The Spanish dancer : being a translation from the original French by Henry L. Williams of Don Caesar de Bazan (6 page)

"Is that the name you have for me already?"

"No, no," she went on, in a dreamy way. "It is this arch-tempter! When I was a child and played under the cart, and strayed into the copses around our isolated camp, my step was light, my smiles many and bright, and my song as free as the robin's—all showed that I was as devoid of care as of dread. But now "

"What is there fearsome in 'Now,' pray thee?"

"The hopes and fears of womanhood oppress "

"You talk of womanhood—a child, yet! for you are not over sixteen or seventeen at furthest, eh?"

"I do not know. Look not into a gypsy pedigree! Am I a gypsy, even? Sometimes, their treatment of me seemed to point out that I was not of their blood. There are secrets of the Zingari which they do not let the women into—from which they exclude me, anyhow!"

"You are fair enough to be dropped out of the spheres above. Your song is as if out of a seraphic mouth. You may be noble, for these brownskin tutors of yours are famous as child-stealers; but this oppression! why, oppression, when you ought to have heart and song and step light and blithe? If you find more reward

than ever falling like the gold, it is because yota deserve the higher recompense for delighting that moping, morose creature—man."

She shook her head as if she did not understand the drift.

"No, I am no longer a girl. I know that I am a woman and that I am a fair one, too!"

"The fairest of the fair!" cried he.

"Then, being a woman, I must welcome the bearers of incense to be burnt at my shrine."

"Certainly; that is well. Nothing is too rich and sweet to be offered to your beauty," and Don Jose made as if to fling his purse into her hands.

"No, no! my pedestal will hold me up too high. The fall would be fatal—unbearable, since I should retuirn to the gutter."

"This is the right time to meet her," chuckled the intriguer, speaking aloud with suave accents. "Once on the pedestal you are entitled to, think that a ready and mighty hand may sustain you if you become giddy at the outset, when unaccustomed to the elevation! My hand is ready if not mighty," added he, hypocritically, for his modesty was palpably false. "But do not shrink. I am but the statuary who is content when his statue is reared on its base. Let me only be allowed to worship with the others!"

This was the first time that she had spoken with an educated man who might compre'hend her still vague longings. For Don Caesar, airy and restless, had never inspired this kind of confidence. She forgot the place and the time—everything—to outpour her host of troublesome thoughts.

"Oh, you flatter me, but the street-singer and dancer for the herd. She reckons her own worth closer; or, at

least', she knows what poor esteem is really given her. She covets gold."

"I see that!" and he said to himself: "That fills me with anticipation of molding you, my image."

"Gold; it will free from that hideous crew—from bondage, at v/hich my soul spurns and which loathes it all."

"Ambitious! Good, good! Be ambitious! We are not all clods to smell eternally of the earth."

"I am like a felon in chains—no means to sever them, no strength to break them, but gold furnishes the fire which will in time melt them. Each gift, then, such as I owe to you, and the other gentlemen, and the populace, though in pence, all help to keep up tlie consuming flame. I shall yet be free!"

Don Jose smiled, and almost looked handsome in the glow. This was the heaven-sent instrument. The king in love with her; she aspiring to the highest degree; and he enamored, though he did not quite acknowledge this tender point.

"Sir, sir, have I not cause to dread the end?"

"Fudge! What end?"

"What comes to all my sisters in the family—^the royal mark?"

She slapped her shoulder. Jose shuddered, for he could not contemplate even in fancy the possibility of this beautiful being burned on the shoulder by the hangman's brand.

"Never!" cried he, warmly. "It would be profanation! You intimate that you may not be a gypsy! By my hali-dom, we will produce the documents to prove that! If we find not some parents to own you, then it will be beyond the stretch of the—never mind! All things can be done to gratify beauty allied with wit! The royal mark, quotha! You will wear the royal marks, indeed, but they will be—all your wishes conceive! Your fore-

shadowing-s are not dark but light—rays from the lamp of the throne room! Zoons! when one has your gifts, presentiments are all magic! Your atmosphere is one of hope!"

