Roland Cashel, Volume I (of II). Lever Charles James
it not been for the passionate emotion of the last few words, Cashel’s anger would have suggested a reply not less indignant than his question; but the sight of the hard, the stern, the unflinching Pedro Rica, as he now stood, – his face covered by his hands, while his strong chest heaved and throbbed with convulsive energy, – this was more than he felt prepared to look on. It was then only by a great effort he could say, “You seem to forget, Senhor Rica, how differently you interpreted this same contract but a few hours ago. You told me then – I think I hear the words still ringing in my ears – that you never thought of such an alliance; that your calculation took a less flattering estimate of my relationship.”
“I spoke in anger, Roland, – anger caused by your passionate resolve. Remember, too, that I preferred holding you to your contract, in preference to allowing you to redeem it by paying the penalty.”
“Easy alternative,” said Cashel, with a scornful laugh; “you scarcely expected a beggar, a ruined gambler, could pay seventy thousand doubloons. But times are changed, sir. I am rich now, – rich enough to double the sum you stipulated for. Although I well know the contract is not worth the pen that wrote it, I am willing to recognize it, at least so far as the forfeit is concerned.”
“My poor child, my darling Maritaña,” said Pedro, but in a voice barely audible. The words seemed the feeble utterance of a breaking heart.
“Sorrow not for her, senhor,” said Cashel, hastily. “She has no griefs herself on such a score. It is but a few hours since she told me so.”
Don Pedro was silent; but a mournful shake of the head and a still more mournful smile seemed to intimate his dissent.
“I tell you, sir, that your own scorn of my alliance was inferior to hers!” cried Cashel, in a voice of deep exasperation. “She even went so far as to say that she was a party to the contract only on the condition of its utter worthlessness. Do not, then, let me hear of regrets for her.”
“And you believe this?”
“I believe what I have myself witnessed.”
“What, then, if you be a witness to the very opposite? What if your ears reveal to you the evidence as strongly against, as now you deem it in favor of, your opinion?”
“I do not catch your meaning.”
“I would say, what if from Maritaña’s own lips you heard an avowal of her affection, would you conceive yourself at liberty to redeem a contract to which you were only one party, and by mere money – I care not how large you call the sum – to reject the heart you have made your own?”
“No, no, this cannot be,” cried Cashel, struggling in a conflict of uncertainty and fear.
“I know my daughter, sir,” said Pedro, with an air of pride he well knew when and how to assume.
“If I but thought so,” muttered Cashel to himself; and low as the words were, Rica heard them.
“I ask you for nothing short of your own conviction, – the conviction of your own ears and eyes. You shall, if you please, remain concealed in her apartment while I question her on the subject of this attachment. If you ever supposed me base enough to coerce her judgment, you know her too well to believe it to be possible. But I will not insult myself by either supposition. I offer you this test of what I have said: accept it if you will, and with this condition, that you shall then be free to tear this contract, if you like, but never believe that I can barter the acknowledged affection of my child, and take money for her misery.”
Cashel was moved by the truth-like energy of the words he heard; the very aspect of emotion in one he had never seen save calm, cold, and self-possessed, had its influence on him, and he replied, “I consent.” So faintly, however, were the words uttered that he was obliged to repeat them ere they reached Don Pedro’s ears.
“I will come for you after supper this evening,” said Rica. “Let me find you in the arbor at the end of the ‘hacienda.’ Till then, adios.” So saying, he motioned to Cashel to follow the stranger. Roland obeyed the suggestion, and they parted.
CHAPTER III. MR. SIMMS ON LIFE AT THE VILLA
He told them of men that cared not a d – n
For the law or the new police,
And had very few scruples for killing a lamb,
If they fancied they wanted the fleece.
When Roland Cashel rejoined Mr. Simms, he found that worthy individual solacing himself for the privations of prairie travel, by such a breakfast as only Don Pedro’s larder would produce. Surrounded by various dishes whose appetizing qualities might have suffered some impairment from a more accurate knowledge of their contents, – sucking monkeys and young squirrels among the number, – he tasted and sipped, and sipped again, till between the seductions of sangaree and Curaçoa punch, he had produced that pleasing frame of mind when even a less gorgeous scene than the windows of the villa displayed before him would have appeared delightful. Whether poor Mr. Simms’s excess – and such we are compelled to confess it was – could be excused on the score of long fasting, or the consciousness that he had a right to some indulgence in the hour of victory, he assuredly revelled in the fullest enjoyment of this luxurious banquet, and, as Cashel entered the room, had reached the delicious dreamland of misty consciousness, where his late adventures and his former life became most pleasingly commingled, and jaguars, alligators, gambusinos, and rancheros, danced through his brain in company with Barons of the Exchequer and Masters in Chancery.
Elevated by the scenes of danger he had passed through, – some real, the far greater number imaginary, – into the dignity of a hero, he preferred rather to discuss prairie life and scenes in the Havannah, to dwelling on the topics so nearly interesting to Cashel. Nor was Roland a very patient listener to digressions, which, at every moment, left the high-road, and wandered into every absurd by-path of personal history.
“I always thought, sir,” said Simms, “and used to say it everywhere, too, what a splendid change for you this piece of good fortune would be, springing at a bound, as a body might say, from a powder-monkey into the wealth of a peer of the realm; but, egad, when I see the glorious life you lead hereabouts, such grog, such tipple, capital house, magnificent country, and, if I may pronounce from the view beneath my window, no lack of company, too! I begin to feel doubts about it.”
If Cashel was scarcely pleased at the allusions to himself in this speech, he speedily forgave them in his amusement at the commentary Simms passed on life at the villa; but yet would willingly have turned from either theme to that most engrossing one, – the circumstances of his altered fortune. Simms, however, was above such grovelling subjects; and, as he sat, glass in hand, gazing out upon the garden, where strolling parties came and went, and loitering groups lingered in the shade, he really fancied the scene a perfect paradise.
“Very hard to leave this, you’ll find it!” exclaimed Simms. “I can well imagine life here must be rare fun. How jolly they do seem down there!” said he, with a half-longing look at the strange figures, who now and then favored him with a salute or a gesture of the hand, as they passed.
“Come, let us join them,” said Cashel, who, despairing of recalling him to the wished-for topic, was fain to consent to indulge the stranger’s humor.
“All naval men?” asked Simms, as they issued forth into the lawn.
“Most of them are sailors!” said Cashel, equivocating.
“That’s a fine-looking old fellow beneath the beech-tree, with the long Turkish pipe in his mouth. He’s captain of a seventy-four, I take it.”
“He’s a Greek merchantman,” whispered Cashel; “don’t look so hard at him, for he observes you, and is somewhat irascible in temper, if stared at.”
“Indeed! I should n’t have thought – ”
“No matter, do as I tell you; he stabbed a travelling artist the other day, who fancied he was a fine study, and wished to make a drawing of his head.”
Simms’s