez’s weight, once more struck out boldly for the quay. But the boy
+had now lost all consciousness, and his arm slipped away from the
+hound’s neck, and he rolled heavily over, carrying down the swimmer and
+himself for a moment, below the surface of the water.
+
+“Holy mother! they are both drowned!” almost screamed Isabella.
+
+“Lost! lost!” groaned Don Gonzales, with uplifted hands and tottering
+form.
+
+“No! no!” exclaimed General Harero, “not yet, not yet.” He had jumped
+on board the barque, and had cut the davit ropes with his sword, and
+thus succeeded in launching the boat with himself and the two seamen in
+it.
+
+At this moment the swimmer rose once more slowly with his burthen to
+the surface; but his efforts were so faintly made now, that he barely
+floated, and yet with a nervous vigor he kept the boy still far above
+himself. And now it was that the noble instinct of the hound stood his
+young master in such importance, and led him to seize with his teeth
+the boy’s clothes, while the swimmer once more fairly gained his
+self-possession, and the boat with General Harero and the seamen came
+alongside. In a moment more the boy with his preserver and the dog were
+safe in the boat, which was rowed at once to the quay.
+
+A shout of satisfaction rang out from twenty voices that had witnessed
+the scene.
+
+Isabella, the moment they were safely in the boat, fainted, while Count
+Anguera ran for a volante for conveyance home. The swimmer soon
+regained his strength, and when the boat reached the quay, he lifted
+the boy from it himself. It was a most striking picture that presented
+itself to the eye at that moment on the quay, in the dim twilight that
+was so struggling with the moon’s brighter rays.
+
+The father, embracing the reviving boy, looked the gratitude he could
+not find words to express, while a calm, satisfied smile ornamented the
+handsome features of the soldier who had saved Ruez’s life at such
+imminent risk. The coat which he had hastily thrown upon the quay when
+he leaped into the water, showed him to bear the rank of lieutenant of
+infantry, and by the number, he belonged to General Harero’s own
+division.
+
+The child was placed with his sister and father in a volante, and borne
+away from the spot with all speed, that the necessary care and
+attention might be afforded to him which they could only expect in
+their own home.
+
+In the meantime a peculiar satisfaction mantled the brow and features
+of the young officer who had thus signally served Don Gonzales and his
+child. His fine military figure stood erect and commanding in style
+while he gazed after the volante that contained the party named, nor
+did he move for some moments, seeming to be exercised by some peculiar
+spell; still gazing in the direction in which the volante had
+disappeared, until General Harero, his superior, having at length
+arranged his own attire, after the hasty efforts which he had made,
+came by, and touching him lightly on the arm, said:
+
+“Lieutenant, you seem to be dreaming; has the bath affected your
+brain?”
+
+“Not at all, general,” replied the young officer, hastening to put on
+his coat once more; “I have indeed forgotten myself for a single
+moment.”
+
+“Know you the family whom you have thus served?” asked the general.
+
+“I do; that is, I know their name, general, but nothing further.”
+
+“He’s a clever man, and will remember your services,” said the general,
+carelessly, as he walked up the quay and received the salute of the
+sentinel on duty.
+
+Some strange feeling appeared to be working in the breast of the young
+officer who had just performed the gallant deed we have recorded, for
+he seemed even now to be quite lost to all outward realization, and was
+evidently engaged in most agreeable communion with himself mentally. He
+too now walked up the quay, also, receiving the salute of the sentinel,
+and not forgetting either, as did the superior officer, to touch his
+cap in acknowledgement, a sign that an observant man would have marked
+in the character of both; and one, too, which was not lost on the
+humble private, whose duty it was to stand at his post until the middle
+watch of the night. A long and weary duty is that of a sentinel on the
+quay at night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+THE BELLE AND THE SOLDIER.
+
+
+Whoever has been in Havana, that strange and peculiar city, whose every
+association and belonging seem to bring to mind the period of centuries
+gone by, whose time-worn and moss-covered cathedrals appear to stand as
+grim records of the past, whose noble palaces and residences of the
+rich give token of the fact of its great wealth and extraordinary
+resources—whoever, we say, has been in this capital of Cuba, has of
+course visited its well-known and far-famed Tacon Paseo. It is here,
+just outside the city walls, in a beautiful tract of land, laid out in
+tempting walks, ornamented with the fragrant flowers of the tropics,
+and with statues and fountains innumerable, that the beauty and fashion
+of the town resort each afternoon to drive in their volantes, and to
+meet and greet each other.
+
+It was on the afternoon subsequent to that of the accident recorded in
+the preceding chapter, that a young officer, off duty, might be seen
+partially reclining upon one of the broad seats that here and there
+line the foot-path of the circular drive in the Paseo. He possessed a
+fine manly figure, and was perhaps of twenty-four or five years of age,
+and clothed in the plain undress uniform of the Spanish army. His
+features were of that national and handsome cast that is peculiar to
+the full-blooded Castilian, and the pure olive of his complexion
+contrasted finely with a moustache and imperial as black as the dark
+flowing hair that fell from beneath his foraging cap. At the moment
+when we introduce him he was playing with a small, light walking-stick,
+with which he thrashed his boots most immoderately; but his thoughts
+were busy enough in another quarter, as any one might conjecture even
+at a single glance.
+
+Suddenly his whole manner changed; he rose quickly to his feet, and
+lifting his cap gracefully, he saluted and acknowledged the particular
+notice of a lady who bent partially forward from a richly mounted
+volante drawn by as richly it caparisoned horse, and driven by as
+richly dressed a calesaro. The manner of the young officer from that
+moment was the very antipodes of what it had been a few moments before.
+A change seemed to have come over the spirit of his dream. His fine
+military figure became erect and dignified, and a slight indication of
+satisfied pride was just visible in the fine lines of his expressive
+lips. As he passed on his way, after a momentary pause, he met General
+Harero, who stiffly acknowledged his military salute, with anything but
+kindness expressed in the stern lines of his forbidding countenance. He
+even took some pains to scowl upon the young soldier as they passed
+each other.
+
+But what cared Lieutenant Bezan for his frowns? Had not the belle of
+the city, the beautiful, the peerless, the famed Senorita Isabella
+Gonzales just publicly saluted him?-that glorious being whose
+transcendent beauty had been the theme of every tongue, and whose
+loveliness had enslaved him from the first moment he had looked upon
+her-just two years previous, when he first came from Spain. Had not
+this high-born and proud lady publicly saluted him? Him, a poor
+lieutenant of infantry, who had never dared to lift his eyes to meet
+her own before, however deep and ardently he might have worshipped her
+in secret. What cared the young officer that his commander had seen fit
+thus to frown upon him? True, he realized the power of military
+discipline, and particularly of the Spanish army; but he forgot all
+else now, in the fact that Isabella Gonzales had publicly saluted him
+in the paths of the Paseo.
+
+Possessed of a highly chivalrous disposition, Lieutenant Bezan had few
+confidants among his regiment, who, notwithstanding this, loved him as
+well as brothers might love. He seemed decidedly to prefer solitude and
+his books to the social gatherings, or the clubs formed by his brother
+officers, or indeed to join them in any of their ordinary sports or
+pastimes.
+
+Of a very good family at home, he had the misfortune to have been born
+a younger brother, and after being thoroughly educated at the best
+schools of Madrid, he was frankly told by his father that he must seek
+his fortune, and for the future rely solely upon himself. There was but
+one field open to him, at least so it seemed to him, and that was the
+army. Two years before the opening of our story he had enlisted as a
+third lieutenant of infantry, and had been at once ordered to the West
+Indies with his entire regiment. Here promotion for more than one
+gallant act closely followed him, until at the time we introduce him to
+the reader as first lieutenant. Being of a naturally cheerful and
+exceedingly happy disposition, he took life like a philosopher, and
+knew little of care or sorrow until the time when he first saw Senorita
+Isabella Gonzales-an occasion that planted a hopeless passion in his
+breast.
+
+From the moment of their first meeting, though entirely unnoticed by
+her, he felt that he loved her, deeply, tenderly loved her; and yet at
+the same time he fully realized how immeasurably she was beyond his
+sphere, and consequently hopes. He saw the first officials of the
+island at her very feet, watching for one glance of encouragement or
+kindness from those dark and lustrous eyes of jet; in short, he saw her
+ever the centre of an admiring circle of the rich and proud. It is
+perhaps strange, but nevertheless true, that with all these
+discouraging and disheartening circumstances, Lieutenant Bezan did not
+lose all hope. He loved her, lowly and obscure though he was, with all
+his heart, and used to whisper to himself that love like his need not
+despair, for he felt how truly and honestly his heart warmed and his
+pulses beat for her.
+
+Nearly two entire years had his devoted heart lived on thus, if not
+once gratified by a glance from her eye, still hoping that devotion
+like his would one day be rewarded. What prophets of the future are
+youth and love! Distant as the star of his destiny appeared from him,
+he yet still toiled on, hoped on, in his often weary round of duty,
+sustained by the one sentiment of tender love and devotedness to one
+who knew him not.
+
+At the time of the fearful accident when Ruez Gonzales came so near
+losing his life from the fall he suffered off the parapet of the Plato,
+Lieutenant Bezan was officer of the night, his rounds having
+fortunately brought him to the quay at the most opportune moment. He
+knew not who it was that had fallen into the water, but guided by a
+native spirit of daring and humanity, he had thrown off his coat and
+cap and leaped in after him.
+
+The feelings of pleasure and secret joy experienced by the young
+officer, when after landing from the boat he learned by a single glance
+who it was he had so fortunately saved, may be better imagined than
+described, when his love for the boy’s sister is remembered. And when,
+as we have related, the proud Senorita Isabella publicly saluted him
+before a hundred eyes in the Paseo, he felt a joy of mind, a brightness
+of heart, that words could not express.
+
+His figure and face were such that once seen their manly beauty and
+noble outline could not be easily forgotten; and there were few ladies
+in the city, whose station and rank would permit them to associate with
+one bearing only a lieutenant’s commission, who would not have been
+proud of his notice and homage. He could not be ignorant of his
+personal recommendations, and yet the young officer sought no female
+society-his heart it knew but one idol, and he could bow to but one
+throne of love.
+
+Whether by accident or purposely, the lady herself only knew, but when
+the volante, in the circular drive of the Paseo, again came opposite to
+the spot where Lieutenant Bezan was, the Senorita Isabella dropped her
+fan upon the carriage-road. As the young officer sprang to pick it up
+and return it, she bade the calesaro to halt. Her father, Don Gonzales,
+was by her side, and the lieutenant presented the fan in the most
+respectful manner, being rewarded by a glance from the lady that
+thrilled to his very soul. Don Gonzales exclaimed:
+
+“By our lady, but this is the young officer, Isabella, who yesternight
+so promptly and gallantly saved the life of our dear Ruez.”
+
+“It is indeed he, father,” said the beauty, with much interest.
+
+“Lieutenant Bezan, the general told us, I believe,” continued the
+father.
+
+“That was the name, father.”
+
+“And is this Lieutenant Bezan?” asked Don Gonzales, addressing the
+officer.
+
+“At your service,” replied he, bowing respectfully.
+
+“Senor,” continued the father, most earnestly, and extending at the
+same time his hand to the blushing soldier, “permit me and my daughter
+to thank you sincerely for the extraordinary service you rendered to us
+and our dear Ruez last evening.”
+
+“Senor, the pleasure of having served you richly compensated for any
+personal inconvenience or risk I may have experienced,” answered
+Lieutenant Bezan; saying which, he bowed low and looked once into the
+lovely eyes of the beautiful Senorita Isabella, when at a word to the
+calesaro, the volante again passed on in the circular drive.
+
+But the young officer had not been unwatched during the brief moments
+of conversation that had passed between him and the occupants of the
+vehicle. Scarcely had he left the side of the volante, when he once
+more met General Harero, who seemed this time to take some pains to
+confront him, as he remarked:
+
+“What business may Lieutenant Bezan have with Don Gonzales and his fair
+daughter, that he stops their volante in the public walks of the
+Paseo?”
+
+“The lady dropped her fan, general, and I picked it up and returned it
+to her,” was the gentlemanly and submissive reply of the young officer.
+
+“Dropped her fan,” repeated the general, sneeringly, as he gazed at the
+lieutenant.
+
+“Yes, general, and I returned it.”
+
+“Indeed,” said the commanding officers, with a decided emphasis.
+
+“Could I have done less, general?” asked Lieutenant Bezan.
+
+“It matters not, though you seem to be ever on hand to do the lady and
+her father some service, sir. Perhaps you would relish another cold
+bath,” he continued, with most cutting sarcasm. “Who introduced you,
+sir, to these people?”
+
+“No one, sir. It was chance that brought us together. You will remember
+the scene on the quay.”
+
+“I do.”
+
+“Before that time I had never exchanged one word with them.”
+
+“And on this you presume to establish an acquaintance?”
+
+“By no means, sir. The lady recognized me, and I was proud to return
+the polite salute with which she greeted me.”
+
+“Doubtless.”
+
+“Would you have me do otherwise, sir?”
+
+“I would have you avoid this family of Gonzales altogether.”
+
+“I trust, general, that I have not exceeded my duty either to the
+father or daughter, though by the tone of your remarks I seem to have
+incurred your disapprobation,” replied Lieutenant Bezan, firmly but
+respectfully.
+
+“It would be more becoming in an officer of your rank,” continued the
+superior, “to be nearer his quarters, than to spend his hours off duty
+in so conspicuous and public a place as the Tacon Paseo. I shall see
+that such orders are issued for the future as shall keep those attached
+to my division within the city walls.”
+
+“Whatever duty is prescribed by my superiors I shall most cheerfully
+and promptly respond to, General Harero,” replied the young officer, as
+he respectfully saluted his general, and turning, he sought the city
+gates on the way to his barracks.
+
+“Stay, Lieutenant Bezan,” said the general, somewhat nervously.
+
+“General,” repeated the officer, with the prompt military salute, as he
+awaited orders.
+
+“You may go, sir,” continued the superior, biting his lips with
+vexation. “Another time will answer my purpose quite as well, perhaps
+better. You may retire, I say.”
+
+“Yes, general,” answered the soldier, respectfully, and once more
+turned away.
+
+Lieutenant Bezan was too well aware of General Harero’s intimacy at the
+house of Don Gonzales, not to understand the meaning of the rebuke and
+exhibition of bitterness on the part of his superior towards him. The
+general, although he possessed a fine commanding figure, yet was
+endowed with no such personal advantages to recommend him to a lady’s
+eye as did the young officer who had thus provoked him, and he could
+not relish the idea that one who had already rendered such signal
+services to the Senorita Isabella and her father, even though he was so
+very far below himself in rank, should become too intimate with the
+family. It would be unfair towards Lieutenant Bezan to suppose that he
+did not possess sufficient judgment of human nature and discernment to
+see all this.
+
+He could not but regret that he had incurred the ill will of his
+general, though it was unjustly entertained, for he knew only too well
+how rigorous was the service in which he was engaged, and that a
+superior officer possessed almost absolute power over those placed in
+his command, in the Spanish army, even unto the sentence of death. He
+had too often been the unwilling spectator, and even at times the
+innocent agent of scenes that were revolting to his better feelings,
+which emanated solely from this arbitrary power vested in heartless and
+incompetent individuals by means of their military rank. Musing thus
+upon the singular state of his affairs, and the events of the last two
+days, so important to his feelings, now recalling the bewitching
+glances of the peerless Isabella Gonzales, and now ruminating upon the
+ill will of General Harero, he strolled into the city, and reaching La
+Dominica’s, he threw himself upon a lounge near the marble fountain,
+and calling for a glass of agrass, he sipped the cool and grateful
+beverage, and wiled away the hour until the evening parade.
+
+Though Don Gonzales duly appreciated the great service that Lieutenant
+Bezan had done him, at such imminent personal hazard, too, yet he would
+no more have introduced him into his family on terms of a visiting
+acquaintance in consequence thereof, than he would have boldly broken
+down any other strict rule and principle of his aristocratic nature;
+and yet he was not ungrateful; far from it, as Lieutenant Bezan had
+reason to know, for he applied his great influence at once to the
+governor-general in the young officer’s behalf. The favor he demanded
+of Tacon, then governor and commander-in-chief, was the promotion to a
+captaincy of him who had so vitally served the interests of his house.
+
+Tacon was one of the wisest and best governors that Cuba ever had, as
+ready to reward merit as he was to signally punish trickery or crime of
+any sort, and when the case was fairly laid before him, by reference to
+the rolls of his military secretary, he discovered that Lieutenant
+Bezan had already been promoted twice for distinguished merit, and
+replied to Don Gonzales that, as this was the case, and the young
+soldier was found to be so deserving, he should cheerfully comply with
+his request as it regarded his early promotion in his company. Thus it
+was, that scarcely ten days subsequent to the meeting in the Paseo,
+which we have described, Lieutenant Bezan was regularly gazetted as
+captain of infantry, by honorable promotion and approval of the
+governor-general.
+
+The character of Tacon was one of a curious description. He was prompt,
+candid, and business-like in all things, and the manner of his
+promoting Lieutenant Bezan was a striking witness of these very
+qualities. The young officer being summoned by an orderly to his
+presence, was thus questioned:
+
+“You are Lieutenant Lorenzo Bezan?”
+
+“Yes, your excellency.”
+
+“Of the sixth infantry?”
+
+“Excellency, yes.”
+
+“Of company eight?”
+
+“Of company eight, excellency.”
+
+“Your commander is General Harero?”
+
+“Excellency, yes.”
+
+“You were on the quay night before last, were you not?”
+
+“Excellency, I was.”
+
+“And leaped into the water to save a boy’s life who had fallen there?”
+
+“I did, excellency.”
+
+“You were successful.”
+
+“Excellency, I was.”
+
+“You were promoted eleven months since in compliment for duty.”
+
+“Yes, excellency.”
+
+“Captain Bezan, here is a new commission for you.”
+
+“Excellency you are only too kind to an humble soldier.”
+
+A calm, proud inclination of the head on the part of the
+governor-general, indicated that the audience was over, and the young
+officer returned, knowing well the character of the commander-in-chief.
+Not a little elated, Lorenzo Bezan felt that he was richly repaid for
+the risk he had run by this promotion alone; but there was a source of
+gratification to him far beyond that of having changed his title to
+captain. He had served and been noticed by Isabella Gonzales, and it is
+doubtful if he could have met with any good fortune that would have
+equalled this, in his eye; it was the scheme of his life-the
+realization of his sleeping and waking dreams.
+
+This good fortune, as pleasant to him as it was unexpected, was
+attributed by the young officer to the right source, and was in reality
+enhanced and valued from that very fact.
+
+“A bumper,” exclaimed his brother officers, that day at the mess-table,
+when all were met. “A bumper to Captain Lorenzo Bezan. May he never
+draw his sword without cause; never sheathe it without honor!”
+
+“But what’s the secret of Bezan’s good fortune?” asked one.
+
+“His luck, to be sure-born under a lucky star.”
+
+“Not exactly luck, alone, but his own intrepidity and manliness,”
+replied a fellow-officer. “Haven’t you heard of his saving the life of
+young Gonzales, who fell into the bay from the parapet of the Plato?”
+
+“Not in detail. If you know about the affair, recite it,” said another.
+
+Leaving the mess, as did Captain Bezan at this juncture, we will follow
+the thread of our story in another chapter, and relating to other
+scenes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+A SUDDEN INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+It was again night in the capital; the narrow streets were brilliantly
+lighted from the store windows, but the crowd were no longer there. The
+heat of the long summer day had wearied the endurance of master and
+slave; and thousands had already sought that early repose which is so
+essential to the dwellers in the tropics. Stillness reigned over the
+drowsy city, save that the soft music which the governor-general’s hand
+discourses nightly in the Plaza, stole sweetly over the scene, until
+every air seemed heavy with its tender influence and melody. Now it
+swelled forth in the martial tones of a military band, and now its
+cadence was low and gentle as a fairy whisper, reverberating to the ear
+from the opposite shore of Regla, and the frowning walls of the Cabanas
+behind the Moro, and now swelling away inland among the coffee fields
+and sugar plantations.
+
+The long twilight was gone; but still the deep streak of golden
+skirting in the western horizon lent a softened hue to the scene, not
+so bright to the eye, and yet more golden far than moonlight: “Leaving
+on craggy hills and running streams A softness like the atmosphere of
+dreams.”
+
+At this favorite hour the Senorita Isabella Gonzales and her young
+brother, Ruez, attended only by the wolf hound, who seemed to be almost
+their inseparable companion, were once again strolling in the cool and
+retired walk of the Plato. The lady moved with all the peculiar grace
+so natural to the Spanish women, and yet through all, a keen observer
+might have seen the lurking effects of pride and power, a consciousness
+of her own extraordinary beauty, and the control it gave her over the
+hearts of those of the other sex with whom she associated. Alas! that
+such a trait should have become a second nature to one with so heavenly
+a form and face. Perhaps it was owing to the want of the judicious
+management of a mother, of timely and kindly advice, that Isabella had
+grown up thus; certainly it seemed hard, very hard, to attribute it to
+her heart, her natural promptings, for at times she evinced such traits
+of womanly delicacy and tenderness, that those who knew her best forgot
+her coquetry.
+
+Her brother was a gentle and beautiful boy. A tender spirit of
+melancholy seemed ever uppermost in his heart and face, and it had been
+thus with him since he had known his first early grief-the loss of his
+mother-some four or five years before the present period of our story.
+Isabella, though she was not wanting in natural tenderness and
+affection, had yet outgrown the loss of her parent; but the more
+sensitive spirit of the boy had not yet recovered from the shock it had
+thus received. The father even feared that he never would regain his
+happy buoyancy, as he looked upon his pale and almost transparent
+features, while the boy mused thoughtfully to himself sometimes for the
+hour together, if left alone and undisturbed.
+
+“Ruez, dear, we’ve not been on the Plato since that fearful night,”
+said Senorita Isabella, as she rested her hand gently upon the boy’s
+shoulder.
+
+“It was a fearful night, sister,” said the boy recalling the
+associations with a shudder.
+
+“And yet how clear and beautiful it seemed just before that terrible
+accident.”
+
+“I remember,” said the boy.
+
+“And the slaver in the distance, with her soft white sails and
+treacherous business.”
+
+“And the sparkling moon upon the bay.”
+
+“It was very beautiful; and we have a night now almost its equal.”
+
+“Did you notice how stoutly that Lieutenant Bezan swam with me?”
+
+“Yes, brother. You forget, though, that he is Captain Bezan now,” she
+added.
+
+“Father told me so,” said the boy. “How fearfully the tide ran, and the
+current set against us! He held me way up above the water, while he was
+quite under it himself,” continued Ruez. “I was sure he would drown;
+didn’t it seem so to you, sister?”
+
+“It did, it did; the deed was most gallantly done,” said Isabella, as
+she stooped down and kissed her brother; “and you will never be so
+careless again, Ruez?”
+
+“No, sister. I shall be more. careful, but I should like to see that
+Captain Bezan again. I have never seen him since that night, and his
+barracks are within pistol shot from here.”
+
+“Hark! what was that?” asked Isabella, starting at some unusual noise.
+
+“I heard nothing,” said the boy.
+
+“There it is again,” she continued, nervously, looking around.
+
+“Down, Carlo, down,” said the boy, sharply to the hound, as it sprang
+at the same time from a crouching posture, and uttered a deep, angry
+growl, peculiar to its species.
+
+But the animal seemed too much aroused to be so easily pacified with
+words, and with heavy bounds sprang towards the seaward end of the
+Plato, over the parapet of which, where it joined a lofty stone wall
+that made a portion of the stone barracks of the army, a man leaped to
+the ground. The hound suddenly crouched, the moment it fairly reached
+the figure of the new coiner, and instead of the hostile attitude, it
+had so lately he assumed, now placed its fore paws upon the breast of
+the person, and wagged its tail with evident tokens of pleasure at the
+meeting.
+
+“That is a very strange way to enter the Plato,” said Isabella, to her
+brother, drawing nearer to his side as she spoke. “I wonder who it can
+be?”
+
+“Some friend of Carlo’s, for he never behaves in that way to
+strangers,” said the boy.
+
+“So it would seem; but here he comes, be he whom he may.”
+
+“By our lady!” said the boy, earnestly, with a flash of spirit and
+color across his usually quiet and pale face. “Sister, it is Captain
+Bezan!”
+
+“Captain Bezan, I believe,” said Isabella, courtesying coolly to his
+respectful bow.
+
+“The same, lady.”
+
+“You have chosen a singular mode of introduction, sir,” said the
+Senorita Isabella Gonzales, somewhat severely, as she drew herself up
+with an air of cold reserve.
+
+“It is true, lady, I have done a seemingly rash action; but if you will
+please to pause for one moment, you will at once realize that it was
+the only mode of introduction of which a poor soldier like myself could
+have availed himself.”
+
+“Our hall doors are always open,” replied Isabella Gonzales.
+
+“To the high born and proud, I grant you, lady, but not to such as I
+am.”
+
+“Then, sir,” continued the lady, quickly, “if custom and propriety
+forbid you to meet me through the ordinary channels of society, do you
+not see the impropriety of such an attempt to see me as that which you
+have but just now made?”
+
+“Lady, I can see nothing, hear nothing but my unconquerable love!”
+
+“Love, sir!” repeated the lady, with a curl of her proud but beautiful
+lip.
+
+“Ay, love, Isabella Gonzales. For years I have loved you in secret. Too
+humble to become known to you, or to attract your eye, even, I have yet
+nursed that love, like the better angel of my nature; have dreamed of
+it nightly; have prayed for the object of it nightly; have watched the
+starry heavens, and begged for some noble inspiration that would make
+me more worthy of thy affection; I have read nothing that I did not
+couple in some tender way with thee; have nursed no hope of ambition or
+fame that was not the nearer to raise me to thee, and over the midnight
+lamp have bent in earnestness year after year, that I might gain those
+jewels of the mind that in intelligence, at least, would place me by
+thy side. At last fortune befriended me, and I was able by a mischance
+to him, thy brother, to serve thee. Perhaps even then it might have
+ended, and my respect would still have curbed the promptings of my
+passion, had you not so kindly noticed me on the Paseo. O, how wildly
+did my heart beat at that gentle, kind and thoughtful recognition of
+the poor soldier, and no less quickly beats that heart, when you listen
+thus to me, and hear me tell how deeply I love.”
+
+“Audacity!” said Isabella Gonzales, really not a little aroused at the
+plainness of his speech. “How dare you, sir, to address such language
+to me?”
+
+“Love dares do anything but dishonor the being that it loves. A year,
+lady, a month ago, how hopeless was my love-how far off in the blue
+ether was the star I worshipped. Little did I then think that I should
+now stand so near to you-should thus pour out of the fullness of my
+enslaved and devoted heart, ay, thus look into those glorious eyes.”
+
+“Sir, you are impertinent!” said Isabella, shrinking from the ardor of
+his expression.
+
+“Nay, lady,” said the young officer, profoundly humble, “it is
+impossible for such love as mine to lead to impertinence to one whom I
+little less than worship.”
+
+“Leave me, sir!”
+
+“Yes, Isabella Gonzales, if you will repeat those words calmly; if you
+will deliberately bid me, who have so often prayed for, so hoped for
+such a moment as this, to go, I will go.”
+
+“But, sir, you will compromise me by this protracted conversation.”
+
+“Heaven forbid. But for you I would risk all things-life, reputation,
+all that is valuable to me in life; yet perhaps I am forgetful, perhaps
+a thoughtless.”
+
+“What strange power and music there is in his voice,” whispered
+Isabella, to herself.
+
+Completely puzzled by his deep respect, his gallant and noble bearing,
+the memory of his late noble conduct in saving Ruez’s life, Isabella
+hardly knew what to say, and she stood thus half confused, trotting her
+pretty foot upon the path of the Plato with a vexed air. At last, as if
+struggling to break the spell that seemed to be hanging over them, she
+said:
+
+“How could one like you, sir, ever dare to entertain such feelings
+towards me? the audaciousness of your language almost strikes me dumb.”
+
+“Lady,” said the young soldier, respectfully, “the sincerity of my
+passion has been its only self-sustaining power. I felt that love like
+mine could not be in vain. I was sure that such affection was never
+planted in my breast to bloom and blossom simply for disappointment. I
+could not think that this was so.”
+
+“I am out of all patience with his impertinence,” said Isabella
+Gonzales, to herself, pettishly. “I don’t know what to say to him.”
+
+“Sir, you must leave this place at once,” she said, at last, after a
+brief pause.
+
+“I shall do so, lady, at your bidding; but only to pray and hope for
+the next meeting between us, when you may perhaps better know the poor
+soldier’s heart.”
+
+“Farewell, sir,” said Isabella.
+
+“Farewell, Isabella Gonzales.”
+
+“Are you going so soon?” asked Ruez, now approaching them from a short
+distance in the rear, where he had been playing with the hound.
+
+“Yes, Ruez,” said the soldier, kindly. “You are quite recovered, I
+trust, from the effects of that cold bath taken off the parapet
+yonder.”
+
+“O yes, I am quite recovered now.”
+
+“It was a high leap for one of your age.”
+
+“It was indeed,” said the boy, with a shudder at the remembrance.
+
+“And, O, sir, I have not thanked you for that gallant deed,” said
+Isabella Gonzales, extending her hand incontinently to Captain Bezan,
+in the enthusiasm of the moment, influenced by the sincerity of her
+feelings, his noble and manly bearing, and the kind and touching words
+he had uttered to Ruez.
+
+It would be difficult for us to describe her as she appeared at that
+moment in the soldier’s eye. How lovely she seemed to him, when
+dropping all reserve for the moment, not only her tongue, but her
+eloquent eyes spoke from the tenderness of her woman’s heart. A sacred
+vision would have impressed him no more than did the loveliness of her
+presence at that moment.
+
+Bending instinctively at this demonstration of gentle courtesy on her
+part, he pressed her hand most respectfully to his lips, and, as if
+feeling that he had gone almost too far, with a gallant wave of the
+hand he suddenly disappeared from whence he had so lately come, over
+the seaward side of the parapet towards the army barracks.
+
+Isabella gazed after him with a puzzled look for a while, then said
+half to herself and in a pettish and vexed tone of voice:
+
+“I did not mean that he should kiss my hand. I’m sure I did not; and
+why did I give it to him? How thoughtless. I declare I have never met
+so monstrously impudent a person in the entire course of my life. Very
+strange. Here’s General Harero, Don Romonez, and Felix Gavardo, have
+been paying me court this half year and more, and either of them would
+give half his fortune for a kiss of this hand, and yet neither has
+dared to even tell me that they love me, though I know it so well. But
+here is this young soldier, this new captain of infantry, why he sees
+me but half a minute before he declares himself, and so boldly, too! I
+protest it was a real insult. I’ll tell Don Gonzales, and I’ll have the
+fellow dishonored and his commission taken from him, I will. I’m half
+ready to cry with vexation. Yes, I’ll have Captain Bezan cashiered, and
+that directly, I will.”
+
+“No you wont, sister,” said Ruez, looking up calmly into her face as he
+spoke.
+
+“Yes I will, brother.”
+
+“Still I say no,” continued the boy, gently, and caressing her hand the
+while.
+
+“And why not, Ruez?” asked Isabella, stooping and kissing his handsome
+forehead, as the boy looked up so lovingly in her face.
+
+“Because he saved my life, sister,” replied Ruez, smiling.
+
+“True, he did save your life, Ruez,” murmured the beautiful girl,
+thoughtfully; an act that we can never repay; but it was most presuming
+for him to enter the Plato thus, and to—to—”
+
+“Kiss your hand, sister,” suggested the boy, smiling in a knowing way.
+
+“Yes, it was quite shocking for him to be so familiar, Ruez.”
+
+“But, sister, I can hardly ever help kissing you when you look kind to
+me, and I am sure you looked very kind at Captain Bezan.”
+
+“Did I!” half mused Isabella, biting the handle of her Creole fan.
+
+“Yes; and how handsome this Captain Bezan is, sister,” continued the
+boy, pretending to be engaged with the hound, whom he patted while he
+looked sideways at Isabella.
+
+“Do you think him so handsome?” still half mused Isabella, in reply to
+her brother’s remarks, while her eye rested upon the ground.
+
+“I know it,” said the boy, with spirit. “Don Miguel, General Harero, or
+the lieutenant-general, are none of them half so good looking,” he
+continued, referring to some of her suitors.
+
+“Well, he is handsome, brother, that’s true enough, and brave I know,
+or he would never have leaped into the water to save your life. But
+I’ll never forgive him, I’m sure of that, Ruez,” she said, in a most
+decided tone of voice.
+
+“Yes you will, sister.”
+
+“No, I will not, and you will vex me if you say so again,” she added,
+pettishly.
+
+“Come, Carlo, come,” said Ruez, calling to the hound, as he followed
+close upon his sister’s footsteps towards the entrance of Don
+Gonzales’s house on the Plato.
