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Spanish Cavalier

<h2>CHAPTER XXX.</h2> <h3>PURSUED.</h3> <div class="drop"> <ANTIMG src="images/w.jpg" width-obs="100" height-obs="100" alt="W" class="cap" /> We will now return to an English acquaintance. </div> If there was one thing on which Mr. Passmore prided himself more than another, it was on being a steady man of business, one "who stuck to his work, and did not care to take a holiday from the first of January till the thirty-first of December." But if Peter Passmore regularly gave his week-days to work, he as regularly gave his Sundays to amusement. No idea of devotion was linked with the Sabbath in the mind of the money-making man. Passmore considered time wasted that was spent on anything that brought no immediate return of worldly profit or pleasure. As surely as Sunday came round, unless Seville offered some peculiar attraction, so surely at Mr. Passmore's door appeared a travelling carriage drawn by two stout horses. This was to bear the manufacturer[Pg 254] to some agreeable spot several miles out of the city, where he could, as he expressed it, "get beyond hearing of the din of the bells of Seville, and the smell of its cigarillos." A picnic basket was always carefully placed in the carriage,—a basket well filled with bottles of champagne, pâtés-de-foie-gras, or other such portable dainties. For Passmore was not a man to content himself with such fare as he might find in a Spanish posada. "I'll not make my Sunday dinner off puchero or saffron-soup," he would say, "or dishes prepared with oil, the very smell of which would spoil the appetite of a trooper!" On this eventful Sunday morning Mr. Passmore, like every one else in Seville, had received tidings of the revolution which had taken place in the Spanish capital. But the manufacturer took little interest in politics, save as they might affect trade, especially trade in ironware goods. Whether Isabella or Carlos, prince or republican, Narvaez or Prim bore sway, it mattered nothing to Peter Passmore, so long as his furnaces blazed undisturbed, and he received a high price for his wares. "Not take my Sunday drive!—why on earth should I not take it?" cried Passmore to the Spanish servant who had come to receive his orders. "The wheels of government may have come off,[Pg 255] but my wheels roll steadily enough; Claret and his rascally crew have fallen, but my horses keep on their legs!" But though Passmore found it easy enough to order his carriage, enter his carriage, and set out on his journey, he did not find it so easy on that September forenoon to drive through Seville. The coachman did his utmost to avoid meeting with obstructions from the excited rabble of the town, by driving through little frequented streets, but he had more than once to turn his horses sharply, and hurry them down some lane where, had another vehicle met that which he was guiding, both must have come to a stand-still, as there was not breadth enough of road to admit of their passing each other. More than once Mr. Passmore thrust his bald head and broad shoulders out of the carriage-window to demand, in an angry voice, whither the coachman was driving, and whether he meant to smash the vehicle through a shop-front. The shouts and vivas heard on turning every corner; the walls chalked over with political squibs or fierce denunciations against late rulers,—"muera Claret," "muera Rivadeo,"—gave the Englishman a more intelligible answer to his questions than any which he received from his frightened servant. "Drive over the bridge to Triana, and through it[Pg 256] to the open country!" cried out Passmore to his coachman, in the best Spanish which he could command. The driver did his best to obey, but the bridge itself was crowded with people, and it was no easy matter to make a way through the throng. There was no special enmity, however, at that time entertained against the English by the Spanish mob, and the more ferocious of the population of Seville did not chance to be at the bridge. Bare-legged boys, indeed, climbed up at the back of the carriage, and dark visages were thrust in at the windows; but as Passmore was perfectly ready and willing to shout viva from his stentorian lungs for any one and every one whom the mob chose to favour, no serious opposition was made to his onward progress. The bridge was safely although not rapidly passed over, the rabble were left behind, and the coachman, still seeking in the suburb, as he had done in the city, the quietest streets, had soon almost reached the nearer end of the Calle de San José. Here the onward course of the carriage was again arrested, but in a different way. A voice, which was one of mingled command and entreaty, in tones which could scarcely be resisted, ordered the driver to stop. A hand on the rein of the nearer horse enforced the command. Before Passmore had time[Pg 257] to shout out "Drive on!" the door of the vehicle was flung open, and to Peter's amazement a lady, shrouded in a military cloak, was rather thrust than lifted into the carriage. She was instantly followed by a Spaniard whose features were so distorted by fear, so disordered were hair and beard, that Passmore could scarcely recognize in the fugitive the proud governor of Seville, Don Lopez de Rivadeo. The lady, who was his daughter, wore neither mantilla nor veil; she looked as if she had been suddenly dragged away