The Prime Minister. Kingston William Henry Giles
their grasp, while the others raised her father, who was now sufficiently recovered to comprehend his situation. He of the slouched hat again made his proposal, with threats of vengeance if it was not acceded to.
“Hear me!” cried the Fidalgo, in a tone of rage and agony. “You dare not commit the base outrage you propose, or the vengeance of every honest man in Portugal will follow and destroy you; but yet, if without further delay you set my daughter at liberty, I most solemnly promise you any sum you may venture to demand. Do you consent?”
“No, no, senhor,” answered the leader: “we have risked our necks, and must be paid with good security; nor do we consider the empty word even of a fidalgo sufficient. You must send us the money, or you know the alternative, while we retain your daughter in our power.”
“Wretches, no! ’tis impossible I should consent!” exclaimed Gonçalo Christovaö. “I would rather stab my daughter to the heart, and then plunge the dagger into my own breast, than trust you.”
“As you like, senhor; but we do not intend to give you the choice. Here, tie this noble fidalgo to a tree, with his servants round him, and the priest to offer him consolation, and perhaps by the time some traveller comes by, he may have thought better on the subject,” said the leader.
“You dare not do it, villains!” exclaimed the Fidalgo, his agony increased to the highest pitch. “Release my child, or the vengeance of Heaven will fall on your heads.”
“Gag him, gag him!” cried several of the band, as they dragged him towards a tree to bind him to it.
“If you are less than demons, hear me!” he again exclaimed, as he put aside indignantly the rough hands near his face. “Let my daughter and her attendants go free, and she shall forward the ransom, while I remain with you.”
“Oh no, senhor!” answered the Captain; “you are doubtless a very valuable and important person; but that would not at all answer our purpose. You would cause us much more trouble to keep; and if, by any chance, the ransom did not arrive, we could, after all, only kill you in revenge, while your fair daughter would make a charming wife to some of us. You understand, senhor! ’Twill lower your pride a little, when you see one of us kennel dogs, as you call us, your son-in-law. Think of that. These are our terms; and we do not alter them. Again, I say, we must have done with this folly. Collect all the party, and curses on them, while I hold the lady.”
The banditti, according to their leader’s order, now set to work in earnest, binding the fidalgo, the priest, and the servants to trees at some little distance from each other. They then treated the muleteers in the same way, who deplored, with tears, the loss of their animals; but when it came to the females’ turn, one of them contriving to get the gag out of her mouth, set up a scream loud enough to be heard at the distance of a mile, to which she continued to give reiterated utterance, struggling so bravely, that it was some time before that implement to which it is said women have so great an aversion, could be replaced.
“Do not attempt to escape, Senhor Fidalgo,” said one of the robbers, as approaching Gonçalo Christovaö, and drawing his long knife, he flourished it in the air. “Remember we could just as easily have cut your throat as let you live, and thank the saints that it is not our interest to do so. Some one will doubtless set you free before night approaches, otherwise you may find the wolves rather troublesome – adeos.”
Donna Clara, too much overwhelmed with terror and agitation even to utter a faint scream, remained a passive spectator of the scene, scarcely comprehending the extent of her danger; nor was it till the captain of the banditti lifted her on his horse, that she seemed to return to consciousness, and even then she appeared less alarmed for her own safety than for that of her father.
The robbers, having effectually rifled every one of the travellers, even making the muleteers deliver up the few coins they possessed, collected their booty, and driving the baggage-mules together, took a pathway which appeared leading out of the main track across the forest. The captain remained the last, to see that nothing was left behind; when, bearing Donna Clara before him on his saddle, deaf to her prayers and entreaties, and regardless of her father’s agonised glances, he turned his horse’s head to follow his companions.
Volume One – Chapter Nine
There are some feelings of the heart so intense that language possesses no words of sufficient force to describe them; and such was the passion which wrung the bosom of the proud fidalgo, when he saw his daughter, a being he loved, a part of himself, carried off by wretches so base and low that he looked upon them as formed of different materials from himself. It was far worse suffering than the martyr at the stake is doomed to bear; and rather would he have beheld his child torn by the wild beasts of the forest, than thus exposed to the lawless violence of such men. The agony of his fury deprived him almost of sensation, and of life itself; but the robber chief heeded him not, further than giving utterance to a scoffing laugh, and bestowing a glance of triumph and derision, over his shoulder, as he was disappearing among the trees; when, at the same moment, one of the band, who had been kept as a scout at some distance along the road, was seen galloping to the spot at a furious rate; and, as he perceived the captain, “Fly!” he cried, “fly! danger is near. A party of horsemen are close upon my heels.” At these words the robber, plunging his long spurs into his horse’s flanks, urged him between the thick-growing trees, followed by the scout, into the depths of the forest, where they were completely concealed from view.
The faint cries which, in her terror and despair, Donna Clara uttered, were yet heard, when a horseman approached, urging on his steed at the utmost speed, and the heart of the father heat again with the anxious hope of succour for his child; for, even as he flew along, his appearance bespoke him a cavalier of rank, being also followed by four servants at a short distance in the rear. He reined in his steed when he came near the spot where Gonçalo Christovaö was bound, and was about to dismount.
“Think not of me, senhor,” exclaimed the Fidalgo. “But hasten through that path to the right, and rescue my daughter from the hands of ruffians who have borne her off.”
At that moment a faint cry was heard through the forest, nor needed the cavalier other inducement to dash forward in the direction from which it proceeded, pointing with his hand, as he rode towards the trees, to the party who remained bound, to indicate them to his servants, one of whom, as he came up, leaped from his horse, and busied himself in releasing them, while the rest galloped after their master into the forest. No sooner did the fidalgo find himself at liberty, than seizing a sword which had been left on the ground, he rushed off in the direction his daughter had been carried, followed by his faithful escudeiro, who was the next person released from his bonds. The rest of the servants and the priest were soon set at liberty, as were some of the muleteers, the former hurrying off to join their master, entirely forgetting, in their haste, to release the women; but, fortunately for them, the muleteers had either more gallantry, or were less anxious to enter into danger. The priest also stalked off in the same direction, muttering dark curses on the heads of the robbers. When released by the muleteers, the old nurse was in an almost insensible state, from terror at the danger of her young charge; but the youthful females, even before their arms were set at liberty, made most significant gestures to have their mouths cleared of the handkerchiefs so unceremoniously thrust into them, which operation was no sooner performed, than, as the renowned Baron Munchausen’s horn, when brought near the fire, gave forth the tones frozen up during the winter, so did they give vent, as if to make amends for their compulsory silence, to the most piercing shrieks, one trying to outvie the other in their loudness and number, so that it might have been supposed they were undergoing some fresh attack from the robbers, instead of being released by their friends. The old nurse threw herself on the ground, giving way to her terror in tears. “Oh my child! my dear child!” she cried; “they have torn her away, and I shall never see her more.”
We must now follow the course of the young cavalier, who had arrived so opportunely on the scene of action; indeed, were we not writing a true history instead of a romance, we might be supposed to have brought him in merely for dramatic effect; but we can assure our readers, that in this, as in every other instance, we are adhering closely to the very voluminous, though rather illegible manuscripts, from which, with infinite labour, we are culling the present volumes.