+
+The truth was, Isabella Gonzales, the proud beauty, was pleased;
+perhaps her vanity was partly enlisted also, while she remembered the
+frankness of the humble soldier who had poured out his devotions at her
+feet in such simple yet earnest strains as to carry conviction with
+every word to the lady’s heart. Image, even from the most lowly, is not
+without its charm to beauty, and the proud girl mused over the late
+scene thoughtfully, ay, far more thoughtfully than she had ever done
+before, on the offer of the richest and proudest cavalier.
+
+She had never loved; she knew not what the passion meant, as applied to
+the opposite sex. Universal homage had been her share ever since she
+could remember; and if Isabella Gonzales was not a confirmed coquette,
+she was certainly very near being one. The light in which she regarded
+the advances of Captain Bezan, even puzzled herself; the phase of his
+case and the manner of his avowal were so far without precedent, that
+its novelty engaged her. She still felt vexed at the young soldier’s
+assurance, but yet all unconsciously found herself endeavoring to
+invent any number of excuses for the conduct he had exhibited!
+
+“It is true, as he said,” she remarked, half aloud to herself, “that it
+was the only way in which he could meet me on terms of sufficient
+equality for conversation. Perhaps I should have done the same, if I
+were a high-spirited youth, and really loved!”
+
+As for Lorenzo Bezan, he quietly sought his quarters, as happy as a
+king. Had he not been successful beyond any reasonable hope? Had he not
+told his love? ay, had he not kissed the hand of her he loved, at last,
+almost by her own consent? Had not the clouds in the horizon of his
+love greatly thinned in numbers? He was no moody lover. Not one to die
+for love, but to live for it rather, and to pursue the object of his
+affection and regard with such untiring and devoted service as to
+deserve, if not to win, success. At least this was his resolve. Now and
+then the great difference between their relative stations would lead
+him to pause and consider the subject; but then with some pleasant
+sally to himself he would walk on again, firmly resolved in his own
+mind to overcome all things for her whom he loved, or at least to
+strive to do so.
+
+This was all very well in thought, but in practice the young soldier
+will not perhaps find this so easy a matter. Patience and perseverance
+are excellent qualities, but they are not certain criteria of success.
+Lorenzo Bezan had aimed his arrow high, but it was that little blind
+fellow, Cupid, that shot the bow. He was not to blame for it-of course
+not.
+
+“Ha! Bezan, whence come you with so bright a face?” asked a brother
+officer, as he entered his quarters in the barracks of the Plaza des
+Armes.
+
+“From wooing a fair and most beautiful maid,” said the soldier, most
+honestly; though perhaps he told the truth as being the thing least
+likely to be believed by the other.
+
+“Fie, fie, Bezan. You in love, man? A soldier to marry? By our lady,
+what folly! Don’t you remember the proverb? ‘Men dream in courtship,
+but in wedlock wake.’”
+
+“May I wake in that state with her I love ere a twelvemonth,” said
+Lorenzo Bezan, smiling at his comrade’s sally and earnestness.
+
+“Are you serious, captain?” asked the other, now trying to half believe
+him.
+
+“Never more so in my life, I assure you,” was the reply.
+
+“And who is the lady, pray? Come, relieve your conscience, and
+confess.”
+
+“Ah, there I am silent; her name is not for vulgar ears,” said the
+young soldier, smiling, and with really too much respect to refer
+lightly to Isabella Gonzales.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+CUBAN BANDITTI.
+
+
+It was one of those beautiful but almost oppressively hot afternoons
+that so ripen the fruits, and so try the patience of the inhabitants of
+the tropics, that we would have the patient reader follow us on the
+main road between Alquezar and Guiness. It is as level as a parlor
+floor, and the tall foliage, mostly composed of the lofty palm, renders
+the route shaded and agreeable. Every vegetable and plant are so
+peculiarly significant of the low latitudes, that we must pause for a
+moment to notice them.
+
+The tall, stately palm, the king of the tropical forest, with its
+tufted head, like a bunch of ostrich feathers, bending its majestic
+form here and there over the verdant and luxuriant undergrowth, the
+mahogany tree, the stout lignumvit‘, the banana, the fragrant and
+beautiful orange and lemon, and the long, impregnable hedge of the
+dagger aloe, all go to show us that we are in the sunny clime of the
+tropics.
+
+The fragrance, too, of the atmosphere! How soft to the senses! This
+gentle zephyr that only ruffles the white blossoms of the lime hedges,
+is off yonder coffee plantation that lies now like a field of clear
+snow, in its fragrant milk-white blossoms; and what a bewitching
+mingling of heliotrope and wild honeysuckle is combined in the air! how
+the gaudy plumed parrot pauses on his perch beneath the branches of the
+plantain tree, to inhale the sweets of the hour; while the chirps of
+the pedoreva and indigo birds are mingled in vocal praise that fortune
+has cast their lot in so lovely a clime. O, believe us, you should see
+and feel the belongings of this beautiful isle, to appreciate how
+nearly it approaches to your early ideas of fairy land.
+
+But, alas! how often do man’s coarser disposition and baser nature
+belie the soft and beautiful characteristics of nature about him; how
+often, how very often, is the still, heavenly influence that reigns in
+fragrant flowers and bubbling streams, marred and desecrated by the
+harshness and violence engendered by human passions!
+
+In the midst of such a scene as we have described, at the moment to
+which we refer, there was a fearful struggle being enacted between a
+small party of Montaros, or inland robbers, and the occupants and
+outriders of a volante, which had just been attacked on the road. The
+traces that attached the horse to the vehicle had been cut, and the
+postilion lay senseless upon the ground from a sword wound in their
+head, while the four outriders were contending with thrice their number
+of robbers, who were armed with pistols and Toledo blades. It was a
+sharp hand to hand fight, and their steel rang to the quick strokes.
+
+In the volante was the person of a lady, but so closely enshrouded by a
+voluminous rebosa, or Spanish shawl, as hardly to leave any of her
+figure exposed, her face being hid from fright at the scene being
+enacted about her. At her side stood the figure of a tall, stately man,
+whose hat had been knocked over his head in the struggle, and whose
+white hairs gave token of his age. Two of the robbers, who had received
+the contents of his two pistols, lay dead by the side of the volante,
+and having now only his sword left, he stood thus, as if determined to
+protect her by his side, even at the cost of his life.
+
+The robbers had at last quite overmatched the four outriders, and
+having bound the only one of them that had sufficient life left to make
+him dangerous to them, they turned their steps once more towards the
+volante. There were in all some thirteen of them, but three already lay
+dead in the road, and the other ten, who had some sharp wounds
+distributed among them, now standing together, seemed to be querying
+whether they should not revenge the death of their comrades by killing
+both the occupants of the volante, or whether they should pursue their
+first purpose of only robbing them of what valuables they possessed.
+
+Fierce oaths were reiterated, and angry words exchanged between one and
+another of the robbers, as to the matter they were hastily discussing,
+while the old gentleman remained firm, grasping the hilt of his
+well-tempered sword, and showing to his enemies, by the stern, deep
+resolve they read in his eye, that they had not yet conquered him.
+Fortunately their pistols had all been discharged, or they might have
+shot the brave old man without coming to closer quarters, but now they
+looked with some dread upon the glittering blade he held so firmly!
+
+That which has required some time and space for us to describe, was,
+however, the work of but a very few moments of time, and the robbers,
+having evidently made up their minds to take the lives of the two
+persons now in the vehicle, divided themselves into two parties and
+approached the volante at the same moment on opposite sides.
+
+“Come on, ye fiends in human shape,” said the old man, flourishing his
+sword with a skill and strength that showed he was no stranger to its
+use, and that there was danger in him. “Come on, ye shall find that a
+good blade in an old man’s hands is no plaything!”
+
+They listened for a moment: yes, that half-score of villains held back
+in dismay at the noble appearance of the old man, and the flashing fire
+of his eye.
+
+“Ha! do you falter, ye villains? do you fear a good sword with right to
+back it?”
+
+But hark! what sound is that which startles the Montaros in the midst
+of their villany, and makes them look into each other’s faces with such
+consternation and fear? It is a very unfrequented spot-who can be near?
+Scarcely had the sound fallen on their ears, before three horsemen in
+the undress uniform of the Spanish infantry, dashed up to the spot at
+full speed, while one of them, who seemed to be the leader of the
+party, leaped from his horse, and before the others could follow his
+example, was engaged in a desperate hand to hand conflict with the
+robbers. Twice he discharged his pistols with fatal effect, and now he
+was fighting sword and sword with a stout, burly Montaro, who was
+approaching that side of the volante where the lady sat, still half
+concealed by the ample folds of her rebosa, though the approach of
+assistance had led her to venture so far as to partially uncover her
+face, and to observe the scene about her.
+
+The headlong attack, so opportunely made by the fresh horsemen, was too
+much for treble their number to withstand, more especially as the
+leader of them had met with such signal success at the outset-having
+shot two, and mortally wounded a third. In this critical state of
+affairs, the remaining banditti concluded that discretion was the
+better part of valor, and made the best of their time and remaining
+strength to beat a hasty retreat, leaving the old gentleman and his
+companion with their three deliverers, quite safe in the middle of the
+road.
+
+“By our lady, sir, ’twas a gallant act. There were ten of those
+rascals, and but three of you,” said the old gentleman, stepping out of
+the volante and arranging his ruffled dress.
+
+“Ten, senor? a soldier would make nothing of a score of such
+scapegraces as those,” replied the officer (for such it was now
+apparent he was), as he wiped the gore from his reeking blade with a
+broad, green leaf from the roadside, and placed it in the scabbard.
+
+One of the soldiers who had accompanied the officer had now cut the
+thongs that bound the surviving outrider, who was one of the family
+attaches of the old gentleman, and who now busied himself about the
+vehicle, at one moment attending to the lady’s wants, and now to
+harnessing the horse once more.
+
+Removing his cap, and wiping the reeking perspiration from his brow,
+the young officer now approached the volante and said to the lady:
+
+“I trust, madame, that you have received no further injury by this
+unfortunate encounter than must needs occur to you from fright.”
+
+As he spoke thus, the lady turned quickly from looking towards the old
+gentleman, who was now on the other side of the vehicle, and after a
+moment exclaimed:
+
+“Is it possible, Captain Bezan, that we are indebted to you for this
+most opportune deliverance from what seemed to be certain destruction?”
+
+“Isabella Gonzales!” exclaimed the young officer, with unfeigned
+surprise.
+
+“You did not know us, then?” she asked, quickly, in reply.
+
+“Not I, indeed, or else I should sooner have spoken to you.”
+
+“You thus risked your life, then, for strangers?” she continued.
+
+“You were the weakest party, were attacked by robbers; it only required
+a glance to realize that, and to attack them and release you was the
+next most natural thing in the world,” replied the soldier, still
+wiping the perspiration from his forehead and temples.
+
+“Father!” exclaimed Isabella, with undisguised pleasure, “this is
+Captain Bezan!”
+
+“Captain Bezan?” repeated the old don, as surprised as his daughter had
+been.
+
+“At your service,” replied the soldier, bowing respectfully to Don
+Gonzales.
+
+“Why, sir,” said the old man, “what possible chance could have brought
+you so fortunately to our rescue here, a dozen leagues from the city?”
+
+“I was returning with these two companions of my company from a
+business trip to the south side of the island, where we had been sent
+with despatches from Tacon to the governor of the department.”
+
+“No, matter, what chance has brought you here, at all events we owe our
+lives to you, sir,” said Don Gonzales, extending his hand cordially to
+the young officer.
+
+After some necessary delay, under the peculiar circumstances, the
+horses were finally arranged so as to permit of proceeding forward on
+the road. The bodies of the servants were disposed of, and all was
+ready for a start, when Isabella Gonzales turned to her father and
+pressing his arm said:
+
+“Father, how pale he looks!”
+
+“Who, my child!”
+
+“There, see how very pale!” said Isabella, rising up from her seat.
+
+“Who do you speak of, Isabella?”
+
+“Captain Bezan, father; see, there he stands beside his horse.”
+
+“He does look fatigued; he has worked hard with those villains,” said
+the old man.
+
+“Why don’t he mount? The rest have done so, and we are ready,”
+continued the old man, anxiously.
+
+At that moment one of the horsemen, better understanding the case than
+either Isabella Gonzales or her father, left his well-trained animal in
+the road, and hastened to his officer’s side. It required but a glance
+for him to see that his captain was too weak to mount.
+
+Directing the outrider, who had now mounted one of the horses attached
+to the volante, and acted as postilion, to drive towards him whom his
+companion was partially supporting, Don Gonzales asked most anxiously:
+
+“Captain Bezan, you are ill, I fear; are you much hurt?”
+
+“A mere trifle, Don Gonzales; drive on, sir, and I will follow you in a
+moment.”
+
+“He is bleeding from his left arm and side, father,” said Isabella,
+anxiously.
+
+“You are wounded-I fear severely, Captain Bezan,” said the father.
+
+“A mere scratch, sir, in the arm, from one of the unlucky thrusts of
+those Montaros,” he replied, assuming an indifference that his pale
+face belied.
+
+“Ah! father, what can be done for him?” said Isabella, quickly.
+
+“I am unharmed,” said the grateful old man, “and can sit a horse all
+day long, if need be. Here, captain, take my seat in the volante, and
+Isabella, whom you have served at such heavy cost to yourself, shall
+act the nurse for you until we get to town again.”
+
+Perhaps nothing, save such a proposition as this, could possibly have
+aroused and sustained the wounded officer; but after gently refusing
+for a while to rob Don Gonzales of his seat in the volante, he was
+forced to accept it even by the earnest request of Isabella herself,
+who seemed to tremble lest he was mortally wounded in their behalf.
+
+Little did Don Gonzales know, at that time, what a flame he was feeding
+in the young officer’s breast. He was too intently engaged in his own
+mind with the startling scenes through which he had just passed, and
+was exercised with too much gratitude towards Captain Bezan for his
+deliverance, to observe or realize any peculiarity of appearance in any
+other respect, or to question the propriety of placing him so
+intimately by the side of his lovely child. Isabella had never told her
+father, or indeed any one, of the circumstance of her having met
+Captain Bezan on the Plato. But the reader, who is aware of the scene
+referred to, can easily imagine with what feelings the soldier took his
+seat by her side, and secretly watched the anxious and assiduous
+glances that she gave his wounded arm and side, as well as the kind
+looks she bestowed upon his pallid face.
+
+“I fear I annoy you,” said the soldier, realizing his proximity to her
+on the seat.
+
+“No, no, by no means. I pray you rest your arm here,” said Isabella
+Gonzales, as she offered her rebosa supported in part by her own
+person!
+
+“You are too kind-far too kind to me,” said the wounded officer,
+faintly; for he was now really very weak from loss of blood and the
+pain of his wounds.
+
+“Speak not, I beseech of you, but strive to keep your courage up till
+we can gain the aid of some experienced surgeon,” she said, supporting
+him tenderly.
+
+Thus the party drove on towards the city, by easy stages, where they
+arrived in safety, and left Captain Bezan to pursue his way to his
+barracks, which he did, not, however, until he had, like a faithful
+courier, reported to the governor-general the safe result of his
+mission to the south of the island.
+
+The story of the gallant rescue was the theme of the hour for a period
+in Havana, but attacks from robbers on the road, under Tacon’s
+governorship, were too common an occurrence to create any great wonder
+or curiosity among the inhabitants of the city. But Captain Bezan had
+got wounds that would make him remember the encounter for life, and now
+lay in a raging fever at his quarters in the infantry barracks of the
+Plaza des Armes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+THE WOUNDED SOLDIER.
+
+
+The fervor and heat of the mid-day atmosphere had been intense, but a
+most delightfully refreshing sea breeze had sprung up at last, and
+after fanning its way across the Gulf Stream, was dallying now with the
+palms and orange trees that so gracefully surrounded the marble statue
+of Ferdinand, in the midst of the Plaza, and ruffling the marble basin
+of water that bubbles forth from the graceful basin at its base. Light
+puffs of it, too, found their way into the invitingly open windows of
+the governor’s palace, into an apartment which was improved by General
+Harero. Often pausing at the window to breathe in of the delightful
+atmosphere for a moment, he would again resume his irregular walk and
+seemingly absorbed in a dreamy frame of mind, quite unconscious of the
+outward world about him. At last he spoke, though only communing with
+himself, yet quite aloud:
+
+“Strange, very strange, that this Captain Bezan should seem to stand so
+much in my way. Curse his luck, the old don and his daughter feel under
+infinite obligations to him already, and well they may, as to the
+matter of that. If it was not for the girl’s extraordinary stock of
+pride, we should have her falling in love with this young gallant
+directly, and there would be an end to all my hopes and fancies. He’s
+low enough, now, however, so my valet just told me, and ten to one, if
+his physician knows his case, as he pretends, he’ll make a die of it.
+He is a gallant fellow, that’s a fact, and brave as he is gallant. I
+may as well own the fact that’s what makes me hate him so! But he
+should not have crossed my path, and served to blight my hopes, there’s
+the rub. I like the man well enough as a soldier, hang it. I’d like
+half the army to be just like him-they’d be invincible; but he has
+crossed my interest, ay, my love; and if he does get up again and
+crosses me with Isabella Gonzales, why then-well, no matter, there are
+ways enough to remove the obstacle from my path.
+
+“By the way,” he continued, after crossing and re-crossing the room a
+few times, “what a riddle this Isabella Gonzales is; I wonder if she
+has got any heart at all. Here am I, who have gone scathless through
+the courts of beauty these many years, actually caught-surprised at
+last; for I do love the girl; and yet how archly she teazes me!
+Sometimes I think within myself that I am about to win the goal, when
+drop goes the curtain, and she’s as far away as ever. How queenly she
+looks, nevertheless. I had much rather be refused by such a woman, to
+my own mortification, than to succeed with almost any other, if only
+for the pleasure of looking into those eyes, and reading in silent
+language her poetical and ethereal beauty-I might be happy but for this
+fellow, this Captain Bezan; he troubles me. Though there’s no danger of
+her loving him, yet he seems to stand in my way, and to divert her
+fancy. Thank Heaven, she’s too proud to love one so humble.”
+
+Thus musing and talking aloud to himself, General Harero walked back
+and forth, and back and forth again in his apartment, until his orderly
+brought him the evening report of his division. A far different scene
+was presented on the other side of the great square, in the centre of
+which stands the shrubbery and fountain of the Plaza. Let the reader
+follow us now inside the massive stone walls of the Spanish barracks,
+to a dimly lighted room, where lay a wounded soldier upon his bed. The
+apartment gave token in its furniture of a very peculiar combination of
+literary and military taste. There were foils, long and short swords,
+pistols, hand pikes, flags, military boots and spurs; but there were
+also Shakspeare, Milton, the illustrated edition of Cervantes’s Don
+Quixote, and a voluminous history of Spain, with various other prose
+and poetic volumes, in different languages. A guitar also lay
+carelessly in one corner, and a rich but faded bouquet of flowers
+filled a porcelain vase.
+
+At the foot of the bed where the wounded soldier lay, stood a boy with
+a quivering lip and swimming eye, as he heard the sick man moan in his
+uneasy sleep. Close by the head of the bed sat an assistant-surgeon of
+the regiment, watching what evidently seemed to be the turning point as
+to the sufferer’s chance for life or death. As the boy and the surgeon
+watched him thus, gradually the opiate just administered began to
+affect him, and he seemed at last to fall into the deep and quiet sleep
+that is generally indicated by a low, regular and uninterrupted
+respiration.
+
+The boy had not only watched the wounded man, but had seemed also to
+half read the surgeon’s thoughts, from time to time, and now marked the
+gleam of satisfaction upon his face as the medicine produced the
+desired effect upon the system of his patient.
+
+“How do you think Captain Bezan is, to-day?” whispered the boy,
+anxiously, as the surgeon’s followed him noiselessly from the sick-room
+to the corridor without.
+
+“Very low, master Ruez, very low indeed; it is the most critical period
+of his sickness; but he has gone finely into that last nap, thanks to
+the medicine, and if he will but continue under its influence thus for
+a few hours, we may look for an abatement of this burning thirst and
+fever, and then—”
+
+“What, sir?” said the boy, eagerly, “what then?”
+
+“Why, he may get over those wounds, but it’s a severe case, and would
+be little less than a miracle. I’ve seen sicker men live, and I’ve seen
+those who seemed less sick die.”
+
+“Alas! then there is no way yet of deciding upon his case,” said the
+boy.
+
+“None, Master Ruez; but we’ll hope for the best; that is all that can
+be done.”
+
+Ruez Gonzales walked out of the barracks and by the guard with a sad
+countenance, and whistling for Carlo, who had crouched by the parapet
+until his young master should come out, he turned his steps up the
+Calla de Mercaderes to his home. Ruez sought his sister’s apartment,
+and throwing himself upon a lounge, seemed moody and unhappy. As he
+reclined thus, Isabella regarded him intently, as though she would read
+his thoughts without asking for them. There seemed to be some reason
+why she did not speak to him sooner, but at last she asked:
+
+“Well, Ruez, how is Captain Bezan, to-day? have you been to the
+barracks to inquire?” She said this in an assumed tone of indifference,
+but it was only assumed.
+
+“How is he?” repeated Ruez, after turning a quick glance of his soft
+blue eyes upon his sister’s face, as though he would read her very
+soul. Isabella felt his keen glance, and almost blushed.
+
+“Yes, brother, pray, how is Captain Bezan, to-day? do you not know?”
+
+“His life hangs by a mere thread,” continued the boy, sadly, resuming
+again his former position. “The surgeon told me that his recovery was
+very doubtful.”
+
+“Did he tell you that, Ruez?”
+
+“Not those words, sister, but that which was equivalent to it,
+however.”
+
+“He is worse, then, much worse?” she continued, in a hasty tone of
+voice.
+
+“Not worse, sister,” replied Ruez. “I did not say that he was worse,
+but the fever rages still, and unless that abates within a few hours,
+death must follow.”
+
+Isabella Gonzales sat herself down at an open balcony and looked off on
+the distant country in silence, so long, that Ruez and the hound both
+fell asleep, and knew not that she at last left her seat. The warmth
+and enervating influence of the atmosphere almost requires one to
+indulge in a siesta daily, in these low latitudes and sunny regions of
+the earth.
+
+“He is dying, then,” said Isabella Gonzales, to herself, after having
+sought the silence and solitude of her own chamber, “dying and alone,
+far from any kindred voice or hand, or even friend, save those among
+his brothers in arms. And yet how much do we owe to him! He has saved
+all our lives-Ruez’s first, and then both father’s and mine; and in
+this last act of daring gallantry and bravery, he received his death
+wound. Alas! how fearful it seems to me, this strange picture. Would I
+could see and thank him once more-take from him any little commission
+that he might desire in his last moments to transmit to his distant
+home-for a sister, mother, or brother. Would that I could smooth his
+pillow and bathe his fevered brow; I know he loves me, and these
+attentions would be so grateful to him-so delightful to me. But alas!
+it would be considered a disgrace for me to visit him.”
+
+Let the reader distinctly understand the feelings that actuated the
+heart of the lovely girl. The idea of loving the wounded soldier had
+never entered the proud but now humbled Isabella’s thoughts. Could such
+a thought have been by any means suggested to her, she would have
+spurned it at once; but it was the woman’s sympathy that she felt for
+one who would have doubtless sacrificed his life for her and hers; it
+was a simple act of justice she would have performed; and the pearly
+tear that now wet her cheek, was that of sympathy, and of sympathy
+alone. Beautiful trait, how glorious thou art in all; but how doubly
+glorious in woman; because in her nature thou art most natural, and
+there thou findest the congenial associations necessary for thy full
+conception.
+
+General Harero had judged Isabella Gonzales well when he said that
+there was no danger of her loving Lorenzo Bezan-she had too much pride!
+
+But let us look once more into the sick room we so lately left, where
+the wounded soldier lies suffering from his wounds. A volante has just
+stopped at the barracks’ doors, and a girl, whose dress betokens her to
+be a servant, steps out, and telling her errand to the corporal of the
+guard, is permitted to pass the sentinel, and is conducted to the sick
+man’s room. She brings some cooling draughts for his parched lips, and
+fragrant waters with which to battle his fevered temples and burning
+forehead.
+
+“Who sends these welcome gifts to Captain Bezan?” asked the
+assistant-surgeon.
+
+“My lady, sir.”
+
+“And who is your lady, my good girl, if you please?” he asked.
+
+“The Senorita Isabella Gonzales, sir,” was the modest reply of the
+maid.
+
+“Ah, yes; her brother has been here this afternoon, I remember,” said
+the surgeon; “the sick man fell asleep then, and has not since
+awakened.”
+
+“Heaven grant the sleep may refresh him and restore his strength,” said
+the girl.
+
+“Amen, say I to that,” continued the surgeon, “and amen says every man
+in the regiment.”
+
+“Is he so popular as that?” asked the girl, innocently.
+
+“Popular, why he’s the pet of the entire division. He’s the best
+swordsman, best scholar, best-in short we could better lose half the
+other officers than Captain Bezan.”
+
+“Do you think him any better than he was this morning?”
+
+“The sleep is favorable, highly favorable,” replied the surgeon,
+approaching the bedside; “but in my judgment of the case, it must
+entirely depend upon the state in which he wakes.”
+
+“Is there fear of waking him, do you think?” asked the girl, in a
+whisper, as she drew nearer to the bed, and looked upon the high, pale
+forehead and remarkably handsome features of the young soldier. Though
+the few days of confinement which he had suffered, and the acute pain
+he had endured by them, had hollowed his checks, yet he was handsome
+still.
+
+“No,” replied the surgeon, to her question; “he will sleep quite long
+enough from the opiate, quite as long as I wish; and if he should wake
+even now, it would not be too soon.”
+
+“How very slightly he breathes,” continued the girl, observantly.
+
+“Very; but it is a relief to see him breathe in that way,” replied the
+surgeon.
+
+“Stay, did he not murmur something, then?” asked the maid.
+
+“Possibly,” replied the surgeon. “He has talked constantly during his
+delirium. Pray, my good girl, does he know your mistress very well?”
+
+“I think not,” was the reply. “But why do you ask that?”
+
+“Because he seems constantly to dream and talk about her night and day.
+Indeed she is all he has spoken of since the height of his fever was
+upon him.”
+
+“Indeed!” said the girl, musing at the surgeon’s words abstractedly.
+
+“Have you not heard your mistress speak of him at all?”
+
+“Yes, that is, he once did the family some important service. Do you
+say that he talked of Senorita Isabella in the hours of his delirium?”
+
+“Yes, and in looking into his dressing-case, a few days since, to find
+some lint for his wounds, I discovered this,” said tire surgeon,
+showing the girl a miniature, painted on ivory with great skill and
+beauty. “I think it must be a likeness of the Senorita Isabella,”
+continued the surgeon, “though I have never seen her to know her but
+once.”
+
+“It is indeed meant for her,” said the girl, eagerly scanning the soft
+and delicate picture, which represented the Senorita Isabella Gonzales
+as sitting at an open window and gazing forth on the soft, dreamy
+atmosphere of a tropical sunset.
+
+“You think it is like her?”
+
+“O, very.”
+
+“Well, I was sure that it was meant for the lady when I first saw it.”
+
+“May I bathe his temples with this Florida water?” asked the girl, as
+she observed the sick man to move slightly and to moan.
+
+“Yes, it will have a tendency to rouse him gently, and it is now time
+for him to wake.”
+
+The girl smoothed back the dark locks from the soldier’s brow, and with
+her hands bathed his marble-like forehead and temples as gently as she
+might have done had he been an infant. The stimulating influence of the
+delicate spirits she was using was most delightful to the senses of the
+sick man, and a soft smile for a moment breathed his lips, as half
+awake and half dreaming, he returned thanks for the kindness, mingled
+with Isabella’s name.
+
+The girl bent over his couch to hear the words, and the surgeon saw a
+tear drop upon the sick man’s hand from the girl’s eyes as she stood
+there! In a moment more the soldier seemed to arouse, and uttered a
+long deep sigh, as though relieved from some heavy weight that had long
+been oppressing him, both mentally and physically. He soon opened his
+eyes, and looked languidly about him, as if striving to recall his
+situation, and what had prostrated him thus.
+
+The girl stepped immediately back from the bedside, as she observed
+these tokens, and droping the rebosa that had been heretofore confined,
+veil-like to the crown of her head, and partially screened her
+features, but she showed most unmistakable signs of delight, as she
+read in the soldier’s eyes that reason had once more returned to her
+throne, and that Lorenzo Bezan was once more rational.
+
+“How beautiful!” uttered the surgeon, half aloud, as he stood gazing at
+the girl. “If the mistress be as lovely as the maid, no wonder Captain
+Bezan has talked of her in his delirium!”
+
+“Step hither, step hither, he is awake!” whispered the girl to the
+surgeon.
+
+“And his reason too has returned,” said the professional man, as soon
+as his eyes rested on the wounded soldier’s face. “There is hope now!”
+
+“Thank Heaven for its infinite mercy!” said the girl, with an earnest
+though tremulous voice, as she gathered her rebosa about her face and
+prepared to depart.
+
+“He will recover now?” she asked, once more, as she turned towards the
+surgeon.
+
+“With care and good nursing we may hope so,” was the reply of the
+attendant, who still looked earnestly into the face of the inquirer as
+he spoke.
+
+“My lady knew not the pecuniary condition of Captain Bezan at this
+time, and desired that this purse might be devoted to his convenience
+and comfort; but she also desires that this may not be known to him.
+May I trust to you, sir, in this little matter?”
+
+“It will give me great pleasure to keep the secret, and to improve the
+purse solely for the sick man’s individual benefit,” was the reply.
+
+“Thank you, sir; I see you are indeed his friend,” she answered, as she
+bowed low and withdrew.
+
+Scarcely had the door closed after the visitor, before the surgeon,
+turning hastily once more to the miniature he had shown, examined it in
+various lights, now carefully within a part shaded by the hand, and now
+as a whole, and now near to, and then at a distance.
+
+“I more than suspected it,” he exclaimed, with emphasis; “and now I
+know it; that lady was Senorita Isabella Gonzales, the belle of
+Havana!”
+
+And so indeed it was. Unable longer to restrain her desire to see him
+who had so infinitely served the interests of herself and her father’s
+house, the proud girl had smothered every adverse prompting in her
+bosom, and donning her dressing-maid’s attire, had thus dressed in
+humble costume, stepped into a volante, and ordering the calesaro to
+drive to the infantry barracks, where she knew the sick man was, had
+entered as we have seen, under pretext of bringing necessities from her
+pretended mistress to the wounded soldier. Her scheme had succeeded
+infinitely well, nor would she have betrayed herself to even the
+surgeon’s observant eye, had it not been for that single tear!
+
+“What angel was that?” whispered the sick man, to his attendant, who
+now approached his bedside to administer some cooling draught to his
+parched lips.
+
+“You have been dreaming, my dear fellow,” said the discreet surgeon,
+cautiously, “and are already much better; keep as quiet as possible,
+and we will soon have you out again. Here, captain, drink of this fruit
+water, it will refresh you.”
+
+Too weak to argue or even to talk at all, the sick man drank as he was
+desired, and half closed his eyes again, as if he thought by thus doing
+he might once more bring back the sweet vision which had just gladdened
+his feeble senses.
+
+Like a true-hearted fellow as he was, the surgeon resolved not to
+reveal the lady’s secret to any one-not even to his patient; for he saw
+that this was her earnest desire, and she had confided in part to him
+her errand there. But those who saw the surgeon in the after part of
+that day, marked that he bore a depressed and thoughtful countenance.
+
+Isabella Gonzales had filled his vision, and very nearly his heart,
+also, by her exquisite loveliness and beauty!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+THE CHALLENGE.
+
+
+The Tacon Theatre is one of the largest in the world, and is situated
+in the Paseo, just outside the city walls. You enter the parquet and
+first row of boxes from the level of the street, and above this are
+four ranges of boxes, besides seats in the parquet for six hundred
+persons. The gildings are elaborate and beautiful, and the frescoes are
+done by the first Italian artists; the whole being brilliantly lighted
+by an immense chandelier in the centre, and lesser ones pendant from
+the half moon of boxes, and supplied with gas. It is a superb
+establishment, and when it is filled with the beauty and fashion of the
+city, it is a brilliant sight indeed.
+
+It is nearly a month subsequent to the scene that closed the last
+chapter of our story, that we would carry the reader with us within the
+brilliantly lighted walls of the Tacon Theatre. How lively and gay is
+the prospect that presents itself to the eye-the glittering jewelry and
+diamonds of the fair senor’s and senoritas, casting back the brilliant
+light, and rivalled in lustre by the sparkle of a thousand eyes of jet.
+The gilded and jewelled fans rustle audibly (what would a Spanish or
+Creole lady do without a fan?)-the orchestra dashes off in a gay and
+thrilling overture, intermingled by the voices, here and there, of
+merry groups of the audience, while the stately figures of the soldiers
+on duty are seen, with their many-colored dresses and caps, amid the
+throng and at the rear of the boxes.