while in the act of performing her morning toilette. A cloak had been hastily thrown over the dress of Antonia; one of her feet was slipperless; her long black tresses streamed down her back; she was mute with horror and fear, and breathless from the rapid pace at which she had been hurried along. "Drive on—drive for your life!" shouted out Rivadeo to the coachman, and the lash which followed the command made the horses bound forward furiously. The governor was too full of alarm and impatience to get beyond reach of the vengeful people whom he had fleeced, cheated, and oppressed, and who would fain pursue him to the death, even to apologize to Mr. Passmore for so unceremoniously taking possession of his carriage. The manufacturer[Pg 258] was revolving in his mind how he could best explain to the Spaniard that he was not a man to be made chivalrous or benevolent against his will, when, with a violent jerk, the coachman again stopped the horses. The carriage had just been turned into the Calle de San José, and the driver saw that the further end of the street was blocked up by a furious mob that, with yells like the howling of wolves, were demanding the blood of Don Lopez. Antonia shrieked aloud in the agony of her terror; Rivadeo started up in the carriage and drew his stiletto, as one to whom no hope was left but that of selling his life dearly. "What's to be done?" exclaimed Passmore, who retained his presence of mind, and a certain bull-dog courage characteristic of his race. "Here's an opening into a house which looks strong enough to resist anything short of cannon. Lift out the girl!" he cried, as he pushed open the carriage door; "be quick, or the ruffians will be upon us before we can get under cover." There was no need to urge speed; in the twinkling of an eye the carriage was vacated by its terrified occupants. Antonia stumbled in her haste as she rushed under the archway of the house of the Aguileras, and was lifted up by the arm of a stranger who at the same moment was entering the dwelling.[Pg 259] "Ha, Lepine, you here!" exclaimed Peter Passmore; there was no time for another word. The last of the party had barely cleared the vestibule, and passed through the grating, which was instantly closed behind them, before the mob, bent on slaughter, swarmed into the archway. "Muera Rivadeo! muera Rivadeo!" How horrible sounded that cry for blood yelled from the throats of the savage rabble, mingled with the clash of weapons furiously struck against the iron grating. Antonia dropped her cloak as she staggered forward into the patio; the once proud queen of beauty, now disrobed and discrowned, with torn dress and dishevelled hair, stood in the presence of Alcala and Inez,—of the admirer whom she had slighted, the woman whom she had insulted! Rivadeo's daughter, who had shown no mercy, must seek for mercy from them! But no feeling of triumph swelled in the breast of the gentle Inez on beholding the humiliation of one who had treated her with cruelty and scorn. The maiden's heart had in it now only room for tender compassion. With such sympathy as she might have shown to a dear friend in distress, Inez welcomed the fugitive lady, took her by the trembling hand, and drew her away from the patio into[Pg 260] an inner apartment, that the horrible sound of voices demanding a father's life might be less audible to the ear of the governor's daughter. Inez made Antonia rest on her own bed, spoke softly and soothingly to her, and then left her to give directions to Teresa to bring wine to revive the spirit of the terrified lady. Inez could not bear to be herself long absent from her newly-recovered brother; she dreaded lest his harbouring Don Lopez should bring Alcala into new peril. But even if it were so, Inez would never regret that her hand had thrown open the grating to receive the hunted fugitives. The delicacy and tenderness of Inez were by no means shared by Teresa. It was very unwillingly indeed that, in obedience to her young lady's orders, the old servant poured out for Antonia the very last glassful of wine from the very last bottle left in the once well-filled cellars. Teresa, her visage looking more grim and ill-tempered than usual, carried the beverage which she grudged to the daughter of Don Lopez de Rivadeo. "There—take it, Donna Antonia," said Teresa bitterly, as she proffered the glass. "If I were you, it would choke me! Remember Don Alcala de Aguilera—he of whose love you never were worthy—lying bleeding, for your pride, under the horn of a bull!"[Pg 261] Antonia's hand shook so violently, that she could scarcely raise the glass to her lips. "Remember Donna Inez," continued the tormentor, "the descendant of countless generations of heroes, stooping to sue for a boon from you, who were but too much honoured if a lady of the house of Aguilera deigned to enter your gate. Remember—" "Oh, those yells! O holy Virgin!" shrieked Antonia, dropping the glass, as a louder ebullition of popular fury from without made her start in alarm. "Shut the door, woman! oh, shut it and bolt it! the wretches may rush in even here!" Teresa turned, and gloomily obeyed, muttering half-aloud as she did so, "An Aguilera would have had no thought of self, when a father was so near to the knives of assassins!" <hr style="width: 65%;" />[Pg 262] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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