+
+In a centre box of the first tier sits Senorita Isabella Gonzales, with
+her father, brother, General Harero, and a party of friends. All eyes
+are turned towards the peerless beauty-those of the ladies with envy at
+her extraordinary charms of person, and those of the young cavaliers
+and gentlemen with undisguised admiration at the picture of loveliness
+which met their eyes. Isabella herself sat with an easy and graceful
+air of unconsciousness, bowing low to the meaningless compliments and
+remarks of General Harero, and now smiling at some pleasantry of Ruez
+who was close to her side, and now again regarding for a moment the
+tall, manly figure of an officer near the proscenium box, who was on
+duty there, and evidently the officer of the evening. This may sound
+odd to a republican, but no assembly, no matter how unimportant, is
+permitted, except under the immediate eye and supervision of the
+military.
+
+“There is Captain Bezan,” said Ruez, with undisguised pleasure,
+pointing towards the proscenium box where the young officer stood.
+
+“Yes, I see him, Ruez,” replied Isabella, “and it is the first time he
+has been out on duty, I think, since his dangerous and protracted
+illness.”
+
+“I know it is the first time,” said the boy, “and I don’t think he’s
+hardly able to be out now. How very pale he is looking, Isabella.”
+
+“Do you think he’s very pale, Ruez?” she asked, turning towards the
+soldier, whose arm and sword were now outstretched, indicating some
+movement to a file of soldiers on the other side.
+
+“He’s too ill, I should think, to be out in the night air.”
+
+“One would certainly think so,” answered Isabella.
+
+“His company was ordered out to-night,” said Ruez, “and though the
+surgeon told him to remain in, he said he must be with his command.”
+
+“You seem to know his business almost as well as himself, Master Ruez,”
+said General Harero, who had overheard the remarks relating to Captain
+Bezan.
+
+“The captain and I are great friends, famous friends,” replied Ruez,
+instantly. “He’s a noble fellow, and just my idea of what a soldier
+should be. Don’t you think him a fine soldier, General Harero?” asked
+the boy, most frankly.
+
+“Humph!” ejaculated the general, “why, yes, he’s good enough for aught
+I know, professionally. Not quite rough and tough enough for a thorough
+bred one, I think,” was the reply of his superior, who was plainly
+watching Isabella Gonzales’s eyes while he spoke to the boy, and who
+was anything but pleased to see how often she glanced at Captain Bezan.
+
+“I don’t know what you may mean by rough and tough, general,” said
+Ruez, with evident feeling evinced in his voice; “but I know, very
+well, that Captain Bezan is as brave as a lion, and I don’t believe
+there is a man in your service who can swim with such weight as he can
+do.”
+
+“May be not,” replied the general, with assumed indifference.
+
+“Then why say that he’s not rough and tough? that means something,”
+continued the boy, with not a little pertinacity in defence of his new
+friend.
+
+“There’s some difference, let me tell you, Master Ruez, between facing
+an enemy with blazing gunpowder before your eyes, and merely swimming a
+while in cold water.”
+
+“The very wounds that came so near proving fatal to Captain Bezan,
+prove that he can fight, general, as well as swim,” said Ruez, rather
+smartly, in reply, while Isabella Gonzales glanced at her brother with
+evident tokens of satisfaction in her face.
+
+“You are enthusiastic in your friend’s behalf,” said General Harero,
+coldly.
+
+“And well I may be, since I not only owe him my own life, but that of
+my dear sister and father,” continued Ruez, quite equal to the
+general’s remark in any instance.
+
+“Certainly, you are right, Master Ruez,” said General Harero, biting
+his lips, as he saw that Isabella was regarding him with more than
+ordinary attention.
+
+In the meantime Lorenzo Bezan remained, as in duty bound, at his post,
+while many an admiring eye was resting upon his fine figure and martial
+bearing. He was quite unconscious of being the subject of such
+particular remark and criticism within the bearing of her he so nearly
+worshipped-the beautiful Isabella Gonzales. Though his heart was with
+her every moment, and his thoughts were never off the box, even where
+she sat, yet it was only now and then that he permitted himself to turn
+his eyes, as though by accident, towards Don Gonzales and his daughter.
+He seemed to feel that General Harero was particularly regarding him,
+and he strove to be less thoughtful of Isabella, and if possible, more
+observant of his regular duty. It is the duty of the officer of the
+night for the occasion, to fill the post during the performance, where
+the young officer now stood, as it commanded a view of the entire
+house, and was the point, where, by an order from him, he could at once
+summon a much larger force under arms than that which under ordinary
+circumstances was required. Each division of the guard was set from
+this point, therefore Captain Bezan, as was his custom, remained here
+during the performance.
+
+“It must be very tedious to stay thus standing just there,” remarked
+Ruez, pointing to Captain Bezan, and speaking to Isabella.
+
+“I should think so,” was the reply of his sister, who had often turned
+that way, to the no small annoyance of the observant General Harero.
+
+“A soldier’s duty,” replied the general, “should content him with his
+post.”
+
+It was nearly the middle of the evening’s entertainment, when turning
+his eyes towards the box occupied by Don Gonzales and his party,
+Captain Bezan caught the eye of Isabella Gonzales, and at the same time
+observed distinctly the peculiar wave of the fan, with which a Spanish
+lady invites in a friendly manner the approach of a friend of the
+opposite sex. He could not be mistaken, and yet was it possible that
+the belle of all that proud assemblage deigned openly to notice and
+compliment him thus in public? Impelled by the ardor of his love, and
+the hope that he had rightly construed the signal, he approached the
+box from the rear, and stepping to its back, gave some indication to
+one of his orderlies sufficiently loud in tone to cause Isabella and
+her father to turn their heads, as they at once recognized the voice of
+the young officer.
+
+“Ah! Captain Bezan,” said Don Gonzales, heartily, as he caught the
+young officer’s eye, “glad to see you once more with epaulets on-upon
+my soul I am.”
+
+“Thank you, sir,” said the soldier, first saluting in due form his
+superior, and then bowing low and gracefully to Isabella Gonzales, who
+honored him with a gracious smile.
+
+“You are looking comparatively well, captain,” said Don Gonzales,
+kindly.
+
+“O yes, sir, I am as well as ever, now,” replied the officer,
+cheerfully.
+
+Ruez Gonzales loved Lorenzo Bezan like a brother; first, because he had
+so materially served him at imminent peril of his own life, and
+secondly, because he saw in him just such traits of character as
+attracted his young heart, and aroused it to a spirit of emulation.
+With the privilege of boyhood, therefore, he sprang over the seats,
+half upsetting General Harero to get at the young officer’s side,
+which, having accomplished, he seized his hand familiarly. General
+Harero frowned at this familiarity, and his face grew doubly dark and
+frowning, as he saw now how closely Isabella was observing the young
+officer all the while.
+
+“I trust you find yourself quite recovered, captain, from your severe
+illness,” said Isabella, reaching by her father, as she addressed
+Lorenzo Bezan kindly.
+
+“I am quite recovered, lady; better, if possible, than before,” he
+replied, respectfully. “Master Ruez has been a constant nurse to me,
+thoughtful and kind,” he continued, as he looked down upon the boy’s
+handsome features with real affection lighting up his own pale face.
+
+Ruez only drew the closer to his side at these words, while his father,
+Don Gonzales, watched both the soldier and his boy with much interest
+for a moment, then turning to General Harero, he made some earnest and
+complimentary remark, evidently referring to Captain Bezan, though
+uttered in a low tone of voice, which seemed to increase the cloud on
+the general’s brow.
+
+But the young soldier was too much interested in gazing upon the lovely
+features of Isabella, to notice this; he seemed almost entranced by the
+tender vision of beauty that was before him. At the same moment some
+slight disturbance occurred in a distant part of the extensive
+building, which afforded a chance for General Harero to turn quickly to
+the young soldier, and in a sharp tone say:
+
+“Your duty calls you hence, sir!”
+
+For it moment the blood mantled to the officer’s face at the tone of
+this remark, but suppressing his feelings, whatever they might be, with
+a respectful acknowledgement of the order, Lorenzo Bezan hastened to
+the quarter from whence the noise had come, and by at simple direction
+obviated their trouble immediately. But he remembered the bitter and
+insulting air of his superior, and it cut him to the quick, the more
+keenly too as having been given in the presence of Isabella Gonzales.
+
+As he returned from this trifling duty, he necessarily again passed the
+box where were Don Gonzales, amid his party, and seeing Ruez standing
+there awaiting his return, he again paused for a moment to exchange at
+word with the boy, and once more received a pleasant greeting from
+Isabella and her father. At this but reasonable conduct, General Harero
+seemed nettled and angry beyond all control, and turning once more
+towards Lorenzo Bezan, with a face black with suppressed rage, said:
+
+“It strikes me, sir, that Captain Bezan would consult his own interest,
+and be best performing his ordinary duty by maintaining his post at the
+proscenium!”
+
+“I proposed to return there immediately, General Harero, and stopped
+here but for one moment,” said the young officer, with a burning cheek,
+at the intended insult.
+
+“Shall I put my words in the form of an order?” continued General
+Harero, seeing that Bezan paused to assist Ruez once more over the
+seats to his position in the box.
+
+“It is not necessary, general,” replied the officer, biting his lips
+with vexation.
+
+“I declare, general,” said Isabella, unable longer to remain quiet at
+his repeated insults to the young officer, “you soldiers are so very
+peremptory, that you half disconcert me.”
+
+“It is sometimes necessary,” was the quick and stern reply, “to be
+prompt with young and headstrong officers who do not well understand
+their duty, or rather, I may say, who knowing their duty, fail to
+perform it,” emphasizing the last part of the sentence.
+
+This was intended not only for the lady’s ear, but also for that of
+Lorenzo Bezan, who barely succeeded in commanding his feelings for the
+moment, so far as to turn silently away to return to his post of
+observation. The effect of the scene was not lost upon the
+high-spirited beauty. Isabella had marked well the words and tone of
+voice with which General Harero spoke, and she saw, too, the effect of
+his words upon the free, manly spirit of the young soldier, and from
+that moment, either intentionally, or by accident, she paid no further
+attention during the whole evening to General Harero, neither turning
+towards him, nor even speaking to him at all.
+
+The general, of course, observed this particularly, desiring as he did
+to stand in the best possible light as it regarded Isabella’s favor,
+and imputing her conduct to the presence of Captain Bezan, and the
+conversation that had taken place relative to his duty between Captain
+Bezan and himself; he hated the young officer more than ever, as being
+in some degree the cause of preventing the consummation of his hopes as
+it regarded the favor of the lady. He had long cherished a regard for
+the beautiful daughter of Don Gonzales, for her personal charms, as
+well as the rich coffers which her father could boast. As the reader
+has already surmised, he had been a constant and ardent, though
+unsuccessful suitor, for no inconsiderable period. It will not,
+therefore, be wondered at, that he should have felt very sensitive upon
+this point. As he passed Lorenzo Bezan, therefore, at the close of the
+performance, in going out of the theatre that night, while still in the
+most immediate proximity to Isabella Gonzales, her father, and the
+party with them, he took occasion to speak very loud, and in the most
+peremptory manner to him, saying:
+
+“I find you exceedingly lax, Captain Bezan, as it regards the exercise
+of your duty and command. You will report yourself to me, after morning
+parade, for such orders as shall be deemed proper for you under the
+circumstances, as a public reproof for dereliction from duty.”
+
+“Yes, general,” replied the young officer, with the usual salute to his
+superior.
+
+Still curbing his feelings, the young officer contented himself with a
+kind glance from Isabella Gonzales, who had overheard the last act of
+petty tyranny on the general’s part, and for that very reason redoubled
+her passing notice and smiles upon Captain Bezan. The officer marched
+his company to their barracks, and then sought the silence and quiet of
+his own room, to think over the events of the past evening.
+
+His temples burned still with the angry flush that the insult of his
+superior officer had produced there, and throwing himself into a chair,
+he recalled the whole scene at the theatre, from his answering
+Isabella’s friendly signal, until the time when General Harero passed
+him at the entrance, and for the last time reproved him.
+
+He weighed the cause of these repeated attacks upon him by his
+superior, and could at once divine the cause of them. That was obvious
+to his mind at the first glance. He could not but perceive the strong
+preference that General Harero evinced for Isabella Gonzales, nor could
+he disguise the fact to his own heart that she cared not a farthing for
+him. It required but a very simple capacity to understand this; any
+party, not interested in the general’s favor, could easily discern it.
+But the general counted upon his high rank, and also upon the fact that
+his family was a good one, though his purse was not very long.
+
+Lorenzo Bezan remembered not alone the annoyance of that evening. He
+had not yet forgotten the insult from the general in the Paseo, and
+coupling that with other events, he saw very well that his commanding
+officer was decidedly jealous of him. He saw, too, that there was not
+any chance of matters growing any better, but that on the contrary they
+must continue to grow worse and worse, since be had determined, come
+what might, he should pursue his love with the fair lady Isabella.
+
+Could he bear to be insulted thus at every turn by such a man as
+General Harero? No! He felt himself, in courage, intellectual
+endowments, birth, ay, everything but the rank of a soldier, to be more
+than his equal. His heart beat quickly when he recollected that the
+latter taunt and threat had been given in the presence of Don Gonzales
+and his daughter. The malignity, the unfairness of this attack upon him
+at this time, was shameful, and deserved to be punished. Brooding upon
+these things alone and at a late hour of the night, he at last wrought
+himself up to such a point, perhaps in some degree aggravated by his
+late wounds, which were hardly yet healed, that he determined he would
+challenge General Harero to martial and mortal conflict.
+
+True this was preposterous in one of his rank, as contending against
+another so vastly his superior in position and influence; but his
+feelings had begun to assume an uncontrollable character; he could not
+bear to think that he had been thus insulted before Isabella Gonzales.
+It seemed to him that she would think less of him if he did not resent
+and punish such an insult. In the heat of his resentment, therefore, he
+sat down and wrote to his superior as follows:
+
+“GENERAL HARERO: Sir-Having received, at different periods and under
+peculiar circumstances, insults from you that neither become me as a
+gentleman tamely to submit to, nor you as a soldier to give, I do
+hereby demand satisfaction. It would be worse than folly in me to
+pretend that I do not understand the incentive that governs you-the
+actuating motive that has led to these attacks upon me. In my duty as
+an officer I have never failed in the least; this you know very well,
+and have even allowed before now, to my very face. Your attacks upon me
+are, therefore, plainly traceable to a spirit of jealousy as to my
+better success with the Senorita Gonzales than yourself. Unless I
+greatly mistake, the lady herself has discovered this spirit within
+your breast.
+
+“Now, sir, the object of this note is to demand of you to lay aside the
+station you hold, and to forget our relative ranks as officers in the
+Spanish army, and to meet me on the platform of our individual
+characters as gentlemen, and render me that satisfaction for the insult
+which you have placed upon me, which I have a right to demand. A line
+from you and a friend can easily settle this business. LORENZO BEZAN.”
+
+This note was carefully sealed and addressed, and so despatched as to
+reach its destination early on the following morning. It was a most
+unfortunate epistle for Captain Bezan, and could the young officer have
+calmly considered the subject, he would never have been so imprudent as
+to send it to his superior. So long as he bore the petty annoyances of
+General Harero without murmuring he was strong, that the step he had
+now taken greatly weakened his cause and position. Perhaps he partly
+realized this as he sent the note away on the subsequent morning; but
+he felt too much pride to relent, and so only braced himself to meet
+the result.
+
+The note gave General Harero what he wanted, and placed Captain Bezan
+completely at his mercy. It gave him the opportunity to do that which
+he most desired, viz., to arrest and imprison the young officer.
+Consulting with the governor general, merely by way of strengthening
+himself, he took his opinion upon the subject before he made any open
+movement in the premises. This was a wary step, and served in some
+degree to rob the case of any appearance of personality that it might
+otherwise have worn to Tacon’s eye.
+
+As it was, the wary old soldier felt some degree of suspicion in the
+matter, as was evident by his remarks to the general, who brought the
+charge. It did not seem very natural that one who had just experienced
+such favor and promotion should so early be guilty of at breach of
+discipline. He was accustomed to judge of men and matters with care,
+and judiciously, and for this reason he now rested his head upon his
+hand for a moment, upon the table by his side, and after a pause of
+some minutes thus passed in silence, during which he had considered the
+verbal charge brought against Lorenzo Bezan by his commanding officer,
+he once more cast a searching glance upon General Harero. He had never
+detected him in any small or unfair business, but he had suspected him
+of being capable of such things.
+
+“Is this not the young man whom I have lately promoted for gallantry?”
+asked the governor-general.
+
+“Excellency, yes.”
+
+“It is strange that he should be guilty of such insubordination.”
+
+“Very strange, excellency.”
+
+“You know not the reason that has induced this conduct?”
+
+“No—that is—” continued General Harero, as he saw Tacon’s piercing eye
+bent upon him, “I can easily presume.”
+
+“Have you the letter of challenge that Captain Bezan sent?”
+
+“Excellency, yes.”
+
+“I will see it.”
+
+“Excellency, at your pleasure,” said the general, hoping not to have
+been obliged to show this document.
+
+“Now, if you please, general.”
+
+“At once, excellency.”
+
+General Harero produced the letter, and handed it with something very
+like a blush tinging his sunburnt check, to his commander-in-chief.
+Tacon read it slowly, pausing now and then to re-read a line, and then,
+remarked, as he slowly folded it up once more:
+
+“A love affair.”
+
+“Why, your excellency will easily understand that the young officer has
+dared to lift his eyes to one above his rank, and she cares nothing for
+him. His causes for complaint are all imaginary.”
+
+“Well, be this as it may, in that I shall not interfere. He has been
+guilty of a serious breach of discipline and must suffer for it. You
+may take the necessary steps at once in the matter, general.”
+
+“Excellency, yes,” said General Harero, hastening away with secret
+delight, and at once taking such measures as should carry out his own
+wishes and purposes.
+
+The result of the matter was, that before ten o’clock that morning the
+note conveying the challenge was answered by an aid-de-camp and a file
+of soldiers, who arrested Captain Bezan for insubordination, and
+quietly conducted him to the damp underground cells of the military
+prison, where he was left to consider the new position in which he
+found himself, solitary and alone, with a straw bed, and no convenience
+or comfort about him. And it is not surprising that such a situation
+should have been particularly suggestive to a mind so active as that of
+Lorenzo Bezan.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+THE PRISONER.
+
+
+To know and fully realize the bitter severity exercised in the Spanish
+prisons, both at Madrid and in Havana, one must have witnessed it.
+Cold, dark and dreary cells, fit only to act as supports to the upper
+and better lighted portions of the dismal structure, are filled by
+those persons who have incurred in any way the displeasure of the
+military board of commission. Here, in one of the dampest and most
+dreary cells, immured with lizards, tarantulas, and other vile and
+unwholesome reptiles, Captain Bezan, but so very recently-risen from a
+sick bed, and yet smarting under his wounds, found himself. He could
+now easily see the great mistake he had made in thus addressing General
+Harero as he had done, and also, as he knew very well the rigor of the
+service to which he was attached when he considered for a moment, he
+had not the least possible doubt that his sentence would be death.
+
+As a soldier he feared not death; his profession and experience, which
+had already made him familiar with the fell destroyer in every possible
+form and shape, had taught him a fearlessness in this matter; but to
+leave the air that Isabella Gonzales breathed, to be thus torn away
+from the bright hopes that she had given rise to in his breast, was
+indeed agony of soul to him now. In the horizon of his love, for the
+first time since his heart had known the passion, the sun had risen,
+and the genial rays of hope, like young spring, had commended to warm
+and vivify his soul.
+
+Until within a very short time she whom he loved was to him as some
+distant star, that might be worshipped in silence, but not approached;
+but now, by a series of circumstances that looked like providential
+interference in his behalf, immense barriers had been removed. Thinking
+over these matters, he doubly realized the misstep he had taken, and
+the heart of the lone prisoner was sad in the depths of his dreary
+dungeon.
+
+Many days passed on, and Lorenzo Bezan counted each hour as one less
+that he should have to live upon the earth. At first all intercourse
+was strictly denied him with any person outside the prison walls, but
+one afternoon he was delighted as the door of his cell was thrown open,
+and in the next moment Ruez sprang into his arms.
+
+“My dear, dear friend!” said the boy, with big tears starting from his
+eyes, and his voice trembling with mingled emotions of pleasure and of
+grief.
+
+“Why, Ruez,” said the prisoner, no less delighted than was the boy,
+“how was it possible for you to gain admittance to me? You are the
+first person I have seen, except the turnkey, in my prison.”
+
+“Everybody refused me; General Harero refused father, who desired that
+I might come and see if he could not in some way serve you. At last I
+went to Tacon himself. O, I do love that man! Well, I told him General
+Harero would not admit me, and when I told him all—”
+
+“All of what, Ruez?”
+
+“Why, about you and me, and sister and father. He said, ‘Boy, you are
+worthy of confidence and love; here, take this, it will pass you to the
+prison, and to Captain Bezan’s cell;’ and he wrote me this on a card,
+and said I could come and see you by presenting it to the guard, when I
+pleased.”
+
+“Tacon is just, always just,” said Lorenzo Bezan, “and you, Ruez, are a
+dear and true friend.” As the soldier said this, he turned to dash away
+a tear-confinement and late sickness had rendered him still weak.
+
+“Captain?”
+
+“Master Ruez.”
+
+“I hate General Harero.”
+
+“Why so?”
+
+“Because sister says it is by his influence that you are here.”
+
+“Did Isabella say that?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Well, tell me of your father and sister, Ruez. You know I am a hermit
+here.”
+
+Lorenzo Bezan had already been in prison for more than ten days, when
+Ruez thus visited him, and the boy had much to tell him: how General
+Harero had called repeatedly at the house, and Isabella had totally
+refused to see him; and how his father had tried to reason with General
+Harero about Captain Bezan, and how the general had declared that
+nothing but blood could wash out the stain of insubordination.
+
+With the pass that the governor-general had given him, Ruez Gonzales
+came often to visit the imprisoned soldier, but as the day appointed
+for the trial drew near, Ruez grew more and more sad and thoughtful at
+each visit, for, boy though he was, he felt certain of Lorenzo Bezan’s
+fate. He was not himself unfamiliar with military examinations, for he
+was born and brought up within earshot of the spot where these scenes
+were so often enacted by order of the military commission, and he
+trembled for his dearly loved friend.
+
+At length the trial came; trial! we might with more propriety call it a
+farce, such being the actual character of an examination before the
+military commission of Havana, where but one side is heard, and
+condemnation is sure to follow, as was the case so lately with one of
+our own countrymen (Mr. Thrasher), and before him the murder by this
+same tribunal of fifty Americans in cold blood! Trial, indeed! Spanish
+courts do not try people; they condemn them to suffer—that is their
+business.
+
+But let us confine ourselves to our own case; and suffice it to say,
+that Captain Bezan was found guilty, and at once condemned to die. His
+offence was rank insubordination, or mutiny, as it was designated in
+the charge; but in consideration of former services, and his undoubted
+gallantry and bravery, the sentence read to the effect, as a matter of
+extraordinary leniency to him, that it should be permitted for him to
+choose the mode of his own death-that is, between the garote and being
+shot by his comrades.
+
+“Let me die like a soldier,” replied the young officer, as the question
+was thus put to him, before the open court, as to the mode of death
+which he chose.
+
+“You are condemned, then, Lorenzo Bezan,” said the advocate of the
+court, “to be shot by the first file of your own company, upon the
+execution field.”
+
+This sentence was received with a murmur of disapprobation from the few
+spectators in the court, for the condemned was one of the most beloved
+men in the service. But the young officer bowed his head calmly to the
+sentence, though at close observer might have seen a slight quiver of
+his handsome lips, as he struggled for an instant with a single inward
+thought. What that thought was, the reader can easily guess,—it was the
+last link that bound him to happiness.
+
+Lorenzo Bezan had no fear of death, and perhaps estimated his life
+quite as lightly as any other person who made a soldier’s calling his
+profession; but since his heart had known the tender promptings of
+love, life had discovered new charms for him; he lived and breathed in
+a new atmosphere. Before he had received the kind considerations of the
+peerless daughter of Don Gonzales, he could have parted the thread of
+his existence with little regret. But now, alas! it was very different;
+life was most sweet to him, because it was so fully imbued with love
+and hope in the future.
+
+Wild as the idea might have seemed to any one else, the young officer
+had promised his own heart, that with ordinary success, and provided no
+extraordinary difficulty should present itself in his path, to win the
+heart and love of the proud and beautiful Isabella Gonzales. He had
+made her character and disposition his constant study, was more
+familiar, perhaps, with her strong and her weak points than was she
+herself, and believed that he knew how best to approach her before whom
+so many, vastly higher than himself, had knelt in vain, and truth to
+say, fortune seemed to have seconded his hopes.
+
+It was the death of all these hopes, the dashing to earth of the fairy
+future he had dreamed of, that caused his proud lip to tremble for a
+moment. It was no fear of bodily ill.
+
+General Harero had accomplished his object, and had triumphed over the
+young officer, whose impetuosity had placed him within his power. The
+sentence of death cancelled his animosity to Lorenzo Bezan, and he now
+thought that a prominent cause of disagreement and want of success
+between the Senorita Isabella Gonzales and himself was removed. Thus
+reasoning upon the subject, and thus influenced, he called at the house
+of Don Gonzales on the evening following that of Captain Bezan’s
+sentence, expecting to be greeted with the usual courtesy that had been
+extended to him. Ruez was the first one whom he met of the household,
+on being ushered to the drawing-room by a slave.
+
+“Ah! Master Ruez, how do you do?” said the general, pleasantly.
+
+“Not well at all!” replied the boy, sharply, and with undisguised
+dislike.
+
+“I’m sorry to learn that. I trust nothing serious has affected you.”
+
+“But there has, though,” said the boy, with spirit; “it is the
+rascality of human nature;” at the same moment he turned his back
+coldly on the general and left the room.
+
+“Well, that’s most extraordinary,” mused the general, to himself; “the
+boy meant to hit me, beyond a doubt.”
+
+“Ah, Don Gonzales,” he said to the father, who entered the room a
+moment after, “glad to see you; have had some unpleasant business on my
+hands that has kept me away, you see.”
+
+“Yes, very unpleasant,” said the old gentleman, briefly and coldly.
+
+“Well, it’s all settled now, Don Gonzales, and I trust we shall be as
+good friends as ever.”
+
+Receiving no reply whatever to this remark, and being left to himself,
+General Harero looked after Don Gonzales, who had retired to a balcony
+in another part of the room, for a moment, and then summoning a slave,
+sent his card to Senorita Isabella, and received as an answer that she
+was engaged. Repulsed in every quarter, he found himself most awkwardly
+situated, and thought it about time to beat a retreat.
+
+As General Harero rose and took his leave in the most formal manner, he
+saw that his pathway towards the Senorita Isabella’s graces was by no
+means one of sunshine alone, but at that moment it presented to his
+view a most cloudy horizon. The unfortunate connection of himself with
+the sentence of Captain Bezan, now assumed its true bearing in his eye.
+Before, he had only thought of revenge, and the object also of getting
+rid of his rival. Now he fully realized that it had placed him in a
+most unpleasant situation, as it regarded the lady herself. Indeed he
+felt that had not the matter gone so far, he would gladly have
+compromised the affair by a public reprimand to the young officer, such
+as should sufficiently disgrace him publicly to satisfy the general’s
+pride. But it was too late to regret now, too late for him to turn
+back-the young soldier must die!
+
+In the meantime Lorenzo Bezan was remanded to his dismal prison and
+cell, and was told to prepare for the death that would soon await him.
+One week only was allowed him to arrange such matters as he desired,
+and then he was informed that he would be shot by his comrades in the
+execution field, at the rear of the city barracks. It was a sad and
+melancholy fate for so young and brave an officer; but the law was
+imperative, and there was no reprieve for him.
+
+The cold and distant reception that General Harero had received at Don
+Gonzales’s house since the sentence had been publicly pronounced
+against Captain Lorenzo Bezan, had afforded unmistakable evidence to
+him that if his victim perished on account of the charge he had brought
+against him, his welcome with Isabella and her father was at an end.
+But what was to be done? As we have said, he had gone too far to
+retrace his steps in the matter. Now if it were but possible to get out
+of the affair in some way, he said to himself, he would give half his
+fortune. Puzzling over this matter, the disappointed general paced back
+and forth in his room until past midnight, and at last having tired
+himself completely, both mentally and physically, he carelessly threw
+off his clothes, and summoning his orderly, gave some unimportant
+order, and prepared to retire for the night.
+
+But scarcely had he locked his door and drawn the curtains of his
+windows, when a gentle knock at the door caused him once more to open
+it, when an orderly led in a person who was closely wrapped up in a
+cloak, and after saluting respectfully left the new comer alone with
+his superior.
+
+“Well, sir, did you obtain me those keys?” asked General Harero.
+
+“I did, and have them here, general,” was the reply.
+
+“You say there is no need of my entering at the main postern.”
+
+“None. This first key opens the concealed gate in the rear of the guard
+house, and this the door that leads to the under range of the prison.
+You will require no guide after what I have already shown you. But you
+have promised me the fifty ounces.”
+
+“I have.”
+
+“And will hold me harmless?”
+
+“At all hazards.”
+
+“Then here are the keys.”
+
+“Stay; it would be as well for you to be about at the time specified,
+to avert any suspicions or immediate trouble.”
+
+“I will be on the alert, general. You may rely upon me in this
+business, since you pay for my services so liberally.”
+
+“Good night, sir.”
+
+“Good night, general.”
+
+And gathering his cloak about him, the stranger vanished stealthily
+through the door, which General Harero closed and locked after him.
+Having consummated the preliminaries to some piece of rascality or
+secret business that he did not care to make public.
+
+More than half of the time allotted to the prisoner for preparation in
+closing up his connection with life, had already transpired since his
+sentence had been pronounced, and he had now but three days left him to
+live. Ruez Gonzales, improving the governor-general’s pass, had visited
+the young officer daily, bringing with him such luxuries and
+necessities to the condemned as were not prohibited by the rules of the
+prison, and which were most grateful to him. More so, because, though
+this was never intimated to him, or, indeed, appeared absolutely
+obvious, he thought that oftentimes Isabella had selected these gifts,
+if indeed she had not prepared them with her own hands. A certain
+delicacy of feeling prevented him from saying as much to her brother,
+or of even questioning him upon any point, however trivial, as to any
+matter of a peculiar nature concerning Isabella. Sometimes he longed to
+ask the boy about the subject, but he could not bring himself to do so;
+he felt that it would be indelicate and unpleasant to Isabella, and
+therefore he limited himself to careful inquiries concerning her health
+and such simple matters as he might touch upon, without risk of her
+displeasure.
+
+Lorenzo Bezan took the announcement of his fate calmly. He felt it his
+duty to pray for strength, and he did so, and sought in the holy
+silence and confidence of prayer for that abiding and inward assurance
+that may carry us through the darkness and the valley of death. Ruez,
+poor boy, was almost distracted at the realization of the young
+soldier’s fate. Boy though he was, he had yet the feelings, in many
+respects, of manhood, and though before Lorenzo Bezan he said nothing
+of his coming fate, and indeed struggled to appear cheerful, and to
+impart a pleasant influence to the prisoner, yet when once out of his
+presence, he would cry for the hour together, and Isabella even feared
+for the child’s reason, unless some change should take place ere long.
+
+When his mother was taken from him, and their home made desolate by the
+hand of death, Ruez, in the gentleness and tenderness of his heart, had
+been brought so low by grief, that it was almost miraculous that he had
+survived. The influence of that sorrow, as we have before observed, had
+never left him. His father’s assiduous care and kindness, and
+Isabella’s gentle and sisterly love for him, had in part healed the
+wound, when now his young and susceptible heart was caused thus to
+bleed anew. He loved Lorenzo Bezan with a strange intensity of feeling.
+There was an affinity in their natures that seemed to draw them
+together, and it was strange that strength of consolation and happiness
+that weak and gentle boy imparted to the stern soldier!
+
+In his association of late with Ruez, the condemned officer felt
+purified and carried back to childhood and his mother’s knee; the long
+vista of eventful years was blotted out from his heart, the stern
+battles he had fought in, the blood he had seen flow like water, his
+own deep scars and many wounds, the pride and ambition of his military
+career, all were forgotten, and by Ruez’s side he was perhaps more of a
+child at heart than the boy himself. How strange are our natures; how
+susceptible to outward influence; how attunable to harshness or to
+plaintive notes! We are but as the ’olian harp, and the winds of heaven
+play upon us what times they will!
+
+It was midnight in the prison of Havana; nought could be heard by the
+listening ear save the steady pace of the sentinels stationed at the
+various angles of the walls and entrances of the courtyard that
+surrounded the gloomy structure. It was a calm, tropical light, and the
+moon shone so brightly as to light up the grim walls and heavy arches
+of the building, almost as bright as if it were day. Now and then a
+sentinel would pause, and resting upon his musket, look off upon the
+silvery sea, and perhaps dream of his distant Castilian home, then
+starting again, he would rouse himself, shoulder the weapon, and pace
+his round with measured stride. Lorenzo Bezan, the condemned, had knelt
+down and offered up a prayer, silent but sincere, for Heaven’s
+protection in the fearful emergency that beset him; he prayed that he
+might die like a brave man, yet with a right feeling and reconciled
+conscience with all mankind. Then throwing himself upon his coarse
+straw bed, that barely served to separate him from the damp earthen
+floor, he had fallen asleep-a calm, deep, quiet sleep, so silent and
+childlike as almost to resemble death itself.
+
+He had not slept there for many minutes, before there was heard a most
+curious noise under the floor of his prison. At first it did not awaken
+him, but partially doing so, caused him to move slightly, and in at
+half conscious, half dreamy state, to suggest some cause for the
+unusual phenomenon. It evidently worked upon his brain and nervous
+system, and he dreamed that the executioner had come for him, that his
+time for life had already expired, and the noise he heard was that of
+the officers and men, come to execute the sentence that had been
+pronounced upon him by the military commission.
+
+By degrees the noise gradually increased, and heavy bolts and bars
+seemed to be removed, and a gleam of light to stream across the cell,
+while the tall form of a man, wrapped in a military cloak, came up
+through the floor where a stone slab gave way to the pressure applied
+to it from below.
+
+Having gained a footing, the new comer now turned the light of a dark
+lantern in the direction of the corner where the prisoner was sleeping.
+The figure approached the sleeping soldier, and bending over him,
+muttered to himself, half aloud:
+
+“Sleeping, by Heaven! he sleeps as quietly as though he was in his
+camp-bedstead, and not even under arrest.”
+
+As the officer thus spoke-for his cloak now falling from one shoulder,
+partially exposed his person and discovered his rank-the strong light
+of the lantern fell full upon the sleeper’s face, and caused him
+suddenly to awake, and partially rising from the floor, he said:
+
+“So soon! has my time already come? I thought that it was not yet.
+Well, I am ready, and trust to die like a soldier!”
+
+“Awake, Captain Bezan, awake!” said the new comer. “I have news for
+you!”
+
+“News!”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“What possible news can there be that I can feel interested in?”
+
+“Rise, and I will tell you,” replied the other, while he shaded the
+lantern with his hand.
+
+“Speak on, I am listening,” replied Lorenzo Bezan, rising to his feet.
+
+“I would speak of your liberty.”
+
+“My liberty? I am condemned to die, and do you come to mock me?”
+
+“Be patient; the way is open, and you may yet escape from death.”
+
+“And what should interest you, General Harero, in my fate? Your purpose
+is gained; I am removed from your path; why do you visit me thus at
+this still hour of the night, and in so extraordinary a manner by a
+secret entrance to my cell?”
+
+“All this matters nothing. I came not here to answer questions. On one
+condition you are free. I have the means of your escape at hand.”
+
+“Name the condition,” said the prisoner, though without exhibiting the
+least interest.
+
+“There is a vessel which will sail for America with the morning tide;
+swear if I liberate you that you will take passage in her, and never
+return to this island.”
+
+“Never!” said the soldier, firmly. “I will never leave those I love so
+dearly.”
+
+“You refuse these terms?” continued the general, in a hoarse tone of
+voice.
+
+“I do, most unhesitatingly. Life would be nothing to me if robbed of
+its brightest hope.”
+
+“You will not consider this for a moment? it is your only chance.”
+
+“I am resolved,” said Lorenzo Bezan; “for more than one reason I am
+determined.”
+
+“Then die for your obstinacy,” said General Harero, hoarse with rage
+and disappointment.
+
+Thus saying, General Harero descended into the secret passage from
+whence he had just emerged, and replacing the stone above his head, the
+prisoner heard the grating of the rusty bolts and bars as they were
+closed after him. They grated, too, most harshly upon his heart, as
+well as upon their own hinges, for they seemed to say, “thus perishes
+your last hope of reprieve-your last possibility of escape from the
+fate that awaits you.”
+
+“No matter,” said he, to himself, at last, “life would be of little
+value to me now if deprived of the presence of Isabella, and that dear
+boy, Ruez, and therefore I decided none too quickly as I did. Besides,
+in honor, I could hardly accept my life at his hands on any terms-he
+whom I have to thank for all my misfortunes. No, no; let them do their
+worst, I know my fate is sealed; but I fear it not. I will show them
+that I can die as I have lived, like a soldier; they shall not triumph
+in my weakness so long as the blood flows through my veins.”
+
+With this reflection and similar thoughts upon his mind, he once more
+threw himself upon the hard damp floor, and after thinking long and
+tenderly of Isabella Gonzales and her brother, he once more dropped to
+sleep, but not until the morning gun had relieved the sentinels, and
+the drum had beat the reveille.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+THE FAREWELL.
+
+
+The apartment in Don Gonzales’s house appropriated as Ruez’s sleeping
+room, led out of the main reception hall, and adjoined that of his
+sister Isabella. Both rooms looked out upon the Plato, and over the
+Gulf Stream and outer portions of the harbor, where the grim Moro tower
+and its cannon frown over the narrow entrance of the inner bay. One
+vessel could hardly work its way in ship shape through the channel, but
+a thousand might lay safely at anchor inside this remarkably
+land-locked harbor. At the moment when we would introduce the reader to
+the house of the rich old Don Gonzales, Isabella had thrown herself
+carelessly upon a couch in her room, and half sighing, half dreaming
+while awake, was gazing out upon the waters that make up from the
+Caribbean Sea, at the southward, and now and then following with her
+eyes the trading crafts that skimmed the sparkling waters to the north.
+
+As she gazed thus, she suddenly raised herself to a sitting position,
+as she heard the suppressed and most grievous sobs of some one near the
+room where she was, and rising, she approached the window to discover
+the cause of this singular sound. The noise that had excited her
+curiosity came from the next chamber, evidently, and that was her
+brother’s. Stealing softly round to the entrance of his chamber, she
+went quietly in and surprised Ruez as lay grieving upon a couch with
+eyes filled with tears.
+
+“Why, Ruez, what does this mean? Art sick, brother, that you are so
+depressed?” asked the beautiful girl, seating herself down by his side.
+
+“Ay, sister, sick at heart,” said the boy, with a deep drawn sigh.
+
+“And why, Ruez?” she continued, gently parting the hair from his
+forehead.
+
+“How can you ask such a question, sister? do you not know already?” he
+asked, turning his deep blue eyes full upon her.
+
+“Perhaps not, brother,” replied Isabella, struggling to suppress a
+sigh, while she turned her face away from her brother’s searching
+glance.
+
+“Do you not know, sister, that to-morrow Captain Bezan is sentenced to
+die?”
+
+“True,” said Isabella Gonzales, with an involuntary shudder, “I do know
+it, Ruez.”
+
+“And further, sister,” continued the boy, sagely, “do you not know that
+we have been the indirect cause of this fearful sacrifice?”
+
+“I do not see that, brother,” said Isabella, quickly, as she turned her
+beautiful face fully upon her brother, inquiringly.
+
+Ruez Gonzales looked like one actuated by some extraordinary
+inspiration; his eyes were wonderfully bright, his expression that of
+years beyond his actual age, and his beautiful sister, while she gazed
+thus upon him at that moment, felt the keen and searching glance that
+he bestowed upon her. She felt like one in the presence of a superior
+mind; she could not realize her own sensations. The boy seemed to read
+her very soul, as she stood thus before him. It was more than a minute
+before he spoke, and seemed to break the spell; but at last-and it
+seemed an age to Isabella Gonzales-he did so, and said:
+
+“Sister?”
+
+“Well, Ruez?”
+
+“Captain Bezan loves you.”
+
+“Perhaps so.”
+
+“I say he does love you.”
+
+“It is possible.”
+
+“I say he loves you,” continued the boy, almost sternly.
+
+“Well, brother, what of that?” she asked, with assumed indifference.
+
+“It is that, sister, which has led General Harero to persecute him as
+he has done, and it is that which has led him like a noble spirit to
+turn to bay.”
+
+A moment’s pause ensued.
+
+“Is it not so, sister?” he asked, still looking keenly at her. “Have
+you not yourself intimated that Captain Bezan was to suffer owing to
+his interest and services for us?”
+
+“You do indeed speak truly, brother,” said the lovely girl, breathing
+more quickly, and half amazed at Ruez’s penetration and prophetic
+manner of speech.
+
+“Alas!” said the boy, once more relapsing into his former mood, “that
+he might be saved!”
+
+“Has our father seen the governor-general, Ruez?” asked his sister,
+earnestly.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And to no effect?”
+
+“None. Tacon, you know, is most strict in his administration of
+justice, and he says that if he were to pardon one such breach of
+military discipline as Captain Bezan as been guilty of, the whole army
+would at once be impregnated with insubordination.”
+
+“Would that I could see Captain Bezan, if only for one single moment,”
+murmured Isabella Gonzales, half aloud, yet only to herself.
+
+“Do you mean so, sister?” asked Ruez, catching quickly at his sister’s
+words, and with an undisguised expression of delight written upon his
+handsome countenance.
+
+“Yes, no, brother, that is to say, if I could see him with propriety,
+you know, Ruez; that is what I meant to say.”
+
+“Nothing easier, than for you to do so, if you desire it,” said the
+boy.
+
+“Do you think so, Ruez?” said his sister, somewhat eagerly.
+
+“Certainly, Isabella, my pass will serve for you with a trifling
+disguise.”
+
+“But our difference in size; besides, you know that my voice—”
+
+“Will not be noticed by those stiff sentries, or the turnkey,”
+interrupted the boy. “They do not know me at all, and would not suspect
+you.”
+
+“Ah! but I can see many impediments in the way of one of my sex,” added
+Isabella Gonzales, with a deep sigh.
+
+Captain Lorenzo Bezan awoke on the day previous to that appointed for
+his execution, with cheerful spirit. He found no guilt in his heart, he
+felt that he had committed no crime, that his soul was free and
+untrammelled. His coarse breakfast of rude cassava root and water was
+brought to him at a late hour, and having partaken of sufficient of
+this miserable food to prevent the gnawings of hunger, he now sat
+musing over his past life, and thinking seriously of that morrow which
+was to end his career upon earth forever. A strange reverie for a man
+to be engaged in a most critical period-the winding up of his earthly
+career.
+
+“I wonder,” said he to himself, somewhat curiously, “why Ruez does not
+come to-day? it is his hour-ay, must be even past the time, and the boy
+loves me too well to neglect me now, when I am so near my end. Hark! is
+that his step? No; and yet it must be; it is too light for the guard or
+turnkey. O yes, that is my door, certainly, and here he is, sure
+enough. I knew he would come.”
+
+As the prisoner said this, the door slowly opened on its rusty and
+creaking hinges, and the turnkey immediately closed it after the new
+comer, who was somewhat closely wrapped in the profuse folds of a long
+Spanish cloak.
+
+Well, Ruez,” said Captain Bezan, quite leisurely, and without turning
+his head towards the door, “I had begun to fear that you would not come
+to-day. You know you are the only being I see, except the turnkey, and
+I’m quite sensitive about your visits, my dear boy. However, you are
+here, at last; sit down.”
+
+“Captain Bezan, it appears to me that you do not welcome me very
+cordially,” said Isabella Gonzales, in reply, and a little archly.
+
+“Lady!” said the prisoner, springing to his feet as though he had been
+struck by an electric shock, “Senorita Isabella Gonzales, is it
+possible that you have remembered me at such a time-me, who am so soon
+to die?”
+
+Isabella Gonzales had now thrown back the ample folds of the cloak she
+wore, and lifting her brother’s cap from her head, her beautiful hair
+fell into its accustomed place, and with a slight blush tinging either
+cheek, she stood before the young soldier in his cell, an object of
+ineffable interest and beauty.
+
+“Heaven bless you, lady,” said the prisoner, kneeling at her feet.
+
+“Nay. I pray you, sir, Captain Bezan, do not kneel at such a time.”
+
+“Ah! lady, how can I thank you in feeble words for this sweet ray of
+sunshine that you have cast athwart my dark and dreary path? I no
+longer remember that I am to die-that my former comrades are to pierce
+my heart with bullets. I cannot remember my fate, lady, since you have
+rendered me so happy. You have shown me that I did not mistake the
+throne at which I have secretly worshipped-that, all good and pure as
+you are, you would not forget Lorenzo Bezan, the poor, the lonely
+soldier who had dared to tell you how dearly he loved you.”
+
+As he spoke, Isabella Gonzales seemed for one moment to forget herself
+in the realizations of the scene. She listened to his thrice eloquent
+words with eyes bent upon the ground at first, and then gazing tenderly
+upon him, and now that he had ceased to speak, they sought once more
+the floor of the room in silence. He could not but construe these
+delicate demonstrations in his favor, and drawing close to her side, he
+pressed her hand tenderly to his lips. The touch seemed to act like
+magic, and aroused her to present consciousness, while she started as
+if in amazement. All the pride of her disposition was instantly
+aroused; she felt that for a single moment she had forgotten herself,
+and to retrieve the apparent acquiescence that she had seemed to show
+to the condemned soldier’s words and tale of love, she now appeared to
+think that she must assume all the hauteur of character that usually
+governed her in her intercourse with his sex and the world generally.
+It was but a simple struggle, and all her self-possession was rallied
+again to her service and absolute control.
+
+“Captain Bezan,” she said, with assumed dignity, and drawing herself up
+in all her beauty of to person to its full height, “I came not hither
+to hear such talk as this from you, nor to submit to such familiarity,
+and I trust, sir, that you will henceforth remember your station, and
+respect mine.”
+
+The breast of the prisoner heaved with inward emotion, in the struggle
+to suppress its outward show, and he bit his lips until the blood
+nearly flowed. His face instantly became the picture of despair; for
+her words had planted that grief and sorrow in his heart which the fear
+of death could not arouse there. Even Isabella Gonzales seemed for a
+moment struck with the effect of her repulse; but her own proud heart
+would not permit her to recall one word she had uttered.
+
+“I would not leave you, Captain Bezan,” said she, at length, as she
+gathered the ample folds of the cloak about her, “without once more
+tendering to you my most earnest thanks for your great services to our
+family. You know to what I refer. I need not tell you,” she continued,
+with a quivering lip, “that my father has done all in his power to have
+your sentence remitted, but, alas! to no effect. Tacon seems to be
+resolved, and unchangeable.”
+
+As she spoke thus, spite of all her assumed pride and self-control, a
+tear trembled in her eye, and her respiration came quickly-almost in
+sobs!
+
+The young soldier looked at her silently for a moment; at first he
+seemed puzzled; he was weighing in his own mind the meaning of all this
+as contrasted with the repulse he had just received, and with the
+estimate he had before formed of her; at last, seeming to read the
+spirit that had possessed her, he said:
+
+“Ah, lady, I bless you a thousand times for that tear!”
+
+“Nay, sir, I do not understand you,” she said, quickly.
+
+“Not your own heart either, lady, else you disguise its truth. Ah! why
+should all this be so? why should hearts be thus masked?”
+
+“Sir, this is positive impertinence,” said Isabella Gonzales,
+struggling once more to summon her pride to sustain her.
+
+“Impertinence, lady?” repeated the prisoner, sadly.
+
+“That was my word, sir,” answered the proud girl, with assumed
+harshness.
+
+“No, it would be impossible for me, on the very brink of the grave, to
+say aught but the truth; and I love you too deeply, too fervently, to
+be impertinent. You do not know me, lady. In my heart I have reared an
+altar to worship at, and that shrine for three years has been thy
+dearly loved form. How dearly and passionately I have loved-what a
+chastening influence it has produced upon my life, my comrades, who
+know not yet the cause, could tell you. To-morrow I must die. While I
+hoped one day to win your love, life was most dear to me, and I was
+happy. I could then have clung to life with as much tenacity as any
+one. But, lady, I find that I have been mistaken; my whole dream of
+fancy, of love, is gone, and life is no better to me than a burden. I
+speak not in haste, nor in passion. You must bear me witness that I am
+calm and collected; and I assure you that the bullets which end my
+existence will be but swift-winged messengers of peace to my already
+broken heart!”
+
+“Captain Bezan,” said Isabella, hesitating, and hardly speaking
+distinctly.
+
+“Well, lady?”
+
+“How could you have so deceived yourself? How could you possibly
+suppose that one in your sphere of life could hope to be united to one
+in mine?” asked Isabella Gonzales, with a half averted face and a
+trembling voice, as she spoke. “It was foolhardy, sir; it was more than
+that; it was preposterous!”
+
+“Lady, you are severe.”
+
+“I speak but truth, Captain Bezan, and your own good sense will sustain
+it.”
+
+“I forgot your birth and rank, your wealth-everything. I acknowledge
+this, in the love I bore you; and, lady, I still feel, that had not my
+career been thus summarily checked, I might yet have won your love.
+Nay, lady, do not frown; true love never despairs-never is
+disheartened—never relinquishes the object that it loves, while there
+is one ray of light yet left to guide it on. It did seem to me now,
+when we are parting so surely forever, that it might have been, on your
+part, more kindly, and that you would, by a smile, or even a tear-drop,
+for my sake, have thus blessed me, and lightened my heavy steps to the
+field of execution and of trial.”
+
+Isabella Gonzales, as she listened to his words, could no longer
+suppress her feelings, but covering her face with her hands, she wept
+for a moment like a child. Pride was of no avail; the heart had
+asserted its supremacy, and would not be controlled.
+
+“You take advantage of my woman’s heart, sir,” she said, at last. “I
+cannot bear the idea that any one should suffer, and more particularly
+one who has endeared himself to me and mine by such important service
+as you have done. Do not think that tears argue aught for the wild tale
+you have uttered, sir. I would not have you deceive yourself so much;
+but I am a woman, and cannot view violence or grief unmoved!”
+
+“Say, rather, lady,” added the soldier, most earnestly, “that you are
+pure, beautiful, and good at heart, but that pride, that only alloy of
+thy most lovely character, chokes its growth in your bosom.”
+
+“Sir!”
+
+“Well, Senorita Isabella.”
+
+“Enough of this,” she said, hastily and much excited. “I must leave you
+now, captain. It is neither fitting that I should hear, nor that you
+should utter such words as these to Isabella Gonzales. Farewell!”
+
+“Lady, farewell,” replied the prisoner, more by instinct than by any
+comprehension that she was actually about to leave him.
+
+“I pray you, Captain Bezan, do not think that I cherish any unkind
+thoughts towards you,” she said, turning when at the door; “on the
+contrary, I am by no means unmindful of my indebtedness to you; but far
+be it from me to sanction a construction of my feelings or actions
+which my heart will not second.”
+
+“Lady, your word is law to me,” replied the submissive prisoner.
+
+When she had gone, and the rough grating of the turnkey’s instruments
+had done sounding in his ear, Captain Bezan remained a moment looking
+upon the slot where she had stood, with apparent amazement. He could
+not realize that she had been there at all; and hardest of all, that
+she had left him so abruptly. But her “farewell” still rang in his
+ears, and throwing himself upon his rude seat, with his face buried in
+his hands, he exclaimed:
+
+“Welcome, welcome death! I would that thou wert here already!”
+
+After a few moments thus passed, as it were, in the very depths of
+despair, he rose and walked his dreary cell in a sad and silent
+reverie, a reviewal of all these matters.
+
+“How I have mistaken that beautiful creature, how idolized, how loved
+her! I knew that there was much, ay, very much, of pride in her heart.
+I knew the barriers that rose between her and me; but, alas, I thought
+them not so very at high, so very impregnable. I would not, could not,
+have believed that she would have left me thus. It was our last
+farewell. She might have been more kind; might, without much risk of
+loss of pride have permitted me such a parting as should have rendered
+my last hours happy! Alas! alas! what toys of fortune we are; what
+straws for every breeze to shake-for every wind to shatter!
+
+“We set our hearts upon an object, and blinded by our warm desires,
+believe, like children, that which we hope for. I have never paused to
+think in this matter of my love, I have been led ont too precipitately
+by the brilliancy of the star that I followed; its light blinded me to
+all other influences; and, too truly, I feel it, blinded me to reason
+also. Isabella Gonzales, the belle of this brilliant city, the courted,
+beloved, rich, proud Isabella Gonzales; what else might I have
+expected, had one moment been permitted to me for reason, for cool
+reflection. I was mad in my fond and passionate love; I was blind in my
+folly, to ever dream of success. But the end will soon be here, and I
+shall be relieved from this agonizing fever at my heart, this woeful
+pain of disappointed love, of broken-heartedness.”
+
+He folded his arms, and permitting his head to sink upon his breast,
+sat down, the very picture of despair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+THE EXECUTION SCENE.
+
+
+The morning was bright and beautiful that ushered in the day which was
+appointed for the execution of Captain Lorenzo Bezan, in accordance
+with the sentence passed upon him. The birds carolled gaily in the
+little grove that is formed about the fountain which fronts the
+governor-general’s palace and the main barracks of the army, while the
+fresh, soft air from inland came loaded with delicious flavors and
+sweet aroma. Nature could hardly have assumed a more captivating mood
+than she wore at that time.
+
+The soldiers, who sauntered about the Plaza, and hung around the doors
+of the guard house, wore an air quite different from that which the
+bright and beautiful tropical morning might be supposed to induce. They
+knew only too well of the tragedy that was that day to enacted; such
+occasions-the spilling of the tide of life, in cold blood-suited not
+their chivalrous notions at any time, much less so now, for they loved
+the officer who was to lose his life-a victim to Harero-whom, again,
+few men respected, either as a soldier or a man-his character was
+repulsive to nearly all.
+
+“So the captain is to be shot to-day,” remarked one of Captain Bezan’s
+own company, to a comrade whom he had just met in the Plaza.
+
+“Yes, I had rather it had been—”
+
+“Hush, Alonzo,” said his companion, observing General Harero walking
+across the street.
+
+“That is he, and he is the only man I ever saw,” continued the officer,
+“that I would like to see shot in cold blood. Poor Bezan, he’s
+sacrificed to the general!”
+
+“I wonder what gave the trouble between them.”
+
+“Don’t know; some say there’s a lady in the case.”
+
+“I hadn’t heard of that.”
+
+“Yes, you know he challenged the general?”
+
+“Yes,”
+
+“Well, that was about a lady, in some way; I heard one of the officers
+say so.”
+
+“The first file do the business.”
+
+“Yes, and thankful am I, Alonzo, that you and I are in the fourth
+section.”
+
+The hour appointed for the execution of the sentence had nearly
+arrived, and the steady roll of the drum beat the regiment to which
+Captain Bezan’s company belonged, to the line. His own immediate
+company was formed on the side of the Plaza at right angles with the
+rest of the line, in all some thousand rank and file. This company
+“stood at ease,” and the men hung their heads, as if ashamed of the
+business they were about to perform. In the rest of the line the men
+exchanged a few words with each other, now and then, quietly, but the
+company referred to, spoke not a word. to each other. Their officers
+stood in a little knot by themselves, and evidently felt sad at heart
+when they remembered the business before them, for their comrade
+condemned to die had been a universal favorite with them.
+
+But a few moments transpired, after the forming of the line, before an
+aid-de-camp approached and transmitted an order to the
+first-lieutenant, now commanding the company, and the first file of
+twelve men were marched away to the rear of the barracks, while the
+rest of the company were sent to the prison to do guard duty in
+escorting the prisoner to the ground. It seemed to them as though this
+additional insult might have been spared to the prisoner-that of being
+guarded by his late command, in place of any other portion of the
+regiment being detailed for this service. But this was General Harero’s
+management, who seemed to gloat in his own diabolical purposes.
+
+In the meantime the prisoner had risen that morning from his damp, rude
+couch, and had completed his simple toilet with more than usual
+neatness. After offering up a sincere prayer, and listening to the
+words of the priest who had been sent to prepare him for the last hour,
+he declared calmly that he was ready to die. He had looked for Ruez
+Gonzales, and wondered not a little that the boy had not come to bid
+him farewell that morning-a last, long farewell.
+
+“Perhaps his young heart was too full for him to do so,” said the
+doomed soldier; “and yet I should have felt happier to see him again.
+It is strange how much his purity and gentleness of character have
+caused me to love him. Next to Isabella Gonzales, surely that boy is
+nearest to my heart. Poor Ruez will miss me, for the boy loves me
+much.”
+
+As he mused thus to himself, the steady and regular tread of armed men
+was heard approaching his prison door, and the young soldier knew full
+well for what purpose they came. In a few moments after, he who had
+formerly been his second in command entered the cell and saluted the
+prisoner respectfully.
+
+“Captain Bezan,” said the lieutenant, “I need not explain in detail to
+you the very unpleasant business upon which I have been at this time
+sent, nor add,” continued the officer, in a lower tone of voice, “how
+much I regret the fate that awaits you.”
+
+“Nay, Ferdinand,” answered Captain Bezan, calmly, “say nothing of the
+matter, but give me your hand, my friend, and do your duty.”
+
+“Would to God I could in any way avoid it, Lorenzo,” said his brother
+officer, who had long been associated with him, and who had loved him
+well.
+
+“Regrets are useless, Ferdinand. You know we all have our allotted
+time, and mine has come. You shall see that I will die like a soldier.”
+
+“Ay, Lorenzo; but in such a way; so heartlessly, so needlessly, so in
+cold blood; alas! why were you so imprudent? I am no woman, comrade.
+You have fought in the same field, and slept in the same tent with me
+oftentimes, and you know that I have laid the sod upon my companion’s
+breast without a murmur, without a complaint; but this business is too
+much for me!”
+
+“Fie, fie, man,” said the prisoner, with assumed indifference; “look
+upon it as a simple duty; you but fulfil an order, and there’s the end
+of it.”
+
+“I can’t, for the life of me, I can’t!”
+
+“Why, my good fellow, come to think of it, you should not complain, of
+all others, since it gives you promotion and the command of our brave
+boys.”
+
+A look of deep reproach was the only answer he received to this remark.
+
+“Forgive me, Ferdinand, forgive me, I did but jest,” he continued,
+quickly, as he again grasped the hand of his comrade between his own.
+
+“Say no more, Lorenzo. Is there aught I can do for you before we
+march?”
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“No little boon-no service you would like to trust to a friend and
+comrade?”
+
+“My papers are all arranged and addressed to you, with directions how I
+should like to have them disposed of. There is nothing else,
+Ferdinand.”
+
+“It will be my melancholy pleasure to follow your wishes implicitly,”
+was the reply.
+
+“Thank you, Ferdinand.”
+
+“Is that all?”
+
+“All.”
+
+“Then we must at once away.”
+
+“One moment-stay, Ferdinand; tell my poor boys who act the
+executioners, those of the first file, to fire low-at my heart,
+Ferdinand! You will remember?”
+
+“Alas! yes,” said his comrade, turning suddenly away from the prisoner.
+
+“And tell them, Ferdinand, that I most heartily and sincerely forgive
+them for the part they are called upon to play in this day’s drama.”
+
+“I will-I will.”
+
+“That is all. I have no other request, and am prepared now to follow
+you,” he added, with a calm and resigned expression of countenance.
+
+The drum beat-the file opened-the prisoner took his position, and the
+detachment of men whom he had so often commanded amid the carnage of
+battle and the roar of cannon, now guarded him towards the place of his
+execution.
+
+Lorenzo Bezan had but a little way to march; but still a blush suffused
+his face as he passed, thus humiliated, through the public Plaza, where
+he had so often paraded his company before. All eyes were low bent upon
+him, from the humblest to the highest, for he was well known, and his
+fate had created much remark among all. He was marched quietly to the
+rear of the barracks, and as the company filed by the guard house, to
+the long open space on the city side, just opposite Moro Castle, he
+distinctly heard a voice from one of the windows say:
+
+“God bless and help you, Captain Bezan!”
+
+He turned partially round to see the speaker, but no one was visible.
+He was sure it was Ruez’s voice, and wondering why he did not come
+forward to meet his eye, he marched on to the plain where the entire
+division of General Harero’s command was drawn up to witness the scene.
+It is difficult to conceive, and much more so to describe, such an
+impressive sight as presented itself at this moment to the spectator.
+There was so much mockery in the brilliant uniforms, flaunting plumes
+and gilded accoutrements of the soldiery, when contrasted with the
+purpose of the scene, that one could hardly contemplate the sight even
+for a moment with ordinary composure.
+
+The prisoner, attended by a private and two officers, was led to his
+position, where, divested of his coat, he stood simply in his linen and
+nether garments, and quietly submitted to have his hands bound behind
+him, while he exchanged a few pleasant words with those who were about
+him. At a signal from the provost marshal, one of the officers essayed
+to bind a handkerchief before his eyes, but at an earnest request to
+the contrary by the prisoner, he desisted, and in a moment after he
+stood alone beside the open grave that had been dug to receive his
+remains!
+
+Behind him rolled the ocean, mingling with the waters of the Gulf
+Stream; on either side were ranged the long line of infantry that
+formed his division, while in front was ranged his own company, and
+some ten yards in front of them stood the file of thirteen men who were
+to be his executioners. They had just been supplied with their muskets
+by an officer, and were told that one was without ball, that each one
+might hope his was not the hand to slay his former comrade in arms.
+Another signal from the provost, and the lieutenant commanding Captain
+Bezan’s company advanced from the rear to the side of the first file to
+his regular position, at the same time saying in a low voice:
+
+“Fire low, my men, as you love our former comrade-aim at his heart!”
+
+A glance, and a sad one of intelligence, was all he could receive from
+the men. Two or three successive orders brought the file to the proper
+position for firing.
+
+At that moment Lorenzo Bezan, with a slight exertion of the great
+physical strength which he possessed, easily broke the cords asunder
+that bound his wrists behind him, and dashing the dark hair from his
+high and manly forehead, he calmly folded his arms upon his breast, and
+awaited the fire that was to end his existence. The fearful word was
+given by the officer, and so still was every one, so breathless the
+whole scene, that the order was distinctly heard through the entire
+length of the lines.
+
+The morning sun shone like living fire along the polished barrels of
+the guns, as the muzzles all ranged in point towards the heart of the
+condemned. In spite of the effort not to do so, the officer paused
+between the order to aim, and that to fire. The word appeared to stick
+in his throat, and he opened his mouth twice before he could utter the
+order; but at last he did so, distinctly, though with a powerful
+effort.
+
+The, sharp, quick report of the muskets that followed this order,
+seemed to jar upon every heart among that military throng, except,
+indeed, of him who sat upon a large dapple gray horse, at the right of
+the line, and whose insignia bespoke him to be the commanding officer,
+General Harero. He sat upon his horse like a statue, with a calm but
+determined expression upon his features, while a stern smile might be
+observed to wreathe his lips for an instant at the report of the guns
+fired by the executing file.
+
+But see, as the smoke steadily sweeps to seaward, for a moment it
+completely covers the spot where the victim stood, and now it sweeps
+swiftly off over the water. But what means that singular murmur so
+audible along the line-that movement of surprise and astonishment
+observed in all directions?
+
+Behold, there stood erect the unharmed form of Lorenzo Bezan! Not a
+hair of his head was injured; not a line of his noble countenance was
+in the least distorted. As calm as though nought had happened, he stood
+there unmoved. He had so braced himself to the effort, that nothing
+human could have unnerved him. Hastily directing an aid-de-camp to the
+spot with some new order, General Harero issued another to his officers
+for the lines to be kept firm, and preparations were instantly set
+about for another and more certain attempt upon the life of the
+condemned, who seemed to the spectators to have escaped by some divine
+interposition, little less than a miracle.
+
+At that instant there dashed into the area a mounted aid-de-camp,
+bearing the uniform of the governor-general’s suite, and riding
+directly up to General Harero, he handed him a paper. It was done
+before the whole line of military and the spectators, all of whom
+seemed to know as well its purport, as did the general after reading
+it.
+
+“A reprieve! A reprieve!” ran from mouth to mouth along the whole
+length of the line, until at last it broke out in one wild huzza,
+defying all discipline.
+
+Those nearest to General Harero heard him utter a curse, deep but
+suppressed, for the surmise of the multitude was correct. Captain Bezan
+had been reprieved; and, probably, in fear of this very thing, the
+general of the division had taken upon himself to set the time of
+execution one hour earlier than had been announced to Tacon-a piece of
+villany that had nearly cut off the young soldier from the clemency
+that the governor had resolved to extend to him at the very last
+moment, when the impressiveness of the scene should have had its
+effect.
+
+Issuing one or two hasty orders, General Harero put spurs to his horse
+and dashed off the grounds with chagrin but too plainly written in his
+face not to betray itself. He could even detect a hiss now and then
+from the crowd, as he passed; and one or two, bolder than the rest,
+cast epithets at him in vile language, but he paused not to listen. He
+was no favorite with citizens or soldiers, and hastily dismounting at
+the door of the palace, he sought his own room with deep feelings of
+suppressed rage and bitterness.
+
+But what was the meaning of those twelve musketeers all missing their
+aim? So vexed was General Harero at this, that his first order was for
+their united arrest; but that had been countermanded now, since the
+governor had reprieved the prisoner; for the general saw that he stood
+in a false position, in having changed the hour for execution, and did
+not care to provoke a controversy that might lead to his exposure
+before the stern justice of Tacon, and he did well to avoid it.
+
+It was very plain to officers and men that there had been foul play
+somewhere, and so excited had the division become by this time, that
+the officers began to look seriously at each other, fearing an
+immediate outbreak and disregard of discipline. It was a time to try
+the troops, if one had ever occurred. They would have stood firm and
+have received an enemy’s fire without wavering; but there seemed some
+cold-blooded rascality here, in the arriving of the reprieve after the
+twelve men had fired, even though they did so ineffectually.
+
+Quick, stern orders were quickly passed from line to line, the division
+was wheeled into column, the drums beat a quick march, and the whole
+column passed up the Calle del Iganasio towards the front of the main
+barracks, where, lest the symptoms, already referred to, should ripen
+into something more serious still, orders were issued to keep the
+division still under arms. In the meantime, Captain Lorenzo Bezan,
+still as calm as though nought had occurred, was marched back to his
+cell in the prison, to hear the conditions upon which the reprieve, as
+dictated by Tacon, was granted. As he passed the guard house again, on
+his return, he heard his name called as he had heard it when he marched
+with the guard:
+
+“God bless you, Captain Bezan!”
+
+“Strange,” thought the prisoner-he knew it for Ruez Gonzales’s voice at
+once; “where can that boy be secreted?” He mused for a second of time.
+This was the portion of the guard room where the officer on duty had
+loaded the guns for his execution, and from here they had been taken
+and passed into the hands of the men. It did not require much
+penetration on the part of the reprieved soldier to understand now the
+reason why these twelve men had missed their aim!
+
+Had they exercised the skill of Kentucky sharp-shooters they could have
+done no harm; blank cartridges don’t kill. But how unexpected, how
+miraculous it appeared, how strange the sensations of the young
+officer, after that loud sounding discharge, to find himself standing
+thus unharmed,—no wound, no bullet whistling by his ears, the dead,
+sluggish smoke alone enveloping his person for a moment, and then, as
+it swept away seaward, the shout of the astonished division rang upon
+his senses. He felt that all eyes were upon him, and adamant itself
+could not have remained firmer than did he. Few men would have
+possessed sufficient self-control to bear themselves thus; but he was a
+soldier, and had often dared the bullet of the enemy. He was familiar
+with the whistling of bullets, and other sounds that carry on their
+wings the swift-borne messengers of death. Besides this, there was an
+indifference as to life, existing in his bosom at that moment, that led
+him to experience a degree of apathy that it would be difficult for us
+to describe, or for the reader to realize. He felt as he did when he
+exclaimed, in his lonely cell in prison, as he was left for the last
+time by her he so loved—“Welcome, welcome, death! I would that thou
+wert here already!”
+
+How it was accomplished, of course he knew not; nor could he hardly
+surmise in his own mind, so very strictly is the care of such matters
+attended to under all like circumstances; but one thing he felt
+perfectly sure of, and indeed he was right in his conjecture—Ruez had
+drawn the bullets from the guns!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+THE BANISHMENT.
+
+
+Lorenzo Bezan had hardly reached his place of confinement, once more,
+before he was waited upon by the secretary of the governor-general, who
+explained to him the terms on which his reprieve was granted, viz.,
+that he should leave the territory and soil of Cuba by the next
+homeward bound packet to Spain, to remain there, unless otherwise
+ordered by special direction of the government. His rank as captain of
+infantry was secured to him, and the usual exhortation in such cases
+was detailed, as to the hope that the present example might not be lost
+upon him, as to the matter of a more strict adherence to the subject of
+military discipline.
+
+Repugnant as was the proposition to leave the island while life was
+his, Lorenzo Bezan had no alternative but to do so; and, moreover, when
+he considered the attraction that held him on the spot, how the
+Senorita Isabella Gonzales had treated him, when she had every reason
+to believe that it was his last meeting with her, and nearly the last
+hour of his life, he saw that if she would treat him thus at such a
+moment, then, when he had not the excuse of remarkable exigency and the
+prospect of certain death before him, she would be no kinder. It was
+while exercised by such thoughts as these that he answered the
+secretary:
+
+“Bear my thanks, with much respect, to the governor-general, and tell
+him that I accept from him his noble clemency and justice, the boon of
+my life, on his own terms.”
+
+The secretary bowed low and departed.
+
+We might tell the reader how Lorenzo Bezan threw himself upon his bed
+of straw, and wept like a child-how he shed there the first tears he
+had shed since his arrest, freely and without a check. His heart seemed
+to bleed more at the idea of leaving the spot where Isabella lived, and
+yet to live on himself, elsewhere, than his spirit had faltered at the
+idea of certain death. Her last cruel words, and the proud spirit she
+exhibited towards him, were constantly before his eyes.
+
+“O,” said he, half aloud, “how I have worshipped, how adored that
+fairest of God’s creatures!”
+
+At moments he had thought that he saw through Isabella’s character-at
+moments had truly believed that he might by assiduity, perhaps, if
+favored by fortune, win her love, and, may be, her hand in marriage. At
+any rate, with his light and buoyant heart, there was sunshine and hope
+enough in the future to irradiate his soul with joy, until the last
+scene in his drama of life, added to that of her last cold farewell!
+
+He was soon informed that the vessel which was to take him to Spain
+would sail on the following morning, and that no further time would be
+permitted to him on the island. He resolved to write one last letter of
+farewell to Isabella Gonzales, and then to depart; and calling upon the
+turnkey for writing materials, which were now supplied to him, he wrote
+as follows:”
+
+“DEAR LADY: Strange circumstances, with which you are doubtless well
+acquainted by this time, have changed my punishment from death to
+banishment. Under ordinary circumstances it would hardly be called
+banishment for any person to be sent from a foreign clime to the place
+of his nativity; nor would it appear to be such to me, were it not that
+I leave behind me the only being I have ever really loved-the idol
+angel of my heart-she who has been to me life, soul, everything, until
+now, when I am wretched beyond description; because without hope, all
+things would be as darkness to the human heart.
+
+“I need not review our brief acquaintanceship, or reiterate to you the
+feelings I have already expressed. If you can judge between true love
+and gallantry, you know whether I am sincere or otherwise. I could not
+offer you wealth, Isabella Gonzales. I could not offer you rank. I have
+no fame to share with you; but O, if it be the will of Heaven that
+another should call you wife, I pray that he may love you as I have
+done. I am not so selfish but that I can utter this prayer with all my
+heart, and in the utmost sincerity.
+
+“The object of this hasty scrawl is once more to say to you farewell;
+for it is sweet to me even to address you. May God bless your dear
+brother, who has done much to sustain me, bowed down as I have been
+with misfortune, and broken in spirit; and may the especial blessing of
+Heaven rest ever on and around you.
+
+“This will ever be the nightly prayer of LORENZO BEZAN.”
+
+When Isabella Gonzales received this note on the following day, its
+author was nearly a dozen leagues at sea, bound for the port of Cadiz,
+Spain! She hastily perused its contents again and again. looked off
+upon the open sea, as though she might be able to recall him, threw
+herself upon her couch, and wept bitter, scalding tears, until weary
+nature caused her to sleep.
+
+At last Ruez stole into her room quietly, and finding her asleep, and a
+tear-drop glistening still upon her cheek, he kissed away the pearly
+dew and awoke her once more to consciousness. He, too, had learned of
+Captain Bezan’s sudden departure; and by the open letter in his
+sister’s hand, to which he saw appended his dearly loved friend’s name,
+he judged that her weeping had been caused by the knowledge that he had
+left them-probably forever.
+
+Lorenzo Bezan should have seen her then, in her almost transcendent
+beauty, too proud, far too proud, to own even to herself that she loved
+the poor soldier; yet her heart would thus unbidden and spontaneously
+betray itself, in spite of all her proud calmness, and strong efforts
+at self-control. The boy looked at her earnestly; twice he essayed to
+speak, and then, as if some after thought had changed his purpose, he
+kissed her again, and was silent.
+
+“Well, brother, it seems that Captain Bezan has been liberated and
+pardoned, after all,” said Isabella, with a voice of assumed
+indifference.
+
+“Yes, sister, but at a sad cost; for he has been banished to Spain.”
+
+“How strange he was not shot, when so many fired at him.”
+
+“Sister?”
+
+“Well.”
+
+“Can you keep a secret?”
+
+“I think so, Ruez,” said Isabella, half smiling at the question of her
+brother.
+
+“Well, it’s not so very wonderful, since I drew the bullets from the
+guns!”
+
+And Ruez explained to her that he had secreted himself in the house,
+with the hope that something might turn up to save his friend even yet,
+and there he had found a chance to draw the bullets from the twelve
+muskets. After he had told her, she threw her arms about his neck, and
+said:
+
+“You are a dear, good brother.”
+
+“And for what, sister?”
+
+“For saving Captain Bezan’s life; for otherwise he had been shot.”
+
+“But why do you care so much about it, sister?” asked the boy,
+seriously.
+
+“O, nothing, only-that is, you know, Ruez, we owe Captain Bezan so much
+ourselves for having hazarded his life for us all.”
+
+Ruez turned away from his sister with an expression in his face that
+made her start; for he began to read his sister’s heart, young as he
+was, better than she knew it herself. He loved Lorenzo Bezan so dearly
+himself-had learned to think so constantly of him, and to regard him
+with such friendly consideration, that no influence of pride could in
+the least affect him; and though he had sufficient penetration to
+pierce through the subject so far as to realize that his dearly loved
+friend regarded his sister with a most ardent and absorbing love, he
+could not exactly understand the proud heart of Isabella, which, save
+for its pride, would so freely return the condemned soldier’s
+affection.
+
+Well, time passed on in its ever-varying round. Lorenzo Bezan was on
+his way to Spain, and Isabella and her brother filling nearly the same
+round of occupation, either of amusement or self-imposed duty.
+Occasionally General Harero called; but this was put a stop to, at
+last, by Ruez’s pertinently asking him one evening how he came to order
+the execution of Lorenzo Bezan to take place a full hour before the
+period announced in the regular sentence signed by the
+governor-general!
+
+Ruez was not the first person who had put this question to him, and he
+felt sore about it, for even Tacon himself had reprimanded him for the
+deed. Thus realizing that his true character was known to Don Gonzales
+and his family, he gave up the hope of winning Isabella Gonzales, or
+rather the hope of sharing her father’s rich coffers, and quietly
+withdrew himself from a field of action where he had gained nothing,
+but had lost much, both as it regarded this family, and, owing to his
+persecution of Captain Bezan, that of the army.
+
+Isabella Gonzales became thoughtful and melancholy without exactly
+knowing why. She avoided company, and often incurred her father’s
+decided displeasure by absenting herself from the drawing-room when
+there were visitors of importance. She seemed to be constantly in a
+dreamy and moody state, and avoided all her former haunts and
+companions. A skilful observer might have told her the cause of all
+this, and yet, strange to say, so blind did her pride render her, that
+she could not see, or at least never acknowledged even to herself, that
+the absent soldier had aught to do with it.
+
+Had not Isabella Gonzales treated Lorenzo Bezan as she did at their
+last meeting, he would never have accepted the governor-general’s
+pardon on the terms offered, nor life itself, if it separated him from
+her he loved. But as it was, he seemed to feel that life had lost its
+charm, ambition its incentive for him, and he cast himself forth upon
+the troubled waters without compass or rudder. And it was precisely in
+this spirit that he found himself upon the deck of the vessel, whose
+white wings were wafting him now across the ocean.
+
+He, too, was misanthropic and unhappy; he tried to reason with himself
+that Isabella Gonzales was not worthy to render him thus miserable;
+that she was a coquette-an unfeeling, though beautiful girl; that even
+had he succeeded, and fortune favored him in his love, she would not
+have loved him its his heart craved to be loved. But all this sophistry
+was overthrown in a moment by the memory of one dear glance, when
+Isabella, off her guard, and her usual hauteur of manner for the
+instant, had looked through her eyes the whole truthfulness of her
+soul; in short, when her heart, not her head, had spoken!
+
+Alas! how few of us feel as we do; how few do as we feel!
+
+Perhaps there is no better spot than on shipboard for a dreamer to be;
+he has then plenty of time, plenty of space, plenty of theme, and every
+surrounding, to turn his thoughts inward upon himself. Lorenzo Bezan
+found this so. At times he looked down into the still depths of the
+blue water, and longed for the repose that seemed to look up to him
+from below the waves. He had thought, perhaps, too long upon this
+subject one soft, calm evening, and had indeed forgotten himself, as it
+were, and another moment would have seen the working of what seemed a
+sort of irresistible charm to him, and he would have cast himself into
+that deep, inviting oblivion!
+
+Then a voice seemed to whisper Isabella’s name in his ear! He started,
+looked about him, and awoke from the fearful charm that held him. It
+was his good angel that breathed that name to him then, and saved him
+from the curse of the suicide!
+
+From that hour a strange feeling seemed to possess the young soldier.
+Like him in Shakspeare’s “Seven Ages,” he passed from love to ambition.
+A new charm seemed to awake to him in the future, not to the desertion
+of his love, nor yet exactly to its promotion. An indefinite idea
+seemed to move him that he must win fame, glory and renown; and yet he
+hardly paused to think what the end of these would be; whether they
+would ultimately bring him nearer to the proud girl of his hopes and
+his love. Fame rang in his ears; the word seemed to fire his veins; he
+was humble-he must be honored; he was poor-he must be rich; he was
+unknown-he must be renowned! With such thoughts as these, his pulses
+beat quicker, his eye flashed, and his check became flushed, and then
+one tender thought of Isabella would change every current, and almost
+moisten those bloodshot eyes with tears. Would to God that Lorenzo
+Bezan could now but shed a tear-what gentle yet substantial relief it
+would have afforded him.
+
+Thus was the exiled soldier influenced; while Isabella Gonzales was, as
+we have seen, still living on under the veil of her pride; unable,
+apparently, for one single moment to draw the curtain, and look with
+naked eye upon the real picture of her feelings, actions, and honest
+affections. She felt, plain enough, that she was miserable; indeed the
+flood of tears she daily shed betrayed this to her. But her proud
+Castilian blood was the phase through which alone she saw, or could
+see. It was impossible for her to banish Lorenzo Bezan from her mind;
+but yet she stoutly refused to admit, even to herself, that she
+regarded him with affection-he, a lowly soldier, a child of the camp, a
+myrmidon of fortune-he a fit object for the love of Isabella Gonzales,
+the belle of Havana, to whom princes had bowed? Preposterous!
+
+Her brother, whose society she seemed to crave more than ever, said
+nothing; he did not even mention the name of the absent one, but he
+secretly moaned for him, until the pale color that had slightly tinged
+his check began to fade, and Don Gonzales trembled for the boy’s life.
+It was his second bereavement. His mother’s loss, scarcely yet
+outgrown, had tried his gentle heart to its utmost tension; this new
+bereavement to his sensitive mind, seemed really too much for him. A
+strange sympathy existed between Isabella and the boy, who, though
+Lorenzo Bezan’s name was never mentioned, yet seemed to know what each
+other was thinking of.
+
+But in the meantime, while these feelings were actuating Isabella and
+her brother at Havana, Lorenzo Bezan had reached Cadiz, and was on his
+way to the capital of Spain, Madrid.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+THE PROMOTION.
+
+
+We have already given the reader a sufficient idea of Lorenzo Bezan,
+for him to understand that he was a person possessed of more than
+ordinary manliness and personal beauty. A distinguished and chivalric
+bearing was one of his main characteristics, and you could hardly have
+passed him in a crowd, without noting his fine manly physical
+appearance, and strikingly intelligent features. Fired with the new
+ambition which we have referred to in the closing of the last chapter,
+Lorenzo Bezan arrived in the capital of his native land, ready and
+eager to engage in any enterprise that called for bravery and daring,
+and which in return promised honor and preferment.
+
+Tacon, governor-general of Cuba, had marked his qualities well, and
+therefore wrote by the same conveyance that took the young soldier to
+Spain, to the head of the war department, and told them of what stuff
+he was composed, and hinted at the possibility of at once placing him
+in the line of his rank, and of giving him, if possible, active service
+to perform. Tacon’s opinion and wishes were highly respected at Madrid,
+and Lorenzo Bezan found himself at once placed in the very position he
+would have desired-the command of as fine a company, of the regular
+service as the army could boast, and his rank and position thoroughly
+restored.
+
+There was just at that period a revolt of the southern and western
+provinces of Spain, which, owing to inactivity on the part of
+government, had actually ripened into a regularly organized rebellion
+against the throne. News at last reached the queen that regular bodies
+of troops had been raised and enlisted, under well known leaders, and
+that unless instant efforts were made to suppress the rising, the whole
+country would be shortly involved in civil war. In this emergency the
+troops, such its could be spared, were at once detached from the
+capital and sent to various points in the disaffected region to quell
+the outbreak. Among the rest was the company of Lorenzo Bezan and two
+others of the same regiment, and being the senior officer, young as he
+was, he was placed in command of the battalion, and the post to which
+he was to march at once, into the very heart of the disaffected
+district.
+
+Having arrived in the neighborhood of the spot to which his orders had
+directed him, he threw his whole force, some less than three hundred
+men, into one of the old Moorish fortifications, still extant, and with
+the provisions and ammunition he had brought with him, entrenched
+himself, and prepared to scour and examine the surrounding country. His
+spies soon brought him intelligence of the defeat of two similar
+commands to his own, sent out at the same time to meet the insurgents;
+and, also, that their partial success had very naturally elated them in
+the highest degree. That they were regularly organized into regiments,
+with their stands of colors, and proper officers, and that one regiment
+had been sent to take the fort where he was, and would shortly be in
+the neighborhood.
+
+Lorenzo Bezan was a thorough soldier; he looked to the details of all
+the plans and orders he issued, so that when the enemy appeared in
+sight, they found him ready to receive them. They were fully thrice his
+number, but they had a bad cause and poor leaders, and he feared not
+for the result. On they came, in the fullness of confidence, after
+having already participated in two victories over the regular troops;
+but they had, though a younger, yet a far better and more courageous
+officer to deal with in Captain Bezan. The fight was long and bloody,
+but ere night came on the insurgents were compelled to retire, after
+having lost nearly one third of their number in the contest.
+
+The camp of the insurgents was pitched some half mile from the old fort
+occupied by Captain Bezan and his followers, just beneath the brow of a
+sheltering undulation of ground. Night overshadowed the field, and it
+was still as death over the battle field, when Captain Bezan, summoning
+his followers, told them that the enemy lay yonder in sleep; they could
+not anticipate a sally, and from a confidential spy he had ascertained
+that they had not even set a sentinel.
+
+“I shall lead you out this night to attack them; take only your
+weapons. If we are defeated, we shall want nothing more; if victorious,
+we shall return to our post and our munitions.”
+
+He had lost scarcely two score of his men in the fight, protected as
+they were by the walls of the fortress, while the besiegers were
+entirely exposed to the fire of musketry, and the two small cannon they
+had brought with them, and so they entered into the daring plan of
+their commander with the utmost zeal. They were instructed as to the
+plan more fully, and at midnight, as the last rays of the moon sank
+below the horizon, they quietly filed forth from the fortress and
+turned towards the insurgents’ camp. Slowly and silently they stole
+across the plain, without note of drum or fife, and headed by their
+young commander, until they reached the brow of the little elevation,
+beyond which the enemy lay sleeping, some in tents, some on the open
+field, and all unguarded.
+
+The signal was given, and the small band of disciplined men fell upon
+the camp. Lorenzo Bezan with some fifty picked followers sought the
+head quarters of the camp, and having fought their way thither,
+possessed themselves of the standards, and made prisoner of the leader
+of the body of insurgents, and ere the morning sun had risen, the camp
+was deserted, the enemy, totally defeated, had fled, or been taken
+prisoners and bound, and the victorious little band of the queen’s
+troops were again housed within the walls of the fortress.
+
+But their fighting was not to end here; a second body of the enemy,
+incensed as much by the loss of their comrades as elated by various
+victories over other detachments of the army, fell upon them; but they
+were met with such determined spirit and bravery, and so completely did
+Lorenzo Bezan infuse his own manly and resolved spirit into the hearts
+of his followers, that the second comers were routed, their banners
+taken, and themselves dispersed. These two victories, however, had cost
+him dear; half his little gallant band had lost their lives, and there
+were treble their number of prisoners securely confined within the
+fortress.
+
+Fresh troops were despatched, in reply to his courier, to escort these
+to the capital, and an order for himself and the rest of his command to
+return to Madrid, forthwith. This summons was of course complied with,
+and marching the remnant of his command to the capital, Captain Bezan
+reported himself again at head quarters. Here he found his services had
+been, if possible, overrated, and himself quite lionized. A major’s
+commission awaited him, and the thanks of the queen were expressed to
+him by the head of the department.
+
+“A major,—one step is gained,” said the young soldier, to himself; “one
+round in the ladder of fame has been surmounted; my eyes are now bent
+upward!”
+
+And how he dreamed that night of Cuba, of rank and wealth, and the
+power and position they conferred-and still his eyes were bent upward!
+
+With a brief period permitted for him to rest and recover from slight
+wounds received in his late battles, Lorenzo, now Major Bezan, was
+again ordered to the scene of trouble in the southern district, where
+the insurgents, more successful with older officers sent against them,
+had been again victorious, and were evidently gaining ground, both in
+strength of purpose and numbers. This time he took with him a full
+command of four companies, little less than four hundred men, and
+departed under far better auspices than he had done before, resolved,
+as at the outset, to lead his men where work was to be done, and to
+lead them, too, on to victory or utter destruction! It was a fearful
+resolve; but in his present state of feelings it accorded with the
+spirit that seemed to actuate his soul.
+
+But success does not always crown the most daring bravery, and twice
+were Lorenzo Bezan and his followers worsted, though in no way
+discouraged. But at last, after many weeks of toil and hardship, he was
+again victorious, again routed twice his own number, again captured a
+stand of colors, and again despatched his trophies to the feet of his
+queen. The civil war then became general, and for nearly a year Lorenzo
+Bezan and his followers were in the battle field. Victory seemed to
+have marked him for a favorite, and his sword seemed invincible;
+wherever he led, he infused his own daring and impetuous spirit into
+the hearts of his followers, and where his plume waved in the fight,
+there the enemy faltered.
+
+A second and third victory crowned him within another promotion, and a
+colonel’s commission was sent to the adventurous soldier after the hard
+fought battles he had won for the queen. Once more he paused, and
+whispered to himself:
+
+“Another round in the ladder is gained! have patience, Lorenzo Bezan;
+fame may yet be thine; she is thy only bride now; alas, alas, that it
+should be so! that there cannot be one-one dearer than all the world
+beside-to share with thee this renown and honor, this fame won by the
+sword on the field of battle; one whose gentleness and love should be
+the pillow on which to rest thy head and heart after the turmoil and
+whirlwind of war has subsided!”
+
+Scarcely a year had transpired since the condemned soldier had been
+banished from Cuba, and now from a captaincy he had risen to wear the
+star of a colonel. No wonder, then, that he thus soliloquized to
+himself upon the theme of which he dreamed.
+
+The life he led, the fierce contests he engaged in, had no effect in
+hardening the heart of the young soldier: one thought, one single word,
+when he permitted himself to pause and look back upon the past, would
+change his whole spirit, and almost render him effeminate. At times his
+thoughts, spite of himself, wandered far away over the blue waters to
+that sunny isle of the tropics, where Isabella Gonzales dwelt, and then
+his manly heart would heave more quickly, and his pulses beat swifter;
+and sometimes a tear had wet his check as he recalled the memory of
+Ruez, whom he had really loved nearly as well as he had done his proud
+and beautiful sister. The boy’s nature, so gentle, affectionate and
+truthful, and yet in emergency so manly and venturesome, as evinced in
+his drawing the bullets from the guns that would else have taken the
+life of Lorenzo Bezan, was a theme of oft recalled admiration and
+regard to the young soldier.
+
+Though he felt in his heart that Isabella Gonzales could never love
+him, judging from the cold farewell that had at last separated them,
+still fame seemed dear to him on her account, because it seemed to
+bring him nearer to her, if not to raise a hope in his heart that she
+might one day be his. At times, in the lonely hours of the night, alone
+in his tent, he would apostrophize her angelic features, and sigh that
+Heaven, which had sent so sweet a mould in human form, should have
+imbued it with a spirit so haughty, a soul so proud as to mar the
+exquisite creation.
+
+“I have thought,” he amused to himself, “I that I knew her-that the
+bright loveliness of her soul would dazzle and outshine the pride that
+chance had sown there-that if boldly and truly wooed, she would in turn
+boldly and truly love. It seemed to me, that it was the first barrier
+only that must he carried by assault, and after that I felt sure that
+love like mine would soon possess the citadel of her heart. But I was
+foolish, self-confident, and perhaps have deserved defeat. It may be
+so, but Isabella Gonzales shall see that the humble captain of
+infantry, who would hardly be tolerated, so lowly and humble was he,
+will command, ere long, at least, some degree of respect by the
+position that his sword shall win for him. Ay, and General Harero, too,
+may find me composed of better metal than he supposed. There is one
+truthful, gentle and loving spirit that will sympathize with me. I know
+and feel that; Ruez, my boy, may Heaven bless thee!”
+
+“Count Basterio, what sort of a person is this Colonel Bezan, whose
+sword has been invincible among the rebels, and who has sent us two
+stand of colors, taken by himself?” asked the queen, of one of her
+principal courtiers, one day.
+
+“Your majesty, I have, never seen him,” answered the count, “but I’m
+told he’s a grim old war-horse, covered with scars gained in your
+majesty’s service.”
+
+“Just as I had thought he must be,” continued the queen, “but some one
+intimated to us yesterday that he was young, quite young, and of noble
+family, Count Basterio.”
+
+“He has displayed too much knowledge of warfare to be very young, your
+majesty,” said the count, “and has performed prodigies during this
+revolt, with only a handful of men.”
+
+“That is partly what has so much interested me. I sent to the war
+office yesterday to know about him, and it was only recorded that he
+had been sent from Cuba. None of the heads of the department remembered
+to have seen him at all.”
+
+“I saw by the Gazette that he would return to Madrid with his regiment
+to-day,” said the count, “when, if your majesty desires it, I will seek
+out this Colonel Bezan, and bring him to you.”
+
+“Do so; for we would know all our subjects who are gallant and
+deserving, and I am sure this officer must be both, from what I have
+already been able to learn.”
+
+“Your wish shall be obeyed, your majesty,” said the obsequious
+courtier, bowing low, and turning to a lady of the court, hard by,
+began to chat about how this old “son of a gun,” this specimen of the
+battle-field would be astonished at the presence of his queen.
+
+“He’s all covered with scars, you say?” asked one of the ladies.
+
+“Ay, senorita, from his forehead to his very feet,” was the reply.
+
+“It will be immensely curious to see him; but he must look
+terrifically.”
+
+“That’s true,” added the count; “he’s grizzly and rough, but very
+honest.”
+
+“Can’t you have him muzzled,” suggested a gay little senorita, smiling.
+
+“Never fear for his teeth, I wear a rapier,” added the count,
+pompously.
+
+“But seriously, where’s he from?”
+
+“Of some good family in the middle province, I understand.”
+
+“O, he’s a gentleman, then, and not a professional cut-throat?” asked
+another.
+
+“I believe so,” said the courtier.
+
+“That’s some consolation,” was the rejoinder to the count’s reply.
+
+While the merits of Lorenzo Bezan were thus being discussed, he was
+marching his regiment towards the capital, after a year’s campaign of
+hard fighting; and the Gazette was right in its announcement, for he
+entered the capital on the evening designated, and occupied the
+regularly assigned barracks for his men.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+THE QUEEN AND THE SOLDIER.
+
+
+It was a noble and brilliant presence into which Lorenzo Bezan was
+summoned on the day following his arrival from the seat of war. Dons
+and senoras of proud titles and rich estates, the high officials of the
+court, the prime ministers the maids of honor, the gayly dressed pages
+and men-at-arms, all combined to render the scene one of most striking
+effect.
+
+The young soldier was fresh from the field; hard service and exposure
+had deepened the olive tint of his clear complexion to a deep nut
+brown, and his beard was unshaven, and gave a fine classical effect to
+his handsome but melancholy features. The bright clearness of his
+intelligent eye seemed to those who looked upon him there, to reflect
+the battles, sieges and victories that the gallant soldier had so
+lately participated in. Though neat and clean in appearance, the
+somewhat sudden summons he had received, led him to appear before the
+court in his battle dress, and the same sword hung by his side that had
+so often reeked with the enemy’s blood, and flashed in the van of
+battle.
+
+There was no hauteur in his bearing; his form was erect and military;
+there was no self-sufficiency or pride in his expression; but a calm,
+steady purpose of soul alone was revealed by the countenance that a
+hundred curious eyes now gazed upon. More than one heart beat quicker
+among the lovely throng of ladies, as they gazed upon the young hero.
+More than one kindly glance was bestowed upon him; but he was
+impervious to the shafts of Cupid; he could never suffer again; he
+could love but one, and she was far away from here.
+
+Lorenzo Bezan had never been at court. True that his father, and indeed
+his elder brother, and other branches of the house had the entree at
+court; but his early connection with the army, and a naturally retiring
+disposition, had prevented his ever having been presented, and he now
+stood there for the first time. The queen was not present when he first
+entered, but she now appeared and took her seat of state. Untaught in
+court etiquette, yet it came perfectly natural for Lorenzo Bezan to
+kneel before her majesty, which he did immediately, and was graciously
+bidden to rise.
+
+“Count Basterio,” said the queen, “where is this Colonel Bezan, whom
+you were to bring to us to-day? have you forgotten your commission,
+sir?”
+
+“Your majesty, he stands before you,” replied the complaisant courtier.
+
+“Where, count?”
+
+“Your majesty, here,” said the courtier, pointing more directly to our
+hero.
+
+“This youth, this Colonel Bezan! I had thought to sec an older person,”
+said the queen, gazing curiously upon the fine and noble features of
+the young soldier.
+
+“I trust that my age may be of no detriment to me as it regards your
+majesty’s good feelings towards me,” said Lorenzo Bezan, respectfully.
+
+“By no means, sir; you have served us gallantly in the field, and your
+bravery and good judgment in battle have highly commended themselves to
+our notice.”
+
+“I am little used, your majesty, to courtly presence, and find that
+even now I have come hither accoutred as I would have ridden on to the
+field of battle; but if a heart devoted to the service of your majesty,
+and a willing hand to wield this trusty weapon, are any excuses in your
+sight, I trust for lenient judgment at your royal hands.”
+
+“A brave soldier needs no excuse in our presence, Colonel Bezan,”
+replied the queen, warmly. “When we have heard of your prowess in the
+field, and have seen the stands of colors you have taken from the
+enemy, far outnumbering your own force, we have thought you were some
+older follower of the bugle and the drum-some hardy and gray old
+soldier, whose life had been spent in his country’s service, and
+therefore when we find an soldier like yourself, so young, and yet so
+wise, we were surprised.”
+
+“Your majesty has made too much of my poor deserts. Already have I been
+twice noticed by honorable and high promotion in rank, and wear this
+emblem to-day by your majesty’s gracious favor.” As he spoke, he
+touched his colonel’s star.
+
+“For your bravery and important services, Captain Bezan, wear this next
+that star for the present,” said the queen, presenting the young
+soldier with the medal and order of St. Sebastian, a dignity that few
+attained to of less distinction than her privy councillors and the
+immediate officers of the government.
+
+Surprised by this unexpected and marked honor, the young soldier could
+only kneel and thank her majesty in feeble words, which he did, and
+pressing the token to his lips, he placed it about his neck by the
+golden chain that had supported it but a moment before upon the lovely
+person of his queen. The presence was broken up, and Lorenzo Bezan
+returned to his barracks, reflecting upon his singular good fortune.
+
+His modest demeanor, his brilliant military services, his handsome face
+and figure, and in short his many noble points of manliness; and
+perhaps even the slight tinge of melancholy that seemed ever struggling
+with all the emotions that shone forth from his expressive face, had
+more deeply interested the young queen in his behalf than the soldier
+himself knew of. He knew nothing of the envy realized by many of the
+courtiers when they saw the queen present him with the medal taken from
+her own neck, and that, too, of an order so distinguished as St.
+Sebastian.
+
+“What sort of spirit has befriended you, Colonel Bezan?” said one of
+his early friends; “luck seems to lavish her efforts upon you.”
+
+“I have been lucky,” replied the soldier.
+
+“Lucky! the whole court rings with your praise, and the queen delights
+to honor you.”
+
+“The queen has doubly repaid my poor services,” continued the young
+officer.
+
+“Where will you stop, colonel?”
+
+“Stop?”
+
+“Yes; when will you have done with promotion?-at a general’s
+commission?”
+
+“No fear of that honor being very quickly tendered to me,” was the
+reply; while at the same moment he secretly felt how much he should
+delight in every stop that raised him in rank, and thus entitled him to
+positions and honor.
+
+Such conversations were not unfrequent; for those who did not
+particularly envy him, were still much surprised at his rapid growth in
+favor with the throne, his almost magic success in battle, and
+delighted at the prompt reward which he met in payment for the exercise
+of those qualities which they could not themselves but honor.
+
+Scarcely had he got off his fighting harness, so to speak, before he
+found himself the object of marked attention by the nobility and
+members of the court. Invitations from all sources were showered upon
+him, and proud and influential houses, with rich heiresses to represent
+them, were among those who sought to interest the attention if not the
+heart of the young but rising soldier-he whom the queen had so markedly
+befriended. Her majesty, too, seemed never tired of interesting herself
+in his behalf, and already had several delicate commissions been
+entrusted to his charge, and performed with the success that seemed
+sure to crown his simplest efforts.
+
+So far as courtesy required, Colonel Bezan responded to every
+invitations and every extension of hospitality; but though beset by
+such beauty as the veiled prophet of Khorassan tempted young Azim with,
+still he passed unscathed through the trial of star-lit eyes and female
+loveliness, always bending, but never breaking; for his heart would
+still wander over the sea to the vision of her, who, to him, was far
+more beautiful than aught his fancy had pictured, or his eyes had seen.
+All seemed to feel that some tender secret possessed him, and all were
+most anxious as to what it was. Even the queen, herself, had observed
+it; but it was a delicate subject, and not to be spoken of lightly to
+him.
+
+Lorenzo Bezan had most mysteriously found the passage to the queen’s
+good graces, and she delighted to honor him by important commissions;
+so two years had not yet passed away, when the epaulets of a general
+were presented to the young and ambitious soldier! Simply outranked now
+by General Harero, who had so persecuted him, in point of the date of
+his commission, he far outstretched that selfish officer in point of
+the honors that had been conferred upon him by the throne; and being
+now economical with the handsome professional income he enjoyed, he was
+fast amassing a pecuniary fortune that of itself was a matter of no
+small importance, not only to himself, but also in the eyes of the
+world.
+
+Among the courtiers he had already many enemies, simply because of his
+rise and preferment, and he was known as the favorite of the queen.
+Some even hinted darkly that she entertained for him feelings of a more
+tender nature than the court knew of, and that his promotion would not
+stop at a general’s commission, and perhaps not short of
+commander-in-chief of the armies of Spain. But such persons knew
+nothing to warrant these surmises; they arose from the court gossip,
+day by day, and only gained importance from being often repeated.
+
+“She delights to honor him,” said one lady to another, in the queen’s
+ante-chamber.
+
+“Count Basterio says that he will be made prime minister within a
+twelvemonth.”
+
+“The count is always extravagant,” replied the other, “and I think that
+General Bezan richly merits the honors he receives. He is so modest,
+yet brave and unassuming.
+
+“That is true, and I’m sure I don’t blame the queen for repaying his
+important services. But he doesn’t seen to have any heart himself.”
+
+“Why not? He treats all with more than ordinary courtesy, and has a
+voice and manner to win almost any heart he wills. But some dark hints
+are thrown out about him.”
+
+“In what respect, as having already been in love?” asked the other
+lady.
+
+“Yes, and the tender melancholy that every one notices, is owing to
+disappointed affection.”
+
+“It is strange that he should meet with disappointment, for General
+Bezan could marry the proudest lady of the court of Madrid.”
+
+“O, you forget when he came home to Spain he was only an humble captain
+of infantry, who had seen little service. Now he is a general, and
+already distinguished.”
+
+They were nearer right in their surmises than even themselves were
+aware of. It was very true that Captain Bezan, the unknown soldier, and
+General Bezan, the queen’s favorite, honored by orders, and entrusted
+with important commissions, successful in desperate battles, and the
+hero of the civil war, were two very different individuals. No one
+realized this more acutely than did Lorenzo Bezan himself. No step
+towards preferment and honor did he make without comparing his
+situation with the humble lieutenant’s birth that he filled when he
+first knew Isabella Gonzales, and when his hopes had run so high, as it
+regarded winning her love.
+
+Of all the beauty and rank of the Castilian court, at the period of
+which we write, the Countess Moranza was universality pronounced the
+queen of beauty. A lineal descendant of the throne, her position near
+the queen was of such a nature as to give her great influence, and to
+cause her favor to be sought with an earnestness only second to the
+service rendered to the queen herself. Her sway over the hearts of men
+had been unlimited; courted and sought after by the nobles of the land,
+her heart had never yet been touched, or her favors granted beyond the
+proud civility that her birth, rank and position at court entitled her
+to dispense.
+
+She differed from Isabella Gonzales but little in character, save in
+the tenderness and womanliness, so to speak, of her heart-that she
+could not control; otherwise she possessed all the pride and
+self-conceit that her parentage and present position were calculated to
+engender and foster. On Lorenzo’s Bezan’s first appearance at court she
+had been attracted by his youth, his fame, the absence of pride in his
+bearing, and the very subdued and tender, if not melancholy, cast of
+his countenance. She was formally introduced to him by the queen, and
+was as much delighted by the simple sincerity of his conversation as
+she had been by his bearing and the fame that preceded his arrival at
+the court. She had long been accustomed to the flirting and attention
+of the court gallants, and had regarded them with little feeling; but
+there was one who spoke from the heart, and she found that he spoke to
+the heart, also, for she was warmly interested in him at once.
+
+On his part, naturally polite and gallant, he was assiduous in every
+little attention, more so from the feeling of gratitude for the
+friendship she showed to him who was so broken-hearted. Intercourse of
+days and hours grew into the intimacy of weeks and months, and they
+became friends, warm friends, who seemed to love to confide in each
+other the whole wealth of the soul. Unaccustomed to female society, and
+with only one model ever before his eyes, Lorenzo Bezan afforded, in
+his truthfulness, a refreshing picture to the court-wooed and
+fashionable belle of the capital, who had so long lived in the
+artificial atmosphere of the queen’s palace, and the surroundings of
+the Spanish capital.
+
+The absence of all intrigue, management and deceit, the frank,
+open-hearted manliness of his conversation, the delicacy of his
+feelings, and the constant consideration for her own ease and pleasure,
+could not but challenge the admiration of the beautiful Countess
+Moranza, and on her own part she spared no means to return his
+politeness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+UNREQUITED LOVE.
+
+
+Pleased, and perhaps flattered, by the constant and unvarying kindness
+and friendliness evinced towards him by the Countess Moranza, the young
+general seemed to be very happy in her company, and to pass a large
+portion of his leisure hours by her side. The court gossips, ever ready
+to improve any opportunity that may offer, invented all manner of
+scandal and prejudicial stories concerning the peerless and chaste
+Countess Moranza; but she was above the power of their shafts, and
+entertained Lorenzo Bezan with prodigal hospitality.
+
+To the young soldier this was of immense advantage, as she who was thus
+a firm friend to him, was a woman of brilliant mind and cultivation,
+and Lorenzo Bezan improved vastly by the intellectual peers of the
+countess. The idea of loving her beyond the feelings a warm friendship
+might induce, had never crossed his mind, and had it done so, would not
+have been entertained even for one moment. Of loving he had but one
+idea, one thought, one standard, and that heart embodiment, that queen
+of his affections, was Isabella Gonzales.
+
+They rode together, read to each other, and, in short, were quite
+inseparable, save when the queen, by some invitation, which was law of
+course to the young general, solicited his attendance upon herself. Her
+friendship, too, was in want, and her interest great for Lorenzo Bezan,
+and he delighted to shower upon him every honor, and publicly to
+acknowledge his service in to the throne.
+
+“The queen seems very kind to you, general,” said the countess, to him.
+
+“She is more than kind-she lavish rewards upon me.”
+
+“She loves bravery.”
+
+“She repays good fortune in round sums,” replied the officer.
+
+“But why do you ever wear that sober, sombre, and sad look upon that
+manly and intellectual face?”
+
+“Do I look thus?” asked the soldier, with a voice of surprise.
+
+“Often.”
+
+“I knew it not,” replied Lorenzo Bezan, somewhat earnestly.
+
+“It seems a mystery to me that General Bezan, honored by the queen,
+with a purse well filled with gold, and promoted beyond all precedent
+in his profession, should not rather smile than frown; but perhaps
+there is some reason for grief in your heart, and possibly I am
+careless, and probing to the quick a wound that may yet be fresh.”
+
+The soldier breathed an involuntary sigh, but said nothing.
+
+“Yes. I see now that I have annoyed you, and should apologize,” she
+said.
+
+“Nay, not so; you have been more than a friend to me; you have been an
+instructress in gentle refinement and all that is lovely in your sex,
+and I should but poorly repay such consideration and kindness, were I
+not to confide in you all my thoughts.”
+
+The countess could not imagine what was coming. She turned pale, and
+then a blush stole over her beautiful features, betraying how deeply
+interested she was.
+
+“I hope, general,” she said, “that if there is aught in which a person
+like myself might offer consolation or advice to you, it may be spoken
+without reserve.”
+
+“Ah, countess, how can I ever repay such a debt as you put me under by
+this very touching kindness, this most sisterly consideration towards
+me?”
+
+There was a moment’s pause in which the eyes of both rested upon the
+floor.
+
+“You say that I am sad at times. I had thought your brilliant
+conversation and gentleness of character had so far made me forget that
+I no longer looked sad. But it is not so. You, so rich in wealth and
+position, have never known a want, have never received a slight, have
+never been insulted at heart for pride’s sake. Lady, I have loved a
+being, so much like yourself, that I have often dreamed of you
+together. A being all pure and beautiful, with but one sad alley in her
+sweet character-pride. I saw her while yet most humble in rank. I
+served herself and father and brother, even to saving their lives; I
+was promoted, and held high honor with my command; but she was rich,
+and her father high in lordly honors and associations. I was but a poor
+soldier; what else might I expect but scorn if I dared to love her?
+But, countess, you are ill,” said the soldier, observing her pallid
+features and quick coming and going breath.
+
+“Only a temporary illness; it is already gone,” she said. “Pray go on.”
+
+“And yet I believe she loved me also though the pride of her heart
+choked the growth of the tendrils of affection. Maddened by the insults
+of a rival, who was far above me in rank, I challenged him, and for
+this was banished from the island where she lives. Do you wonder that I
+am sometimes sad at these recollections? that my full heart will
+sometimes speak in my face?”
+
+“Nay, it is but natural,” answered the countess, with a deep sigh.
+
+General Bezan was thinking of his own anguish of heart, of the
+peculiarities of his own situation, of her who was far away, yet now
+present in his heart, else he would have noticed more particularly the
+appearance of her whom he addressed. The reader would have seen at once
+that she received his declaration of love for another like a death
+blow, that she sat there and heard him go on as one would sit under
+torture; yet by the strong force of her character subduing almost
+entirely all outward emotions. There was no disguising it to a careful
+observer, she, the Countess Moranza, loved him!
+
+From the first meeting she had been struck by his noble figure, his
+melancholy yet handsome and intellectual face, and knowing the
+gallantry of his services to the queen, was struck by the modest
+bearing of a soldier so renowned in battle. After refusing half of the
+gallants of the court, and deeming herself impregnable to the shafts of
+Cupid, she had at last lost her heart to this man. But that was not the
+point that made her suffer so now, it was that he loved another; that
+he could never sustain the tender relation to her which her heart
+suggested. All these thoughts now passed through her mind.
+
+We say had General Bezan not been so intent in his thoughts far away,
+he might have discovered this secret, at least to some extent.
+
+He knew not the favor of woman’s love; he knew only of his too unhappy
+disappointment, and, on this his mind was sadly and earnestly engaged.
+
+Days passed on, and the young general saw little of the countess, for
+her unhappy condition of mind caused her to seclude herself almost
+entirely from society, even denying herself to him whom she loved so
+well. She struggled to forget her love, or rather to bring philosophy
+to her aid in conquering it. She succeeded in a large degree; but at
+the same time resolved to make it her business to reconcile Lorenzo
+Bezan to her he loved, if such a thing were possible; and thus to enjoy
+the consciousness of having performed at least one disinterested act
+for him whom she too had loved, as we have seen, most sincerely and
+most tenderly.
+
+Thus actuated, the countess resolved to make a confidant, or, at least,
+partially to do so, of the queen, and to interest her to return Lorenzo
+Bezan once more to the West Indian station, with honor and all the due
+credit. It scarcely needed her eloquence in pleading to consummate this
+object, for the queen already prepossessed in the young soldier’s
+favor, only desired to know how she might serve him best, in order to
+do so at once. In her shrewdness she could not but discover the state
+of the countess’s heart; but too delicate to allude to this matter, she
+made up her mind at once as to what should be done.
+
+She wondered not at the countess’s love for Lorenzo Bezan; she could
+sympathize with her; for had he been born in the station to have shared
+the throne with her, she would have looked herself upon him with a
+different eye; as it was, she had delighted to honor him from the first
+moment they had met.
+
+“Your wish shall be granted, countess,” said the queen; “he shall
+return to Cuba, and with honor and distinction.”
+
+“Thanks, a thousand thanks,” was the reply of the fair friend.
+
+“You have never told me before the particulars of his returning home.”
+
+“It was but lately that I learned them, by his own lips,” she answered.
+
+“His life is full of romance,” mused the queen, thoughtfully.
+
+“True, and his bravery, has he opportunity, will make him a hero.”
+
+“The lady’s name-did he tell you that?” asked the queen.
+
+“He did.”
+
+“And whom was it?”
+
+“Isabella Gonzales.”
+
+“Isabella Gonzales?”
+
+“Yes, my liege lady.”
+
+“A noble house; we remember the name.”
+
+“He said they were noble,” sighed the countess, thoughtfully.
+
+“Well, well,” continued the queen, “go you and recruit your spirits
+once more; as to Lorenzo Bezan, he is my protege, and I will at once
+attend to his interests.”
+
+Scarcely had the Countess Moranza left her presence, before the queen,
+summoning an attendant, despatched a message to General Bezan to come
+at once to the palace. The queen was a noble and beautiful woman, who
+had studied human nature in all its phases; she understood at once the
+situation of her young favorite’s heart, and by degrees she drew him
+out, as far as delicacy would permit, and then asked him if he still
+loved Isabella Gonzales as he had done when he was a poor lieutenant of
+infantry, in the tropical service.
+
+“Love her, my liege?” said the young general, in tones almost
+reproachful, to think any one could doubt it, “I have never for one
+moment, even amid the roar of battle and the groans of dying men,
+forgotten Isabella Gonzales!”
+
+“Love like thine should be its own reward; she was proud, too proud to
+return thy love; was it not so, general?”
+
+“My liege, you have spoken for me.”
+
+“But you were a poor lieutenant of infantry then.”
+
+“True.”
+
+“And that had its influence.”
+
+“I cannot but suppose so.”
+
+“Well,” said the queen, “we have a purpose for you.”
+
+“I am entirely at your majesty’s disposal,” replied the young soldier.
+
+“We will see what commission it best fits so faithful a servant of our
+crown to bear, and an appointment may be found that will carry thee
+back to this distant isle of the tropics, where you have left your
+heart.”
+
+“To Cuba, my liege?”
+
+“Ay.”
+
+“But my banishment from the island reads forever,” said the soldier.
+
+“We have power to make it read as best suits us,” was the reply.
+
+“You are really too good to me,” replied the soldier.
+
+“Now to your duty, general, and to-morrow we shall have further
+business with you.”
+
+Lorenzo Bezan bowed low, and turned his steps from the palace towards
+his own lodgings, near the barracks. It was exceedingly puzzling to
+him, first, that he could not understand what had led the queen to this
+subject; second, how she could so well discern the truth; and lastly,
+that such consideration was shown for him. He could not mistake the
+import of the queen’s words; it was perfectly plain to him what she had
+said, and what she had meant; and in a strange state of mind, bordering
+upon extreme of suspicion and strong hope, and yet almost as powerful
+fears, he mused over the singular condition in which he found himself
+and his affairs.
+
+It seemed to him that fortune was playing at shuttlecock with him, and
+that just for the present, at any rate, his star was in the ascendant.
+“How long shall I go on in my good fortune?” he asked himself; “how
+long will it be before I shall again meet with a fierce rebuff in some
+quarter? Had I planned my own future for the period of time since I
+landed at Cadiz, I could not have bettered it-indeed I could not have
+dared to be as extravagant as I find the reality. No wonder that I meet
+those envious glances at court. Who ever shared a larger portion of the
+honorable favor of the queen than I do? It is strange, all very
+strange. And this beautiful Countess Moranza-what a good angel she has
+been to me; indeed, what have I not enjoyed that I could wish, since I
+arrived in Spain? Yet how void of happiness and of peace of heart am I!
+Alas, as the humble lieutenant in the Plaza des Armes in Havana, as the
+lowly soldier whom Isabella Gonzales publicly noticed in the Paseo, as
+the fortunate deliverer of herself and father, and as resting my
+wounded body upon her own support, how infinitely happier was I. How
+bright was hope then in my breast, and brilliant the charms of the
+fairy future! Could I but recall those happy moments at a cost of all
+the renown my sword may have won me, how gladly would I do so this
+moment. This constant suspense is worse than downright defeat or
+certain misfortune. Is there no power can give us an insight into the
+hidden destiny of ourselves? is there no means by which we can see the
+future? Not long could I sustain this ordeal of suspense. Ah, Isabella,
+what have I not suffered for thy love? what is there I would not
+endure!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+THE SURPRISE.
+
+
+It had already been announced among the knowing ones at Havana that
+there was to be a new lieutenant governor general arrive ere long for
+the island, and those interested in these matters feel of course such
+an interest as an event of this character would naturally inspire.
+Those in authority surmised as to what sort of a person they were to be
+associated with, and the better classes of society in the island wished
+to know what degree of addition to their society the new comer would
+be-whether he was married or single, etc.
+
+Isabella Gonzales realized no such interest in the matter; the
+announcement that there was to be a new lieutenant-governor created no
+interest in her breast; she remained as she had done these nearly four
+years, secluded, with only Ruez as her companion, and only the Plato as
+the spot for promenade. She had not faded during the interim of time
+since the reader left her with Lorenzo Bezan’s letter in her hand; but
+a soft, tender, yet settled melancholy had possessed the beautiful
+lineaments and expressive lines of her features. She was not happy. She
+had no confidant, and no one knew her secret save herself; but an
+observant person would easily have detected the deep shadow that lay
+upon her soul.
+
+We say she had not faded-nor had she; there was the same soft and
+beautiful expression in her face, even more tender than before; for it
+had lost the tinge of alloy that pride was wont to impart to it; where
+pride had existed before, there now dwelt tender melancholy, speaking
+from the heart, and rendering the lovely girl far, far more interesting
+and beautiful. She had wept bitter, scalding tears over that last
+farewell between herself and Lorenzo Bezan in the prison; she blamed
+herself bitterly now that she had let him depart thus; but there was no
+reprieve, no recalling the consequences; he was gone, and forever!
+
+Communication with the home government was seldom and slowly
+consummated, and an arrival at that period from Old Spain was an event.
+Partly for this reason, and partly because there was no one to write to
+her, Isabella, nor indeed her father, had heard anything of Lorenzo
+Bezan since his departure. General Harero had learned of his promotion
+for gallant service; but having no object in communicating such
+intelligence, it had remained wholly undivulged, either to the Gonzales
+family or the city generally.
+
+It was twilight, and the soft light that tints the tropics in such a
+delicate hue at this hour was playing with the beauty of Isabella
+Gonzales’s face, now in profile, now in front, as she lounged on a
+couch near the window, which overlooked the sea and harbor. She held in
+her hand an open letter; she had been shedding tears; those, however,
+were now dried up, and a puzzled and astonished feeling seemed to be
+expressed in her beautiful countenance, as she gazed now and then at
+the letter, and then once more off upon the sparkling waters of the
+Gulf Stream.
+
+“Strange,” she murmured to herself, and again hastily read over the
+letter, and examined the seal which had enclosed it in a ribbon
+envelope and parchment. “How is it possible for the queen to know my
+secret? and yet here she reveals all; it is her own seal, and I think
+even her own hand, that has penned these lines. Let me read again:
+
+“SENORITA ISABELLA GONZALES: Deeply interested as we are for the
+welfare of all our loyal subjects, we have taken occasion to send you
+some words of information relative to yourself. Beyond a doubt you have
+loved and been beloved devotedly; but pride, ill asserted arrogance of
+soul, has rendered you miserable. We speak not knowingly, but from
+supposition grounded upon what we do know. He who loved you was
+humble-humble in station, but noble in personal qualities, such as a
+woman may well worship in man, bravery, manliness and stern and noble
+beauty of person. We say he loved you, and we doubt not you must have
+loved him; for how could it be otherwise? Pride caused you to repulse
+him. Now, senorita, know that he whom you thus repulsed was more than
+worthy of you; that, although he might have espoused one infinitely
+your superior in rank and wealth in Madrid, since his arrival here, he
+had no heart to give, and still remained true to you! Know that by his
+daring bravery, his manliness, his modest bearing, and above all, his
+clear-sighted and brilliant mental capacity he has challenged our own
+high admiration; but you, alas! must turn in scorn your proud lip upon
+him! Think not we have these facts from him, or that he has reflected
+in the least upon you; he is far too delicate for such conduct. No, it
+is an instinctive sense of the position of circumstances that has led
+to this letter and this plain language. (Signed) YOUR QUEEN.
+
+“The Senorita Isabella Gonzales.”
+
+One might have thought that this would have aroused the pride and anger
+of Isabella Gonzales, but it did not; it surprised her; and after the
+first sensation of this feeling was over, it struck her as so truthful,
+what the queen had said, that she wept bitterly.
+
+“Alas! she has most justly censured me, but points out no way for me to
+retrieve the bitter steps I have taken,” sobbed the unhappy girl,
+aloud. “Might have espoused one my superior in rank and fortune, at
+Madrid, but he had no heart to give! Fool that I am, I see it all; and
+the queen is indeed but too correct. But what use is all this
+information to me, save to render me the more miserable? Show a wretch
+the life he might have lived, and then condemn him to death; that is my
+position-that my hard, unhappy fate!
+
+“Alas! does he love me still? he whom I have so heartlessly treated-ay,
+whom I have crushed, as it were, for well knew how dearly he loved me!
+He has challenged even the admiration of the queen, and has been,
+perhaps, promoted; but still has been true to me, who in soul have been
+as true to him.”
+
+Thus murmured the proud girl to herself-thus frankly realized the
+truth.
+
+“Ah, my child,” said Don Gonzales, meeting his daughter, “put on thy
+best looks, for we are to have the new lieutenant-governor installed
+to-morrow, and all of us must be present. He’s a soldier of much
+renown, so report says.”
+
+“Doubtless, father; but I’m not very well to-day, and shall be hardly
+able to go to-morrow—at least I fear I shall not.”
+
+“Fie, fie, my daughter; thou, the prettiest bird in all the island, to
+absent thyself from the presence on such an occasion? It will never
+do.”
+
+“Here, Ruez, leave that hound alone, and come hither,” he continued, to
+the boy. “You, too, must be ready at an early hour to-morrow to go with
+Isabella and myself to the palace, where we shall be introduced to the
+new lieutenant-governor, just arrived from Madrid.”
+
+“I don’t want to go, father,” said the boy, still fondling the dog.
+
+“Why not, Ruez?”
+
+“Because Isabella does not,” was the childish reply.
+
+“Now if this be not rank mutiny, and I shall have to call in a
+corporal’s guard to arrest the belligerents,” said Don Gonzales, half
+playfully. “But go you must; and I have a secret, but I shall not tell
+it to you-no, not for the world-a surprise for you both; but that’s no
+matter now. Go you must, and go you will; so prepare you in good season
+to-morrow to attend me.”
+
+Both sister and brother saw that he was in earnest, and made
+arrangements accordingly.
+
+The occasion of instating the lieutenant-governor in his high and
+responsible station, was one of no little note in Havana, and was
+celebrated by all the pomp and military display that could possibly add
+importance to the event, and impress the citizens with the sacred
+character of the office. The day was therefore ushered in by the
+booming of cannon and the music of military bands, and the universal
+stir at the barracks told the observer that all grades were to be on
+duty that day, and in full numbers. The palace of the governor-general
+was decorated with flags and streamers, and even the fountain in the
+Plaza des Armes seemed to bubble forth with additional life and spirit
+on the occasion.
+
+It was an event in Havana; it was something to vary the monotony of
+this beautiful island-city, and the inhabitants seized upon it as a
+gala day. Business was suspended; the throng put on their holiday suit,
+the various regiments appeared in full regalia and uniform, for the new
+lieutenant-commander-in-chief was to review them in the after part of
+the day.
+
+The ceremony of installation was performed in the state hall of the
+palace, where all the military, wealth, beauty and fashion of the
+island assembled, and among these the venerable and much respected Don
+Gonzales, and his peerless daughter, Isabella, and his noble boy, Ruez.
+The reception hall was in a blaze of beauty and fashion, till patiently
+awaiting the introduction of the new and high official the queen had
+sent from Spain to sit as second to the brave Tacon.
+
+An hour of silence had passed, when at a signal the band struck up a
+national march, and then advanced into the reception room Tacon, and by
+his side a young soldier, on whose noble brow sat dignity and youth,
+interwoven in near embrace. His eyes rested on the floor, and he drew
+near to the seat of honor with modest mien, his spurred heel and
+martial bearing alone betokening that in time of need his sword was
+ready, and his time and life at the call of duty.
+
+Few, if any, had seen him before, and now among the ladies there ran a
+low murmur of admiration at the noble and manly beauty of the young
+soldier. The priest read the usual services, the customary hymn and
+chant were listened to, when the priest, delegated for this purpose,
+advanced and said:
+
+“We, by the holy power vested in us, do anoint thee, Lorenzo Bezan—”
+
+At these words, Isabella Gonzales, who had, during all the while, been
+an absent spectator, never once really turning her eyes toward the spot
+where the new officer stood, dropped her fan, and sprang to her feet.
+She gazed for one single moment, and then uttering one long and piteous
+scream, fell lifeless into her father’s arms. This cry startled every
+one, but perhaps less the cause of it than any one else. He he had
+schooled so critical a moment ceremony went on quietly and was duly
+installed.
+
+“Alas, alas, for me, what made thee ill?” said the, as he bent over her
+couch, after.
+
+But Isabella answered him not; she was in a half-dreamy, half-conscious
+state, and knew not what was said to her.
+
+Ruez stood on the other side of her couch, and kissed her white
+forehead, but said nothing. Yet he seemed to know more than his father
+as to what had made Isabella sick, and at last he proved this.
+
+“Why could you not tell Isabella and me, father, that our old friend
+Captain Bezan was to be there, and that it was he who was to be
+lieutenant-governor? Then sister would not have been so startled.”
+
+“Startled at what, Ruez?”
+
+“Why, at unexpectedly seeing Captain Bezan,” said the boy, honestly.
+
+“General Bezan, he is now. But why should she be startled so?”
+
+“O, she is not very well, you know, father,” said the boy, evasively.
+
+“True, she is not well, and I managed it as a surprise, and it was too
+much of one, I see.”
+
+And father and brother tended by the sick girl’s bedside as they would
+have done that of an infant. Poor Isabella, what a medley of
+contradictions is thy heart!
+
+The ceremonies of the day passed off as usual; the review took place in
+the after part of the day, and as General Bezan, now outranking General
+Harero, rode by his division, he raised his hat to his old comrades in
+arms, and bowed coldly to their commander. His rise and new position
+filled the army with wonder; but none envied him; they loved their old
+favorite too well to envy his good fortune to him; even his brother
+officers echoed the cheers for the new lieutenant-general.
+
+But when the noise, the pomp, and bustle of the day was over, and when
+alone in his apartment by himself, it was then that Lorenzo Bezan’s
+heart and feelings found sway. He knew full well who it was that
+uttered that scream, and better, too, the cause of it; he feared that
+he could neither sleep nor eat until he should see her and speak to her
+once more; but then again he feared to attempt this. True, his position
+gave him the entree to all classes now, and her father’s house would
+have been welcome to him; but he would far rather have seen her as the
+humble Captain Bezan, of yore, than with a host of stars upon his
+breast.
+
+Isabella revived at last, but she scarcely escaped a fever from the
+shock her system, mental and physical, had received. And how busy, too,
+wore her thoughts, how never tiring in picturing him with his new
+honors, and in surprise how he could have won such distinction and
+honor at the queen’s hands, She read again and again the queen’s
+letter. He had no heart to give. That she looked upon-those few
+words-until her eyes became blind at the effort. And still she read on,
+and thought of him whom she knew had loved her so dearly, so tenderly,
+and yet without hope.
+
+Isabella Gonzales’s pride had received a severe shock. Will she still
+bow low to the impulsive and arbitrary promptings of her proud spirit,
+or will she rise above them, and conquer and win a harvest of peace and
+happiness?
+
+The story must disclose the answer; it is not for us to say here.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+THE SERENAPE.
+
+
+General Harero, as we have already intimated, had not, for a
+considerable period, enjoyed any degree of intimacy with Isabella
+Gonzales or her father, but actuated by a singular pertinacity of
+character, he seemed not yet to have entirely given up his hopes in
+relation to an alliance with her. The arrival of Lorenzo Bezan again
+upon the island, he felt, would, in any instance, endanger, if not
+totally defeat any lingering plans he might still conceive in his mind
+to bring into operation for the furtherance of his hopes; but when his
+arrival had actually occurred, and under such brilliant auspices for
+the young soldier, General Harero was enraged beyond control. He sought
+his quarters, after the review, in a desperate mood, and walked the
+narrow precincts of his room with bitter thoughts rankling in his
+bosom, and a burning desire for revenge goading him to action.
+
+A thousand ways, all of which were more or less mingled with violence,
+suggested themselves to his mind as proper to adopt. Now he would
+gladly have fought his rival, have gone into the field and risked his
+own life for the sake of taking his; but this must be done too
+publicly, and he felt that the public feeling was with the new
+official; besides that, General Bezan could now arrest him, as he had
+done the young officer when he challenged his superior, as the reader
+will remember. Dark thoughts ran through his brain-some bearing
+directly upon Isabella Gonzales, some upon Lorenzo Bezan; even
+assassination suggested itself; and his hands clenched, and his cheeks
+burned, as the revengeful spirit possessed him and worked in his veins.
+While Lorenzo Bezan was absent he was content to bide his time,
+reasoning that eventually Isabella Gonzales would marry him, after a
+few more years of youthful pride and vanity had passed; but now he was
+spurred on to fresh efforts by the new phase that matters had taken,
+and but one course he felt was left for him to pursue, which one word
+might express, and that was action!
+
+Having no definite idea as to what Lorenzo Bezan would do, under the
+new aspect of affairs, General Harero could not devise in what way to
+meet him. That Isabella had been prevented from absolutely loving him
+only by her pride, when he was before upon the island, he knew full
+well, and he realized as fully that all those obstacles that pride had
+engendered were now removed by the rank and position of his rival. He
+wondered in his own mind whether it was possible that Lorenzo Bezan
+might not have forgotten her, or found some more attractive shrine
+whereat to worship. As he realized Isabella’s unmatched loveliness, he
+felt that, however, could hardly be; and thus unsettled as to the state
+of affairs between the two, he was puzzled as to what course to pursue.
+
+In the meantime, while General Harero was thus engaged with himself,
+Lorenzo Bezan was thinking upon the same subject. It was nearly
+midnight; but still he walked back and forth in his room with
+thoughtful brow. There was none of the nervous irritation in his manner
+that was evinced by his rival; but there was deep and anxious
+solicitude written in every line of his handsome features. He was
+thinking of Isabella. Was thinking of her, did we say? He had never
+forgotten her for one hour since the last farewell meeting in the
+prison walls. He knew not how she felt towards him now-whether a new
+pride might not take the place of that which had before actuated her,
+and a fear lest she should, by acknowledging, as it were, the former
+error, be led still to observe towards him the same austere manner and
+distance.
+
+“Have I won renown, promotion, and extended fame to no purpose, at
+last?” he asked himself; “what care I for these unless shared in by
+her; unless her beautiful eyes approve, and her sweet lips acknowledge?
+Alas, how poor a thing am I, whom my fellow-mortals count so fortunate
+and happy!”
+
+Thus he mused to himself, until at last stepping to the open balcony
+window, he looked out upon the soft and delicious light of it tropical
+moon. All was still-all was beautiful; the steady pace of the sentinel
+on duty at the entrance of the palace, alone, sounding upon the ear.
+Suddenly a thought seemed to suggest itself to his mind. Seizing his
+guitar, from a corner of his room, he threw a thin military cloak about
+his form, and putting on a foraging cap, passed the sentinel, and
+strolled towards the Plato! How well he remembered the associations of
+the place, as he paused now for a moment in the shadow of the broad
+walls of the barracks. He stood there but for a moment, then drawing
+nearer to the house of Don Gonzales, he touched the strings of his
+guitar with a master hand, and sung with a clear, musical voice one of
+those exquisite little serenades with which the Spanish language
+abounds.
+
+The song did not awake Isabella, though just beneath her window. She
+heard it, nevertheless, and in the half-waking, half-dreaming state in
+which she was, perhaps enjoyed it even with keener sense than she would
+have done if quite aroused. She dreamed of love, and of Lorenzo Bezan;
+she thought all was forgotten-all forgiven, and that he was her
+accepted lover. But this was in her sleep-awake, she would not have
+felt prepared to say yet, even to herself, whether she really loved
+him, or would listen to his address; awake, there was still a lingering
+pride in her bosom, too strong for easy removal. But sweet was the pure
+and beautiful girl’s sleep-sweet was the smile that played about her
+delicate mouth-and lovely beyond the painter’s power, the whole
+expression of soft delight that dwelt in her incomparably handsome
+features.
+
+The song ceased, but the sleeper dreamed on in delightful quietude.
+
+Not so without; there was a scene enacting there that would chill the
+heart of woman, and call into action all the sterner powers of the
+other sex.
+
+Some strange chance had drawn General Harero from his quarters, also,
+at this hour, and the sound of the guitar had attracted him to the
+Plato just as Lorenzo Bezan had completed his song. Hearing approaching
+footsteps, and not caring to be discovered, the serenader slung his
+guitar by its silken cord behind his back, and wrapping his cloak about
+him, prepared to leave the spot; but hardly had he reached the top of
+the broad stairs that lead towards the Calle de Mercaderes (street of
+the merchants), when he stood face to face with his bitter enemy,
+General Harero!
+
+“General Harero!”
+
+“Lorenzo Bezan!”
+
+Said each, calling the other’s name, in the first moment of surprise.
+
+“So you still propose to continue your persecutions towards this lady?”
+said General Harero, sarcastically.
+
+“Persecutions?”
+
+“That was my word; what other term can express unwelcome visits?”
+
+“It were better, General Harero, that you should remember the change
+which has taken place in our relative positions, of late, and not
+provoke me too far.”
+
+“I spit upon and defy your authority.”
+
+“Then, sir, it shall be exercised on the morrow for your especial
+benefit.”
+
+“Not by you, though,” said the enraged rival, drawing his sword
+suddenly, and thrusting its point towards the heart of Lorenzo Bezan.
+
+But the young soldier had been too often engaged in hand to hand
+conflicts to lose his presence of mind, and with his uplifted arm
+shrouded in his cloak, he parried the blow, with only a slight flesh
+wound upon his left wrist. But General Harero had drawn blood, and that
+was enough; the next moment their swords were crossed, and a few passes
+were only necessary to enable Lorenzo Bezan to revenge himself by a
+severe wound in his rival’s left breast. Maddened by the pain of his
+wound, and reckless by his anger, General Harero pressed hard upon the
+young officer; but his coolness was more than a match for his
+antagonist’s impetuosity; and after inflicting a severe blow upon his
+cheek with the flat of his sword, Lorenzo Bezan easily disarmed him,
+and breaking his sword in twain, threw it upon the steps of the Plato,
+and quietly walked away leaving General Harero to settle matters
+between his own rage, his wounds and the surgeon, as best he might,
+while he sought his own quarters within the palace walls.
+
+General Harero was more seriously wounded than he had at first deemed
+himself to be, and gathering up the fragments of his sword, he sought
+the assistance of his surgeon, in a state of anger and excitement that
+bid fair, in connection with his wounds, to lead him into a raging
+fever. Inventing some plausible story of being attacked by some unknown
+ruffian, and desiring the surgeon to observe his wishes as to secrecy,
+for certain reasons, the wounded man submitted to have his wounds
+dressed, and taking some cooling medicine by way of precaution, lay
+himself down to sleep just as the gray of morning tinged the western
+horizon.
+
+That morning Isabella Gonzales awoke with pleasant memories of her
+dream, little knowing that the sweet music she had attributed to the
+creations of her own fancy, was real, and that voice and instrument
+actually sounded beneath her own chamber window.
+
+“Ah, sister,” said Ruez, “how well you are looking this morning.”
+
+“Am I, brother?”
+
+“Yes, better than I have seen you this many a long day.”
+
+“I rested well last night, and had pleasant dreams, Ruez.”
+
+“Last night,” said the boy, “that reminds me of some music I heard.”
+
+“Music?”
+
+“Yes, a serenade; a manly voice and guitar, I should judge.”
+
+“It is strange; I dreamed that I heard it, too, but on waking I thought
+it was but a dream. It might have been real,” mused Isabella,
+thoughtfully.
+
+“I am sure of it, and though I, too, was but half awake, I thought that
+I recognized the voice, and cannot say why I did not rise to see if my
+surmise was correct, but I dropped quickly to sleep again.”
+
+“And who did, you think it was, brother?” asked Isabella Gonzales.
+
+“General Bezan, our new lieutenant-governor,” said the boy, regarding
+his sister closely.
+
+“It must have been so, then,” mused Isabella, to herself; “we could not
+both have been thus mistaken. Lorenzo Bezan must have been on the Plato
+last night; would that I could have seen him, if but for one moment.”
+
+“I should like to speak to General Bezan,” said Ruez; “but he’s so high
+an officer now that I suppose he would not feel so much interest in me
+as he did when I used to visit him in the government prison.”
+
+Isabella made no reply to this remark, but still mused to herself.
+
+Ruez gazed thoughtfully upon his sister; there seemed to be much going
+on in his own mind relative to the subject of which they had spoken. At
+one moment you might read a tinge of anxious solicitude in the boy’s
+handsome face, as he gazed thus, and anon a look of pride, too, at the
+surpassing beauty and dignity of his sister.
+
+She was very beautiful. Her morning costume was light and graceful, and
+her whole toilet showed just enough of neglige to add interest to the
+simplicity of her personal attire. Her dark, jetty hair contrasted
+strongly with the pure white of her dress, and there was not an
+ornament upon her person, save those that nature had lavished there in
+prodigal abundance. She had never looked more lovely than at that hour;
+the years that had passed since the reader met her in familiar
+conversation with our hero, had only served still more to perfect and
+ripen her personal charms. Though there had stolen over her features a
+subdued air of thoughtfulness, a gentle tinge of melancholy, yet it
+became her far better than the one of constant levity and jest that had
+almost universally possessed her heretofore.
+
+Her eyes now rested upon the floor, and the long silken lashes seemed
+almost artificial in their effect upon the soft olive complexion
+beneath their shadow. No wonder Ruez loved his sister so dearly; no
+wonder he felt proud of her while he gazed at her there; nor was it
+strange that he strove to read her heart as he did, though he kept his
+own counsel upon the subject.
+
+He was a most observant boy, as we have seen before in these pages, but
+not one to manifest all of his observations or thoughts. He seemed to,
+and doubtless did, actually understand Isabella’s heart better than she
+did herself, and a close observer would have noted well the various
+emotions that his expressive countenance exhibited, while he gazed thus
+intently at his dearly loved sister. Ruez was a strange boy; he had few
+friends; but those few he loved with all his heart. His father, sister,
+and Lorenzo Bezan, shared his entire affection. His inclinations led
+him to associate but little with those of his own age; he was
+thoughtful, and even at that age, a day dreamer. He loved to be alone;
+oftentimes for hours he was thus-at times gazing off upon the sea, and
+at others, gazing upon vacancy, while his thoughts would seem to have
+run away with him, mentally and physically. These peculiarities
+probably arose from his uncommonly sensitive disposition, and formed a
+sort of chrysalis state, from which he was yet to emerge into
+manliness.
+
+Kissing her cheek, and rousing her from the waking dream that possessed
+her now, Ruez turned away and left her to herself and the thoughts his
+words had aroused. We, too, will leave Isabella Gonzales, for a brief
+period, while we turn to another point of our story, whither the
+patient reader will please to follow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+A DISCOVERY.
+
+
+“She never loved me,” said Lorenzo Bezan, in the privacy of his own
+room, on the morning subsequent to that of the serenade. “It was only
+my own insufferable egotism and self-conceit that gave me such
+confidence. Now I review the past, what single token or evidence has
+she given to me of particular regard? what has she done that any lady
+might not do for a gentleman friend? I can recall nothing. True, she
+has smiled kindly-O how dearly I have cherished these smiles! But what
+are they? Coquettes smile on every one! Alas, how miserable am I, after
+all the glory and fame I have won!”
+
+Lorenzo Bezan was truly affected, as his words have shown him to be. He
+doubted whether Isabella Gonzales had ever loved him; her scream and
+fainting might have been caused by surprise, or even the heat. He had
+been too ready to attribute it to that which his own heart had first
+suggested. O, if he only dared to address her now-to see her, and once
+more to tell how dearly and ardently he loved her still-how he had
+cherished her by the camp fires, in the battle- field, and the
+deprivations of war and the sufferings of a soldier’s wounds. If he
+could, if he dared to tell her this, he would be happier. But, how did
+he know that a proud repulse did not await him! Ah, that was the fear
+that controlled him; he could not bear to part again from her as he had
+last done.
+
+While he was thus engaged in reverie alone, a servant, whom he had
+despatched on an errand, returned to say that General Harero was very
+ill and confined to his bed; that some wounds he had accidentally
+received in quelling some street affray had brought on a burning and
+dangerous fever. On the receipt of this information Lorenzo Bezan wrote
+a hasty note and despatched the servant once more for a surgeon to come
+to his quarters; a demand that was answered by the person sent for in a
+very few minutes. It was the same surgeon who a few years before had so
+successfully attended Bezan. The recognition between them was cordial
+and honest, while the new lieutenant-general told him of General
+Harero’s severe illness, and expressed a wish for him to immediately
+attend the sick man.
+
+“But, General Bezan,” said the surgeon, “you have little cause for love
+to General Harero.”
+
+“That is true; but still I desire his recovery; and if you compass it
+by good nursing and the power of your art, remember fifty doubloons is
+your fee.”
+
+“My professional pride would lead me to do my best,” replied the
+surgeon, “though neither I nor any other man in the service loves
+General Harero any too much.”
+
+“I have reasons for my interest that it is not necessary to explain,”
+said General Bezan, “and shall trust that you will do your best for
+him, as you did for me.”
+
+“By the way, general, I have been half a mind, more than once, ever
+since your return to the island, to tell you of a little affair
+concerning your sickness at that time, but I feared you might deem it
+in some measure impertinent.”
+
+“By no means. Speak truly and openly to me. I owe you too much to
+attribute any improper motives to you in any instance. What do you
+refer to?”
+
+“Well, general, I suppose on that occasion I discovered a secret which
+I have never revealed to any one, and upon which subject my lips have
+been ever sealed.”
+
+“What was it?”
+
+“Your love for Isabella Gonzales.”
+
+“And how, pray, came you to surmise that?” asked Lorenzo Bezan, in
+surprise.
+
+“First by your half incoherent talk in moments of delirium, and
+afterwards by finding her portrait, painted probably by yourself, among
+your effects.”
+
+“True. I have it still,” said Lorenzo Bezan, musingly.
+
+“But more than that I discovered from the lady herself?” said the
+surgeon.
+
+“From the lady? What do you mean?” asked General Bezan, most earnestly.
+
+“Why she visited you during your illness, and though she came in
+disguise, I discovered her.”
+
+“In disguise?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“How did you discover her? I pray you tell me all, if you are my
+friend.”
+
+“By a tear!”
+
+“A tear!”
+
+“Yes, because I knew no servant or lady’s maid sent to execute her
+mistress’s bidding would have been so affected, and that led me to
+watch for further discovery.”
+
+“Did she weep?”
+
+“One tear fell from her eyes upon your hands as she bent over you, and
+it told me a story that I have since sometimes thought you should
+know.”
+
+“A tear!” mused General Bezan, to himself, rising and walking up and
+down his room in haste; “that must have come from the heart. Smiles are
+evanescent; kind words, even, cost nothing; but tears, they are honest,
+and come unbidden by aught save the heart itself. Tears, did you say?”
+he continued, pausing before the surgeon.
+
+“As I have said, general.”
+
+“And she bathed my forehead, you say?”
+
+“She did, and further, left with me a purse to be devoted to supplying
+your wants.”
+
+“This you never told me of before.”
+
+“I have had no opportunity, and to speak honestly, it was very well
+timed and needed.”
+
+“Money!” mused Lorenzo Bezan. “Money, that is full of dross; but a
+tear,—I would to Heaven I had earlier known of that.”
+
+“I hope I have caused you no uneasiness, general.”
+
+“Enough. Go on your mission to General Harero; save him, if you can;
+you have already saved me! Nay, do not stare, but go, and see me again
+at your leisure.”
+
+The surgeon bowed respectfully, and hastened away as he was directed.
+
+That tear had removed mountains from Lorenzo Bezan’s heart; he hardly
+knew what further to do under the circumstances. The earliest impulse
+of his heart was to seek Isabella, and throwing himself at her feet,
+beg her to forgive him for having for one moment doubted the affection
+and gentleness of her woman heart. This was the turning point with him
+if she had a heart, tender and susceptible, and not coroded by
+coquetry; he had no fear but that he could win it; his love was too
+true, too devoted, too much a part of his soul and existence to admit
+of doubt. Joy once more reigned in his heart. He was almost childish in
+his impatience to see her; he could hardly wait even for an hour.
+
+At last, seating himself at a table, he seized upon pen and paper and
+wrote as follows:
+
+“ISABELLA GONZALES: I know not how to address you, in what tone to
+write, or even as to the propriety of writing to you at all; but the
+suspense I now suffer is my excuse. I need not reiterate to you how
+dearly I love you; you know this, dear one, as fully as any assertion
+of my own could possibly express it. It is trite that my love for you
+has partaken in no small degree of a character of presumption, daring,
+as an humble lieutenant of infantry, to lift my eyes to one as peerless
+and beautiful as yourself, and of a class of society so far above what
+my own humble position would authorize me to mingle with. But the past
+is past, and now my rank and fortune both entitle me to the entree, to
+your father’s house. I mention not these because I would have them
+weigh in my favor with you. Far from it. I had rather you would
+remember me, and love me as I was when we first met.
+
+“Need I say how true I have been to the love I have cherished for you?
+How by my side in battle, in my dreams by the camp fire, and filling my
+waking thoughts, you have ever been with me in spirit? Say, Isabella
+Gonzales, is this homage, so sincere, thus tried and true, unwelcome to
+you? or do you, in return, love the devoted soldier, who has so long
+cherished you in his heart as a fit shrine to worship at? I shall see
+you, may I not, and you will not repulse me, nor speak to me with
+coldness. O, say when I may come to you, when look once more into those
+radiant eyes, when tell you with my lips how dearly, how ardently I
+love you-have ever loved you, and must still love you to the last? I
+know you will forgive the impetuosity, and, perhaps, incoherent
+character of this note. LORENZO BEZAN.”
+
+We have only to look into the chamber of Isabella Gonzales, a few hours
+subsequent to the writing of this letter, to learn its effect upon her.
+
+She was alone; the letter she had read over and over again, and now sat
+with it pressed to her bosom by both hands, as though she might thus
+succeed in suppressing the convulsive sobs that shook her whole frame.
+Tears, the luxury of both joy and sorrow, where the heart is too full
+of either, tears streamed down her fair cheeks; tears of joy and sorrow
+both; joy that he was indeed still true to her, and sorrow that such
+hours, days, nay, years of unhappiness, had been thus needlessly
+passed, while they were separated from each other, though joined in
+soul. O, how bitterly she recalled her pride, and remembered the
+control it had held over her, how blamed herself at the recollection of
+that last farewell in the prison with the noble but dejected spirit
+that in spite of herself even then she loved!
+
+She kissed the letter again and again; she wept like a child!
+
+“The queen was right-he had no heart to give. A countess? She might
+have brought him higher title, a prouder name, richer coffers; but he
+is not one to weigh my love against gold, or lineage, or proud estates,
+or even royal favor; such, such is the man to whom I owe my very life,
+my father’s life, Ruez’s life, nay, what do I not owe to him? since all
+happiness and peace hang upon these; and yet I repulsed, nay, scorned
+him, when he knelt a suppliant at my feet. O, how could a lifetime of
+devoted love and gentleness repay him all, and make me even able to
+forgive myself for the untrue, unnatural part I have played?”
+
+She covered her face with her hands, as if to efface the memory of the
+conduct which she had just recalled so earnestly, and then rising,
+walked back and forth in her apartment with all the impetuosity of her
+Creole blood evinced in the deepened color of her cheek, and the
+brightness of her beauteous eyes. Then once more seating herself, she
+sat and trotted her foot impatiently upon the floor.
+
+“O, why, why cannot I recall the past; alas, I see my error too late.
+Pride, pride, how bitterly and surely dost thou bring thine own
+reward!”
+
+She strove to answer the letter that now lay open before her upon the
+table, but could scarcely hold the pen, so deep and long drawn were the
+sighs that struggled in her bosom. Sheet after sheet was commenced and
+destroyed. Tears drowned out the efforts of her pen, and she knew not
+what to do. She bit her fair lips in vexation; what should she write?
+Once more she read his note, and full of the feelings it induced, tried
+to answer it. But in vain; her sheet was bathed in tears before she had
+written one line.
+
+“It is but the truth,” she said, to herself, “and I do not care if he
+knows it.”
+
+As she thus spoke, she once more seized the pen and wrote:
+
+“In vain have I essayed to write to you. Let these tears be your
+answer! ISABELLA GONZALES.”
+
+If the beautiful girl had studied for months to have answered the
+letter of him who loved her so well, it would have been impossible for
+her to have penned a more touching, more truthful, or more eloquent
+reply than this. Striking a tiny silver bell by her side, a slave
+approached, and was despatched with this note at once to the palace of
+the governor-general.
+
+“Why, sister!” said Ruez, entering the room and speaking at the same
+time, “you look as if you had been weeping. Pray, are you ill?”
+
+“Nay, brother, I am not ill. It was but a slight affair; it is all over
+now. Where’s Carlo, Ruez?”
+
+The attempt to turn the course of conversation to the dog, was not
+unobserved by the intelligent boy. He saw at once that there was some
+matter in his sister’s heart that was better to remain her own
+property, and so, with a kiss, he said no more, but sat down at the
+window and looked off upon the brilliant afternoon effect of the sun
+and the light land breeze upon the water. Neither spoke for many
+minutes, until at last Ruez, still looking off upon the waters of the
+outer harbor, or Gulf Stream, said:
+
+“I wonder where General Bezan keeps himself when off duty?”
+
+“Why, brother?”
+
+“Because I have called there twice, and have not seen him yet.”
+
+“Twice!”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“You know it is but a very few days since he arrived here, brother
+Ruez, and he must be very busy.”
+
+“Probably,” answered Ruez, stealing a glance towards his sister.
+
+“His present duty must engage a large portion of his time, I suppose.”
+
+“O, yes,” said the boy, laughing, “just about one quarter as much of
+his time as was demanded of him when he was a lieutenant in General
+Harero’s division.”
+
+“By-the-by, Ruez, they say the general is very ill of some chance
+wounds.”
+
+“The general deserves all he got, beyond a doubt, and there is little
+fear but that he will recover fast enough. He’s not one of the sort
+that die easily. Fortune spares such as he is to try people’s temper,
+and annoy humanity.”
+
+“But is he decidedly better?” asked Isabella, with some interest.
+
+“Yes, the surgeon reports him out of danger. Yesterday he was in a
+fever from his wounds. I can’t conceive how he got them, and no one
+seems to know much about it.”
+
+“There’s Carlo and father, on the Plato; good-by, sister I’m going to
+join them.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+THE ASSASSIN.
+
+
+The apartment where General Harero was confined to his bed by the
+severe wounds he had received, presented much such an aspect as Lorenzo
+Bezan’s had done, when in the early part of this story the reader
+beheld him in the critical state that the wounds he received from the
+Montaros on the road had placed him. It was dark and gloomy then. The
+same surgeon who had been so faithful a nurse to our hero, was now with
+the wounded officer. Notwithstanding the excitement of his patient’s
+mind, he had succeeded in quieting him down by proper remedies, so as
+to admit of treating him properly for his wounds, and to relieve his
+brain, at least in part, from the excitement of feeling that a spirit
+of revenge had created there.
+
+A knock was heard at the door just at the moment when we would have the
+reader look with us into the apartment, and the surgeon admitted a
+tall, dark person, partly enveloped in a cloak. It was evening; the
+barracks were still, and the gloom of the sick room was, if possible,
+rendered greater by the darkness that was seen from the uncurtained
+window. At a sign from his patient the surgeon left him alone with the
+new comer, who threw himself upon a camp-stool, and folding his arms,
+awaited the general’s pleasure. In the meantime, if the reader will
+look closely upon the hard lineaments of his face, the heavy eyebrow,
+the profusion of beard, and the cold-blooded and heartless expression
+of features, he will recognize the game man whom he has once before met
+with General Harero, and who gave him the keys by which he succeeded in
+making a secret entrance to Lorenzo Bezan’s cell in the prison before
+the time appointed for his execution. It was the jailor of the military
+prison.
+
+“Lieutenant,” said the general, “I have sent for you to perform a
+somewhat delicate job for me.”
+
+“What is it, general?”
+
+“I will tell you presently; be not in such haste,” said the sick man.
+
+“I am at your service.”
+
+“Have I not always paid you well when employed by me, lieutenant?”
+
+“Nobly, general, only too liberally.”
+
+“Would you like to serve me again in a still more profitable job?”
+
+“Nothing could be more agreeable.”
+
+“But it is a matter that requires courage, skill, care and secrecy. It
+is no boy’s play.”
+
+“All the better for that, general.”
+
+“Perhaps you will not say so when I have explained it to you more
+fully.”
+
+“You have tried me before now!” answered the jailor, emphatically.
+
+“True, and I will therefore trust you at once. There is a life to be
+taken!”
+
+“What! another?” said the man, with surprise depicted on his face.
+
+“Yes, and one who may cost you some trouble to manage-a quick man and a
+swordsman.”
+
+“Who is it?”
+
+“Lorenzo Bezan!”
+
+“The new lieutenant-general?”
+
+“The same.”
+
+“Why, now I think of it, that is the very officer whom you visited long
+ago by the secret passage in the prison.”
+
+“Very true.”
+
+“And now you would kill him?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And for what?”
+
+“That matters not. You will be paid for your business, and must ask no
+questions.”
+
+“O, very well; business is business.”
+
+“You see this purse?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“It contains fifty doubloons. Kill him before the set of to-morrow’s
+sun, and it is yours.”
+
+“Fifty doubloons?”
+
+“Is it not enough?”
+
+“The risk is large; if he were but a private citizen, now-but the
+lieutenant-governor!”
+
+“I will make it seventy-five.”
+
+“Say one hundred, and it is a bargain,” urged the jailor, coolly.
+
+“On your own terms, then,” was the general’s reply, as he groaned with
+pain.
+
+“It is dangerous business, but it shall be done,” said the other,
+drawing a dagger from his bosom and feeling its point carefully. “But I
+must have another day, as to-night it may be too late before I can
+arrange to meet him, and that will allow but one more night to pass. I
+can do nothing in the daytime.”
+
+“Very well.”
+
+“Where shall I be most likely to meet him, think you?”
+
+“Possibly after twilight, on the Plato, near the house of Don
+Gonzales.”
+
+“I will be on the watch for him, and my trusty steel shall not fail
+me.”
+
+Thus saying, and after a few other words of little importance, the
+jailor departed.
+
+Maddened by the short confinement and suffering he had experienced,
+General Harero resolved to rid himself at once of the stumbling block
+in his path that General Bezan proved himself to be. A reckless
+character, almost born, and ever bred a soldier, he stopped at no
+measures to bring about any desired end. Nor was Lorenzo Bezan’s life
+the first one he had attempted, through the agency of others; the foul
+stains of murder already rested upon his soul. It was some temporary
+relief, apparently, to his feelings now, to think that he had taken the
+primary steps to be revenged upon one whom he so bitterly hated. He
+could think of nothing else, now, as he lay there, suffering from those
+wounds, and at times the expression of his face became almost demoniac,
+as he ground his teeth and bit his lips, in the intense excitement of
+his passions, the struggle of his feelings being so bitter and
+revengeful.
+
+But we must leave the sick man with himself for a while, and go
+elsewhere.
+
+Lorenzo Bezan had been pressed with the business incident to his new
+position, and this, too, so urgently, that he had not yet answered the
+note he had received from her he had loved so dearly. He had placed it
+next his heart, however, and would seize upon the first moment to
+answer it, not by the pen, but in person. It was for this purpose,
+that, on the same evening we have referred to, he had taken his guitar,
+and was strolling at a late hour towards the Plato. It was the first
+moment that he could leave the palace without serious trouble, and
+thinking Isabella might have retired for the night, he resolved at
+least to serenade her once more, as he had so lately done.
+
+It would be impossible to justly describe the feelings that actuated
+the spirit of the lieutenant-governor. His soul was once more buoyant
+with hope; he loved deeply, ay, more dearly than ever before, and he
+believed that he was now indeed loved in return. How light was his
+heart, how brilliant the expression of his face, as he turned his steps
+towards the spot where his heart had so often returned when the expanse
+of ocean rolled between him and the spot so dear to him from
+association. He hurried forward to the steps that ascended from near
+the end of the Calle de Mercaderes, on to the Plato, but before he had
+reached it, there came bounding towards him a large dog, which he
+instantly recognized to be the hound that had so materially aided him
+in saving the life of Ruez Gonzales, long before.
+
+At the same moment a hand was laid roughly upon his shoulder, but was
+instantly removed and on turning to see what was the meaning of this
+rude salutation, the young general discovered a large, dark figure
+struggling with the hound, who, upon his calling to him, seemed to
+relinquish the hold he had of the man’s throat, and sprang to his side,
+while the person whom the dog had thus attacked, disappeared suddenly
+round an angle of the Cathedral, and left Lorenzo Bezan vastly puzzled
+to understand the meaning of all this. The man must evidently have
+raised his arm to strike him, else the dog would not have thus
+interposed, and then, had the stranger been an honest man, he would
+have paused to explain, instead of disappearing thus.
+
+“I must be on my guard; there are assassins hereabouts,” he said to
+himself, and after a moment’s fondling of the hound, who had instantly
+recognized him, he once more drew nearer to the Plato, when suddenly
+the palace bell sounded the alarm of fire. His duty called him
+instantly to return, which he was forced to do.
+
+It was past midnight before the fire was quenched, and Lorenzo Bezan
+dismissed the guard and extra watch that had been ordered out at the
+first alarm, and himself, greatly fatigued by his exertions and care in
+subduing the fire, which in Havana is done under the direction and
+assistance of the military, always, he threw himself on his couch, and
+fell fast asleep.
+
+Early the subsequent morning, he despatched a line to Isabella
+Gonzales, saying that on the evening of that day he would answer in
+person her dear communication; and that though pressing duty had kept
+him from her side, she was never for one moment absent from his heart.
+He begged that Ruez might come to him in the meantime, and he did so at
+once. The meeting between them was such as the reader might anticipate.
+The officer told the boy many of his adventures, asked a thousand
+questions of his home, about his kind old father, Isabella, the hound,
+and all. While Ruez could find no words to express the delight he felt
+that the same friend existed in General Bezan, that he had loved and
+cherished as the captain of infantry.
+
+“How strange the fortune that has brought you back again, and so high,
+too, in office. I’m sure we are all delighted. Father says you richly
+deserve all the honor you enjoy, and he does not very often compliment
+any one,” said the boy.
+
+The twilight had scarcely faded into the deeper shades of night, on the
+following evening, when Lorenzo Bezan once more hastened towards the
+Plato, to greet her whom he loved so tenderly and so truly-she who had
+been the star of his destiny for years, who had been his sole incentive
+to duty, his sole prompter in the desire for fame and fortune.
+
+In the meantime there was a scene enacting on the Plato that should be
+known to the reader. Near the door of the house of Don Gonzales, stood
+Isabella and Ruez, and before them a young person, whose dress and
+appearance betokened the occupation of a page, though his garments were
+soiled and somewhat torn in places. Isabella was addressing the youth
+kindly, and urged him to come in and rest himself, for he showed
+evident tokens of fatigue.
+
+“Will you not come in and refresh yourself? you look weary and ill.”
+
+“Nay, lady, not now. You say this is the house of Don Gonzales?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And are you the daughter of that house?” continued the page.
+
+“I am.”
+
+“I might have known that without asking,” said the page, apparently to
+himself.
+
+“Indeed, do you know us, then?” asked Isabella, with some curiosity.
+
+“By reputation, only,” was the reply. “The fine of beauty travels far,
+lady.”
+
+“You would flatter me, sir page.”
+
+“By our lady, no!”
+
+“Where last thou heard of me, then?”
+
+“Far distant from here, lady.”
+
+“You speak and look like one who has travelled a long way,” said
+Isabella.
+
+“I have.”
+
+“Do you live far from here, then?” asked Ruez, much interested in the
+stranger.
+
+“Yes,” was the reply. “Lady, I may call on you again,” continued the
+page, “but for the present, adieu.”
+
+Turning suddenly away, the stranger walked leisurely towards the head
+of the broad stairs that led from the Plato to the street below, and
+descended them.
+
+At the same moment, Lorenzo Bezan, on his way to Isabella Gonzales, had
+just reached the foot of the stairs, when hearing quick steps behind
+him, he turned his head just in time to see the form of the page thrown
+quickly between the uplifted arm of the same dark figure which he had
+before met here, and himself-and the point of a gleaming dagger, that
+must else have entered his own body, found a sheath in that of the
+young stranger, who had thus probably saved his life. More on the alert
+than he had been before for danger, Lorenzo Bezan’s sword was in his
+hand in an instant, and its keen blade pierced to the very heart of the
+assassin, who fell to rise no more.
+
+Such, alas, seemed to be the fate of the page who had so gallantly
+risked, and probably lost, his own life, to protect that of the
+lieutenant-governor.
+
+“Alas, poor youth,” said Lorenzo Bezan, “why didst thou peril thy life
+to save me from that wound? Canst thou speak, and tell me who thou art,
+and what I shall do for thee?”
+
+“Yes, in a few moments; bear me to Don Gonzales’s house, quickly, for I
+bleed very fast!”
+
+Lorenzo Bezan’s first thought, on observing the state of the case, was
+to obtain surgical aid at once, and preferring to do this himself to
+trusting to the strange rabble about him, he turned his steps towards
+the main barracks, where he expected to find his friendly surgeon whom
+he had despatched to serve General Harero. He found his trusty
+professional man, and hastily despatched him to the house of Don
+Gonzales, bidding him exercise his best skill for one who had just
+received a wound intended for his own body.
+
+We, too, will follow the surgeon to the bedside of the wounded page,
+where a surprise awaited all assembled there, and which will be
+described in another chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+THE DISGUISE.
+
+
+With the assistance of some passers-by, the wounded page was borne, as
+he had desired, to Don Gonzales’s house, while, in accordance with an
+order from Lorenzo Bezan, the now lifeless body of the jailor, for he
+it was who had attempted the life of the lieutenant-governor, was borne
+away to the barrack yard. At the door of Don Gonzales’s house the page
+was met by Ruez and Isabella; and those who held the wounded boy,
+hastily telling of his hurt, and the manner in which it was received,
+carried him, as directed by Isabella, to her brother’s room, and a
+surgeon was at once sent for.
+
+“Sister,” whispered Ruez, “did you hear what those people said?”
+
+“What, brother?”
+
+“Why, that the page saved the life of the lieutenant-governor, Lorenzo
+Bezan?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“He must have been hard by, for the page had only just left us.”
+
+“True.”
+
+“Yet he was not with the rest who entered the house,” continued Ruez.
+
+“No,” answered Isabella, “some one said he hastened away for a
+surgeon.”
+
+“Hark!”
+
+“Who called you, just now, sister?” asked the brother.
+
+“It was only the groan of that poor boy. I wish they would bring the
+surgeon.”
+
+“But he calls your name; go to him, dear Isabella.”
+
+“O, they have found the surgeon, and here he comes,” said his sister.
+
+And thus indeed it was. Entering the apartment, the surgeon prepared to
+examine the wound, but in a moment he called to Isabella, saying:
+
+“Lady, this individual is one of thine own sex! and, I am very sorry to
+say, is mortally wounded.”
+
+“A woman!”
+
+“Yes, lady; see, she would speak to you; she beckons you near.”
+
+“Lady, I need not ask what that professional man says. I know too well
+by my own feelings that I must die, indeed that I am dying!”
+
+“O, say not so; perhaps there may yet be hopes,” said Isabella,
+tenderly.
+
+“Nay, there is none; indeed it is better, far better as it is.”
+
+“Why, do you wish to die?” asked Isabella, almost shrinking from her.
+
+“Yes. There is nought left for me to live for, and it is sweet to die,
+too, for him, for him I have so dearly, so truly loved!”
+
+“Of whom do you speak?”
+
+“General Bezan!”
+
+“You love him?”
+
+“Ay, lady, I believe far better than you can ever do.”
+
+“Me!”
+
+“Yes, for I know your own heart, and his true love for you!”
+
+“Who are you?”
+
+“That matters not. But where is he? I thought he followed me here.”
+
+“He went for the surgeon, and I have not seen him,” was the reply.
+
+Isabella trembled, for at that moment General Bezan, hastening back
+from the surgeon’s, and despatching some matter that occurred by the
+way, now entered the house, and was greeted most cordially by Don
+Gonzales and Ruez. And from them he learned the extent of the injury,
+and, moreover, that the supposed page was a woman, disguised in a
+page’s costume.
+
+“Ah, general!” said Don Gonzales, “I fear, this is some little affair
+of gallantry on your part that will result rather seriously.”
+
+“Be assured, sir,” said the soldier, “that I cannot in any way explain
+the matter, and that I think there is some decided mistake here.”
+
+“Let us go to her apartment and see what can be done for her injury,”
+said General Bezan, after a moment’s pause, “be she whom she may.”
+
+Just as they entered the apartment, the surgeon had loosened the dress
+of the sufferer at the throat, and there fell out into sight the
+insignia of the golden fleece and cross of St. Sebastian, in a scroll
+of diamonds that heralded the royal arms of Spain, and which none but
+those in whose veins coursed royal blood could wear! The surgeon
+started back in amazement, while Don Gonzales uncovered out of respect
+to the emblem. Springing to the side of the couch, General Bezan turned
+the half averted face towards him, while he seized the hand of the
+sufferer, and then exclaimed:
+
+“Is this a miracle-is this a dream-or is this really the Countess
+Moranza?”
+
+“It is the Countess Moranza,” replied the suffering creature, while her
+eyes were bent on Lorenzo Bezan with an expression of most ineffable
+tenderness.
+
+All this while Isabella stood aghast, quite in the rear of them all;
+but that look was not lost upon her; she shuddered, and a cold
+perspiration stood upon her brow. Had she lived to see such a
+sight-lived to see another preferred to herself? Alas, what knew she of
+the scene before her? was it not a shameless one? Had Lorenzo Bezan
+deceived this high-born and noble lady, and leaving her to follow him,
+came hither, once more to strive for her love? Her brain was in a
+whirlwind of excitement, the room grew dark, she reeled, and would have
+fallen but for the assistance of Ruez, who helped her to her room, and
+left her there, himself as much amazed at what he had seen as his
+sister could possibly be.
+
+“Has she gone?” asked the sufferer.
+
+“Who, lady?” said the soldier, tenderly.
+
+“Isabella Gonzales.”
+
+“Yes,” replied the father. “Do you desire to see her?”
+
+“O yes, I must see her, and quickly; tell her I must see her.”
+
+The father retired; while Lorenzo Bezan said, as he bent over the
+person of the countess:
+
+“Alas, I cannot ask thee now what all this means; you are too ill to
+talk; what may I, what can I do for thee?”
+
+“Nothing, Lorenzo Bezan. Draw nearer-I have loved thee dearly,
+passionately loved thee, loved thee as a woman can love; it was not
+designed that I should win thy heart-it was already another’s; but it
+was designed, the virgin be thanked, that though I might not wed thee,
+I might die for thee!”
+
+“O, countess, countess, your words are like daggers to my heart. I have
+been a thoughtless, guilty wretch, but, Heaven bear me witness, I did
+not sin knowingly!”
+
+“Nay, speak not one word. I am dying even now; leave me for a while. I
+would be alone with this lady; see, she comes, trembling and bathed in
+tears!”
+
+Lorenzo Bezan, almost crazed with the contending emotions that beset
+him, knew not what to say-what to do; he obeyed her wish, and left the
+room, as did also the rest, leaving Isabella and the Countess Moranza
+alone together. General Bezan walked the adjoining room like one who
+had lost all self-control-now pressing his forehead with both hands, as
+if to keep back the press of thoughts, and now, almost groaning aloud
+at the struggling of his feelings within his throbbing breast. The
+light broke in upon him; while he had been so happy, so inconsiderate
+at Madrid, in the society of the beautiful and intelligent woman; while
+he had respected and loved her like a brother, he had unwittingly been
+planting thorns in her bosom! He saw it all now. He even recalled the
+hour when he told her of his love for Isabella Gonzales-and remembered,
+too, the sudden illness that she evinced. “Alas! how blind I have been,
+how thoughtless of all else but myself, and my own disappointments and
+heart-secrets. Next to Isabella, I could have loved that pure and
+gentle being. I did feel drawn to her side by unspeakable tenderness
+and gratitude for the consolation she seemed ever so delicately to
+impart; but for this right hand I would not have deceived her, the
+virgin bear me witness.”
+
+The moments seemed hours to him, while he waited thus in such a state
+of suspense as his frame of mind might be supposed to indicate. The
+surgeon entered to take his leave.
+
+“How is she, sir?” asked Lorenzo Bezan, hastily.
+
+“I have not seen her since we left her with Don Gonzales’s daughter.
+She desired to be left alone with her, you remember, and it is best to
+do as she wishes. My skill can do her no good. She cannot live but a
+very few hours, and I may as well retire.”
+
+“There is, then, no hope for her, no possibility of recovery?”
+
+“None!”
+
+Throwing himself into a chair, Lorenzo Bezan seemed perfectly overcome
+with grief. He did not weep, no tears came to his relief; but it was
+the fearful struggle of the soul, that sometimes racks the stout frame
+and manly heart. The soldier who had passed so many hours on the
+battle-field-who had breathed the breath of scores of dying men, of
+wounded comrades, and bleeding foes, was a child now. He clasped his
+hands and remained in silence, like one wrapped in prayer.
+
+He had not remained thus but a short time, when a slave summoned him to
+the bedside of the dying countess. He found her once more alone.
+Isabella had retired to her own apartment.
+
+“General,” said the sufferer, holding out her hand, which he pressed
+tenderly to his lips!
+
+“Forgive me, Countess Moranza, pray forgive me?”
+
+“I have nothing to forgive, and for my sake charge yourself with no
+blame for me. It is my dying request, for I can stay but a little
+longer. I have one other to make. You will grant it?”
+
+“Anything that mortal can do I will do for thee.”
+
+“Take, then, this package. It contains papers and letters relative to
+myself, my estates, and to you. Strictly obey the injunctions therein
+contained.”
+
+“I will,” said the soldier, kneeling.
+
+“This promise is sacred, and will make me die the happier,” she said,
+drawing a long sigh. “I have explained to her you love the cause of my
+singular appearance here, and have exculpated you from all blame on my
+account.”
+
+“Ah! but countess, it is terrible that you should have sacrificed your
+life to save mine.”
+
+“Say not so; it is the only joy of this moment, for it has saved me
+from the curse of the suicide!” she almost whispered, drawing him
+closer to her side as she spoke. “I could not live, save in the light
+of your eyes. I knew you were poor, comparatively so-that fortune would
+place your alliance with her you have loved beyond question as to
+policy. I resolved to follow you-do all in my power to make you
+happy—ask of you sometimes to remember me—and then—”
+
+“O, what then?” said Lorenzo Bezan, almost trembling.
+
+“Die by my own hands, in a way that none should know! But how much
+happier has Heaven ordered it. I could have wished, have prayed for
+such a result; but not for one moment could I have hoped for it. As it
+is I am happy.”
+
+“And I am wretched,” said the soldier; “had the choice been offered me
+of thy death or mine, how quickly would I have fallen for thee, who
+hast been more than a sister, a dear, kind sister to me.”
+
+The sufferer covered her face with her hands; his tender words, and his
+gentle accents of voice, and the truthful expression of his face, for
+one moment reached her hear; through its most sensitive channel! But
+the struggle was only for a moment; the cold hand of death was upon
+her; she felt even the chill upon her system. A slight shudder ran
+through her frame. She crossed her hands upon her bosom, and closing
+her eyes, breathed a silent prayer, and pressed the glittering cross
+that hung about her neck fervently to her lips. Then turning to the
+soldier she said:
+
+“You may well love her, general, for she is very beautiful, and worthy
+of you,” referring to Isabella Gonzales, who had just returned to her
+apartment.
+
+“She is as lovely in person as in mind. But, alas! must I stand here
+powerless, and see you, but an hour ago so perfectly well, so full of
+life and beauty, die without one effort to save you?”
+
+“It is useless,” said the sufferer. “I feel that the surgeon is
+correct, and I must die very shortly.”
+
+“O, that I might save you, countess, even by mine own life!”
+
+“You would do so, I know you would; it is so like your nature,” she
+said, turning her still beautiful eyes upon him.
+
+“I would, indeed I would,” answered General Bezan.
+
+A sweet smile of satisfaction stole over her pale features as she once
+more languidly closed her eyes, and once more that ominous shudder
+stole through her frame.
+
+“It is very cold, is it not?” she asked, realizing the chill that her
+paralyzed circulation caused.
+
+“Alas, countess, I fear it is the chill of death you feel!”
+
+“So soon? well, I am prepared,” she said, once more kissing the cross.
+
+“Heaven bless and receive your pure and lovely spirit,” he said,
+devoutly, as she once more replaced her hand within his own.
+
+“Farewell, Lorenzo Bezan. Sometimes think kindly of the Countess
+M-o-r-a-n-z-a!”
+
+She breathed no more. That faithful and beautiful spirit had fled to
+heaven!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+THE AVOWAL.
+
+
+There had seemed to be a constantly recurring thread of circumstances,
+which operated to separate Lorenzo Bezan and Isabella Gonzales.
+Isabella had received a fearful shock in the remarkable occurrences of
+the last few days. The devoted love of the countess, her
+self-sacrificing spirit, her risk and loss of her life to save him she
+loved, all had made a most indelible impression upon her. There was a
+moment, as the reader has seen, when she doubted the truth and honor of
+Lorenzo Bezan; but it was but for a moment, for had not his own
+truthfulness vindicated itself to her mind and heart, the words of the
+Countess Moranza had done so. That faithful and lovely woman told her
+also of the noble spirit of devoted love that the soldier bore her, and
+how honestly he had cherished that love he bore for her when surrounded
+by the dazzling beauty and flattery of the whole court, and bearing the
+name of the queen’s favorite.
+
+All this led her of course to regard him with redoubled affection, and
+to increase the weight of indebtedness of her heart towards one whom
+she had treated so coldly, and who for her sake had borne so much of
+misery. “But ah!” she said to herself, “if he could but read this
+heart, and knew how much it has suffered in its self-imposed misery, he
+would indeed pity and not blame me. I see it all now; from the very
+first I have loved him-from the hour of our second meeting in the
+Paseo-poor, humble and unknown, I loved him then; but my spirit was too
+proud to own it; and I have loved him ever since, though the cold words
+of repulse have been upon my tongue, and I have tried to impress both
+him and myself to the contrary. How bitter are the penalties of
+pride-how heavy the tax that it demands from frail humanity! No more
+shall it have sway over this bosom!” As she spoke, the beautiful girl
+threw back the dark clustering hair from her temples, and raised her
+eyes to heaven, as if to call for witness upon her declaration.
+
+The proper steps were taken for sending the body of the countess home
+to Madrid, where it would receive the highest honors, and those marks
+of distinction which its connection with the royal blood of Spain
+demanded. Lorenzo Bezan mourned sincerely the loss of one who had been
+so dear and kind a friend to him. An instinctive feeling seemed to
+separate Isabella and the lieutenant-governor for a brief period. It
+was not a period of anxiety, nor of doubt, concerning each other.
+Strange to say, not one word had yet been exchanged between them since
+that bitter farewell was uttered in the prison walls of the military
+keep. No words could have made them understand each other better than
+they now did; each respected the peculiar feelings of the other. But
+weeks soon pass, and the time was very brief that transpired before
+they met in the drawing-room of Don Gonzales’s house. Ruez welcomed
+Lorenzo Bezan as he entered, led him to the apartment, and calling his
+sister, declared that they must excuse him, for he was going with his
+father for a drive in the Paseo.
+
+Lorenzo Bezan sat for some moments alone, when he heard a light
+footstep upon the marble floor of the main hall, and his heart throbbed
+with redoubled quickness. In a moment more Isabella Gonzales stood
+before him; her eyes bent upon the floor, seemed immovably there; she
+could not raise them; but she held forth her hand towards him! He
+seized it, pressed it to his lips again and again, then drawing her
+closely to his bosom, pressed his lips to her forehead, and asked:
+
+“Isabella, Isabella, do you, can you really love me?”
+
+“Love you, Lorenzo Bezan?”
+
+“Yes, dear one, love me as I have for years loved you.”
+
+She raised her eyes now; they were streaming with tears; but through
+them all she said:
+
+“I have looked into my heart, and I find that I have ever loved you!”
+
+“Sweet words! O, happy assurance,” said the soldier, rapturously.
+
+“One word will explain all to thee. I was spoiled when in childhood. I
+was told that I was beautiful, and as I grew older a spirit of
+haughtiness and pride was implanted in my bosom by the universal homage
+that was offered to me on all hands. I had no wish ungratified, was
+unchecked, humored, in short spoiled thy affectionate indulgence, and
+but for one good influence-that exercised by the lovely character of my
+dear brother, Ruez-I fear me, I should have been undeniably lost to the
+world and myself in some strange denouement of my life. A startling and
+fearful event introduced you to me under circumstances calculated to
+fix your form and features forever in my memory. It did so. I could not
+but be sensible of your noble and manly qualities, though seen through
+what was to my mind a dark haze of humble associations.
+
+“This was my first impression of you. You boldly wooed me, told me you
+loved me above all else. Your very audacity attracted me; it was so
+novel, so strange to be thus approached. I, who was the acknowledged
+belle of Havana, before whom the best blood and highest titles of the
+island knelt, and who was accustomed to be approached with such
+deference and respect, was half won before I knew it, by the Lieutenant
+Lorenzo Bezan, on the Plato. Singular circumstances again threw us
+together, where again your personal bravery and firmness served us so
+signally. I knew not my own heart even then, though some secret
+whisperings partly aroused me, and when you were sent to prison, I
+found my pride rising above all else. And yet by some uncontrollable
+impulse I visited you, disguised, in prison; and there again I can see
+how nearly I had acknowledged my true feelings; but once more the
+secret whisper sounded in my ear, and I left you coldly, nay, almost
+insultingly. But bitterly have I wept for that hour.
+
+“In vain have I struggled on, in vain strove to forget; it was
+impossible; and yet, never until you sent me that note, have I frankly
+acknowledged, even to my own heart, the feeling which I have so long
+been conscious of. Ah, it has been a bitter experience that I have
+endured, and now I can see it all in its true light, and own to thee
+freely, that I have loved even from the first.”
+
+While she had spoken thus, Lorenzo Bezan had gently conducted her to a
+couch, and seated by her side he had held her hand while he listened
+and looked tenderly into the depths of her lustrous and beautiful eyes.
+He felt how cheaply he had earned the bliss of that moment, how richly
+he was repaid for the hardships and grief he had endured for Isabella’s
+sake.
+
+“Ah, dearest, let us forget the past, and live only for each other and
+the future.”
+
+“Can you so easily forget and forgive?” she asked him, in softest
+accents.
+
+“I can do anything, everything,” he said, “if thou wilt but look ever
+upon me thus,” and he placed his arms about that taper waist, and drew
+her willing form still nearer to his side, until her head fell upon his
+shoulder. “There will be no more a dark side to our picture of life,
+dear Isabella.”
+
+“I trust not.”
+
+“And you will ever love me?”
+
+“Ever!” repeated the beautiful girl, drawing instinctively nearer to
+his breast.
+
+At that moment, Ruez, returning from the Plato to procure some article
+which he had left behind, burst hastily into the room, and, blushing
+like a young girl at the scene that met his eye, he was about to retire
+hastily, when Lorenzo Bezan spoke to him, not the least disconcerted;
+he felt too secure in his position to realize any such feeling:
+
+“Come hither, Ruez, we have just been speaking of you.”
+
+“Of me?” said the boy, rather doubtfully, as though he suspected they
+had been talking of matters quite foreign to him.
+
+“Yes, of you, Ruez,” continued his sister, striving to hide a tell-tale
+blush, as her eyes met her brother’s. “I have been telling General
+Bezan what a dear, good brother you have been to me—how you have ever
+remembered all his kindnesses to me; while I have thought little of
+them, and have been far from grateful.”
+
+“Not at heart, sister,” said the boy, quickly; “not always in your
+sleep, since you will sometimes talk in your day dreams!”
+
+“Ah, Ruez, you turned traitor, and betray me? well, there can be little
+harm, perhaps, to have all known now.”
+
+“Now?” repeated Ruez. “Why do you use that word so decidedly?”
+
+“Why, you must know, my dear Ruez,” said the general, “that a treaty
+has been partially agreed upon between us, which will necessarily put
+all hostilities at an end; and, therefore, any secret information can
+be of no possible use whatever.”
+
+“Is it so, Isabella?” asked Ruez, inquiringly, of his sister.
+
+“Yes, brother, we are to ‘bury the hatchet,’ as the American orators
+say.”
+
+“Are you in earnest? but no matter; I am going-let me see, where was I
+going?”
+
+“You came into the room as though you had been shot out of one of the
+port-holes of Moro Castle,” said the general, playfully. “No wonder you
+forget!”
+
+The boy looked too full for utterance. He shook the general’s hand,
+heartily kissed Isabella, and telling them he believed they had turned
+conspirators, and were about to perpetrate some fearful business
+against the government, and sagely hinting that unless he was also made
+a confidant of, he should forthwith denounce them to Tacon, he shook
+his hand with a most serious mock air and departed.
+
+It would be in bad taste for us, also, not to leave Isabella and
+Lorenzo Bezan alone. They had so much to say, so much to explain, so
+many pictures to paint on the glowing canvass of the future, with the
+pencils of hope and love, that it would be unfair not to permit them to
+do so undisturbed. So we will follow Ruez to the volante, and dash away
+with him and Don Gonzales to the Paseo, for a circular drive.
+
+“I left General Bezan and Isabella together in the drawing-room,” began
+Ruez to his father, just as they passed outside of the city walls.
+
+“Yes. I knew he was there,” said the father, indifferently.
+
+“That was a very singular affair that occurred between him and the
+Countess Moranza.”
+
+“Queer enough.”
+
+“Yet sister says that the general was not to blame, in any respect.”
+
+“Yes, I took good care to be satisfied of that,” said the father, who
+had indeed made it the subject of inquiry. “Had he been guilty of
+deceiving that beautiful and high-born lady, he should never have
+entered my doors again. I should have despised him.”
+
+“He seems very fond of Isabella,” continued the boy, after a brief
+silence.
+
+“Fond of her!”
+
+“Yes, and she of him,” said Ruez.
+
+“Lorenzo Bezan fond of my daughter, and she of him?”
+
+“Why, yes, father; I don’t see anything so very strange, do you?”
+
+“Do I? Lorenzo Bezan is but a nameless adventurer—a—a—”
+
+“Stop, father—a lieutenant-governor, and the queen’s favorite.”
+
+“That is true,” said Don Gonzales, thoughtfully. “Yes, but he’s poor.”
+
+“How do you know, father?”
+
+“Why, it is but reasonable to think so; and my daughter shall not marry
+any one with less position or fortune than herself.”
+
+“As to position, father,” continued the boy, “General Bezan wears
+orders that you would give half your fortune to possess!”
+
+“I forgot that.”
+
+“And has already carved a name for himself in Spanish history,” said
+Ruez.
+
+“True.”
+
+“Then I see not how you can complain of him on the score of position.”
+
+“No; but he’s poor, and I have sworn that no man, unless he brings as
+large a fortune as Isabella will have in her own right, shall marry
+her. How do I know but it may be the money, not Isabella, that he
+wants?”
+
+“Father!”
+
+“Well, Ruez.”
+
+“You are unjust towards the noble nature of that man; there are few men
+like him in the queen’s service, and it has not required long for her
+to discern it.” As the boy spoke, he did so in a tone and a manner that
+almost awed his father. At times he could assume this mode, and when he
+did so, it was because he felt what he uttered, and then it never
+failed of its influence upon the listener.
+
+“Still,” said Don Gonzales, somewhat subduedly, “he who would wed my
+peerless child must bring something besides title and honor. A fortune
+as large as her own-nothing else. This I know Lorenzo Bezan has not,
+and there’s an end of his intimacy with your sister, and I must tell
+her so this very evening.”
+
+“As you will, father. You are her parent, and can command her
+obedience; but I do not believe you can control Isabella’s heart,” said
+Ruez, earnestly.
+
+“Boy, I do not like thee to talk to me thus. Remember thy youth, and
+thy years. Thou art ever putting me to my metal.”
+
+“Father, do I not love thee and sister Isabella above all else on
+earth?”
+
+“Yes, yes, boy, I know it; thou dost love us well; say no more.”
+
+Ruez had broken the ice. He found that it was time, however, to be
+silent now, and leaning back thoughtfully in the volante, he neither
+spoke again, nor seemed to observe anything external about him until he
+once more entered the Plato and his father’s noble mansion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+HAPPY FINALE.
+
+
+When Don Gonzales returned from his drive with Ruez, and while he was
+still thinking upon the subject which the boy had introduced, relative
+to Lorenzo Bezan and Isabella, he found the general awaiting his return
+and desiring an interview with him. This was of course granted, and the
+two retired to the library of Isabella’s father, where the soldier
+resolved to make at once, and in plain terms, an offer of his hand to
+this daughter of the old house of Gonzales, and to beg her parents
+permission for their union. Being in part prepared for this proposal,
+as we have already seen, the father was not taken at all aback, but
+very politely and considerately listened to his guest. At last,
+however, when it came his turn to speak, he was decided.
+
+“I will tell you honestly, general, that, while I fully realize the
+great service you have done me and mine; while I cannot but admire the
+tact, talent, and noble characteristics that have so quickly elevated
+you to a niche in the temple of fame, still I am a very practical man,
+and look well to worldly matters and immediate interests. This has been
+my policy through life, and I have ever found that it was a good and
+sound one, and carried me on well.”
+
+“As a general rule, perhaps, it is a very good one,” added Lorenzo
+Bezan, to fill up a pause where he seemed expected to say something.
+
+“Now as to the matter which you propose, aside from the matter as to
+whether Isabella herself would consent, or—”
+
+“I beg pardon, sir, for interrupting you, but on that score I have her
+assurance already.”
+
+“You are very prompt, sir. Perhaps it would have been it little more in
+accordance with propriety to have first spoken to me.”
+
+“You have a right to question the point, and perhaps are correct, but
+to this there is little consequence attached,” said General Bezan, very
+decidedly.
+
+“Well, sir, it is proper to come at once to the point, and I will do
+so. I have registered an oath; let me tell you, then, that my daughter
+shall never espouse any man unless his fortune is fully equal to her
+own, and this oath I shall most religiously keep!”
+
+“You have made a strange resolve, sir, and one which will affect your
+daughter’s happiness, no less than it will do mine.”
+
+“The oath is registered, General Bezan, and if necessary I am prepared
+to strengthen it by another; for it has been my resolve for years.”
+
+“You are so decided, sir, that of course no argument on my part would
+in the least influence you. But I trust you will consider of this
+matter seriously, at least, and I may again speak to you upon the
+subject.”
+
+“I shall always be happy and proud to meet General Bezan as a
+particular friend in my own house, or elsewhere,” continued Don
+Gonzales, “but there, we must understand each other, our intimacy
+ceases, or as to the proposal of becoming my son-in-law, you will see
+that it is totally out of the question, when you remember my
+religiously registered oath upon the subject.”
+
+“For the present, then, I must bid you good-day, sir,” said the
+soldier, turning from the apartment, and seeking the governor’s palace.
+
+When he had left, Isabella’s father summoned her to his own room, and
+telling her at once the conversation he had just passed with General
+Bezan, reiterated to her that nothing would move him from the resolve,
+and she must learn to forget the young soldier, and place her
+affections upon some wealthy planter of the island, who coupled with
+good looks and a pleasing address, the accompaniments of a full purse
+and broad estates. Isabella made no reply to her father; she was
+confounded at the cupidity of his spirit; he had never spoken thus to
+her before. She loved him dearly, and grieved that he was susceptible
+of being influenced by such a grovelling consideration, and with a new
+cloud hovering over her brow, and its shadow shutting out the gleam of
+hope that had so lately been radiating it, she left him.
+
+The reader may well imagine the state of mind in which Lorenzo Bezan
+sought the privacy of his own apartment in the palace. To fall again
+from such high hopes was almost more than he could bear, and he walked
+his room with hurried and anxious steps. Once he sat down to address a
+letter to Isabella, for he had not seen her since he left Don Gonzales,
+and he did not know whether her father would inform her of their
+conversation or not. But after one or two ineffectual efforts, he cast
+the paper from him, in despair, and rising, walked his room again. To
+an orderly who entered on business relating to his regular duty, he
+spoke so brief and abruptly as to startle the man, who understood him
+only in his better and calmer moods. Again was his cup of bliss, dashed
+to the earth!
+
+“I had some undefined fear of it,” he said to himself. “I almost felt
+there would be some fearful gulf intervene between Isabella and myself,
+when I had again left her side. O, prophetic soul, though our eyes
+cannot fathom the future, there is an instinctive power in thee that
+foretells evil. My life is but a sickly existence. I am the jest and
+jeer of fortune, who seems delighted to thwart me, by permitting the
+nearest approach to the goal of happiness, and yet stepping in just in
+time to prevent the consummation of my long cherished hopes.”
+
+As he spoke thus, he sat down by the side of his table, and casting his
+eyes vacantly thereon, suddenly started at seeing the address of his
+own name, and in the hand of the Countess Moranza. It was the package
+she had handed to him at her dying moment. In the excitement of the
+scene, and the circumstances that followed, he had not opened it, and
+there it had since laid forgotten. He broke the seal, and reading
+several directions of letters, notes, and small parcels, among the rest
+one addressed to the queen, he came to one endorsed as important, and
+bearing his own name, Lorenzo Bezan.
+
+He broke the seal and read, “The enclosed paper is my last will and
+testament, whereby I do give and bequeath to my friend, General Lorenzo
+Bezan, my entire estates in the Moranza district of Seville, as his
+sole property, to have and to hold, and for his heirs after him,
+forever. This gift is a memento of our friendship, and a keepsake from
+one who cherished him for his true nobility of soul!”
+
+Could he be dreaming? was he in his senses? Her entire estates of
+Moranza, in Seville-a princely fortune given to him thus? He could not
+believe his senses, and moved about his room with the open letter in
+his hand, not knowing what he did. It was long before he could calm his
+excitement. What cared he for fortune, except so far as it brought him
+near to her he loved. It was this that so sensibly affected him; the
+bright sun of hope once more burst through the clouds.
+
+“Her father says that the suitor of Isabella Gonzales must bring as
+large a fortune to her as she herself possesses. As large? here I am
+endowed with the possession of an entire Spanish district-almost a
+small principality. Fortune? it would outnumber him in doubloons a
+thousand times over. I happen to know that district-rich in castles,
+convents, churches, cattle, retainers. Ah, Countess Moranza, but it
+sadly reminds me of thy fate. Thou didst love me, ay, truly-and I so
+blind that I knew it not. But regrets are useless; thy memory shall
+ever be most tenderly cherished by him whom thou hast so signally
+befriended, so opportunely endowed.”
+
+The reader may well suppose that Lorenzo Bezan spared no time in
+communicating the necessary facts to Don Gonzales, which he did in the
+following brief notice:
+
+“Finding, after inquiry, as to your pecuniary affairs, and also after a
+slight examination of my own that, in relation to the matter of
+property, I am possessed of a fortune that would be valued many times
+beyond your own, I am happy to inform you that the only objection you
+mentioned to my proposal relative to your daughter, is now entirely
+removed. Concerning the details of this business I shall do myself the
+honor to make an early call upon you, when I will adduce the evidence
+of the statement I have made herein. Sincerely yours, LORENZO BEZAN,
+Lt. Gov. and Gen’l Commanding. Given at the palace, Havana.”
+
+Don Gonzales was no less surprised on the reception of this note, than
+Lorenzo Bezan had been when he first discovered the princely gift that
+the generous countess had endowed him with. To do him justice, it was
+the only objection he had to Lorenzo Bezan, and he secretly rejoiced
+that the circumstances stated would enable him to give a free consent
+to the union of two souls which seemed so completely designed for each
+other. He called to Ruez, who had already heard the state of affairs
+from his father, and told him at once; and it was, of course, not long
+after that Isabella dried her tears, and stilled her throbbing heart by
+a knowledge that the last objection to the happy union was obviated.
+
+Don Gonzales, when he received the letter, and had carefully examined
+it, even went personally to the palace to tender his congratulations to
+the young lieutenant-governor, and to tell him that he had no longer
+any objections to raise as to the proposal which he had so lately taken
+occasion to make, relative to Isabella.
+
+“We, then, have your free consent as to our early union, Don Gonzales?”
+
+“With all my heart, General Bezan, and may the virgin add her
+blessing.”
+
+“I see, sir, you look anxious as to how I came in possession of this
+princely fortune.”
+
+“I am indeed filled with amazement; but the evidence you offer is
+satisfactory.”
+
+“At another time I will explain all to you,” replied Lorenzo Bezan,
+smiling.
+
+“It is well; and now, sir, this matter of so much importance to my
+peace of mind is settled.”
+
+Thus saying, Don Gonzales shook the soldier’s hand warmly, and
+departed, really delighted at the result of the matter, for had not
+General Bezan brought the requisite fortune, the old Spaniard would
+have religiously kept his oath; and, if not influenced by honor and
+consciousness in the matter of fulfilling his sacred promise, he would
+have been led to do so through fear, he being in such matters most
+superstitious.
+
+Lorenzo Bezan resolved that little time should intervene before he
+availed himself of the promise of Isabella’s father. “Once mine, I
+shall fear no more casualties, and shall have the right not only to
+love, but to protect her. We know each other now, better, perhaps, than
+we could have done save through tho agency of misfortune, and ere
+to-morrow’s sun shall set, I hope to call her mine.”
+
+As the moon swept up from out the sea that night, and tinged the
+battlements of Moro Castle, and silvered the sparkling bay with its
+soft light, two forms sat at one of the broad balcony windows of Don
+Gonzales’s house. It was Lorenzo Bezan and Isabella. They were drinking
+in of the loveliness of the hour, and talking to each other upon the
+thousand suggestions that their minds busily produced as connected with
+the new aspect of their own personal affairs. The arm of the gallant
+soldier was about her, and the soft curls of her dark hair lay lovingly
+about his neck as she rested her head upon his shoulder.
+
+We might depict here the splendors of the church of Santa Clara, where
+Isabella and Lorenzo Bezan were united; we might elaborate upon their
+perfect happiness; state in detail the satisfaction of Don Gonzales,
+and show how happy was the gentle, thoughtful, kind-hearted and brave
+Ruez; and we might even say that the hound seemed to realize that
+General Bezan was now “one of the family,” wagging his tail with
+increased unction, and fawning upon him with more evident affection.
+But when we say that all were happy, and that the great aim of Lorenzo
+Bezan’s heart was accomplished, the reader will find ample space and
+time to fill up the open space in the picture.
+
+General Harero, fearing the disclosure in some way of his villany in
+attempting, through his agent, the now dead jailor, the life of Lorenzo
+Bezan, immediately resigned his post, and sought an early opportunity
+to return to Spain. Here he fell in a duel with one whom he had
+personally injured, and his memory was soon lost to friends and foes.
+
+“Sister,” said Ruez, to Isabella, a few days after her marriage with
+the lieutenant-governor, “are you going to have Lorenzo Bezan
+cashiered? Are you going to complain of him, as you promised me you
+should do?”
+
+“You love to torment me, Ruez,” said the blooming bride, with affected
+petulence.
+
+“That is not answering my question,” continued her brother.
+
+“If you don’t have a care, I’ll complain of you, Ruez, for that piece
+of business in the guardhouse!”
+
+“I’ve no fear about that now, since it has resulted so well.”
+
+“That’s true; but it is really perplexing to have you always right. I
+do declare, Ruez, I wish you would do something that will really vex me
+so that I can have a good quarrel with you.”
+
+“No you don’t, sister.”
+
+“Yes, I do.”
+
+“Tut! tut!” said Lorenzo Bezan, entering at that moment; “I thought I
+heard a pistol discharge.”
+
+“Only a kiss, general,” said Ruez, pleasantly. And this was a sample of
+the joy and domestic peace of Don Gonzales’s family.
+
+In Isabella’s ignorance of the tender and truthful promptings of her
+own bosom, we have shown you the HEART’S SECRET, and in the
+vicissitudes that attended the career of Lorenzo Bezan, the FORTUNES OF
+A SOLDIER.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 4957 ***
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