"I grant that since the queen applauded me, and promised me her support in bettering my wild and uncultured mind, I cherished the thought that my ambition ceased to be criminal."

Don Jose rubbed his hands.

"Come, come," said he, fondly, in his most coaxing voice; "turn for turn, let me play the soothsayer. I have crossed your hand wirh gold—let me read upon it the golden future." He took her hand and caressed it with "his other. It was like a serpen't coiling around a dove. "Believe me, confide in this adorer, and by my hope of salvation, here and above, all, all you yearn for shall be fulfilled."

In the recess, his eyes burned like coals out of the inmost heat, again.

"Fulfilled? all? ah, you do not know how boundless are a maiden's yearnings."

"I have a failing—I do so like to help the young and meritorious in this world of impediments. I, luckily, have the power to soMdify your dreams into realities."

"You!"

He let his mantle unfold, and the sumptuousness of his court attire, the gold ornaments, the badges and insignia impressed her, for the Egyptians had biased her mind toward tinsel and glifter. She was overcome, impressed, enchanted.

"Your wishes shall be laws for the princes and dukes."

She panted; it was like unexpectedly uncovering a table loaded with luxuries before a starveling.

"You need only quit those sordid environs, those ecurvy associates^ to link yourself longer with whom will

drag you by the same chains to the cart-tail for a whipping, to the stocks for a forced rest, to the gaMows for a suspension from all active life! Come to a life at the end of which is not the hole by the wayside, but a tomb in the vault of your ancestors 1 Wear no wreaths of humble flowers but a crown of gold and gems, no ragged skirt but a robe with velvet train and pages bearing up the weight! You have only to come to your first step toward that goal! You are now the darling of Madrid, With my aid you will be the glory of Spain!"

"No, no!" she gasped, but did not snatch away her hand from his warm and tightening grip.

"Pish! a wom.an's nay stands but for naught!" said he, drawing her out of the recess.

But instinct told her to shun this rock which might afford a short rest, but would dash her to pieces inevitably when its time came also to be thrown down into shivers.

At this instant, a flourish of trumpets was heard at the cathedrcl. The queen must have gone there for the ceremonies of Easter, for the fanfare indicated that one of the royal family was thus greeted on coming forth. There was a rush of the loungers on the plaza and the hundreds, gathering in lines behind the archers and halberdiers, raised a loud cheer of "Long life to the queen !"

"The queen !" re-echoed the gypsy dancer, "she is above mercenary impulse! She has been good to me! I repelled her offers to lift me out of my misery! Well, rather her to trust to than you, sir, without offense! I will appeal to her majesty."

Contrary to her apprehension, the courtier did not try to detain her. After all, the queen, having engaged him to be her confidant, this was an escape from one shark into the jaw of its mate! ^ He released her hand, muttered: "Ever I wish yod

well!" and merrily blew a kiss after her in her flight, nimble as a fawn's.

Then he laughed deeply to himself, and thought that he had mastered more arduous problems than to manipulate the plastic nature of a girl to his purposes. His reasoning was clear. The king admired this witch of all Madrid. The piece of vanity whom impudent aspirations raised to the fellowship of royalty must be grateful to him who had furnished the carriage-steps.

"What about her origin? She seems much above her low degree. She is a fairy to be a gitana! Oh, we will forge a family record, as I promised her! The greater she is made, the greater will be the queen's animosity when she discovers it is Maritana, her rival I It is an unpardonable wrong for any woman to bear, and keenest in all in a queen. She will resent it! Oh, my guardian angel's day, this! I held back from presuming- that so shortly all would come into my lap out of that thorny tree."

He was about to follow to where the queen was stepping into her carriage at the church entrance, when a violent commotion not only filled the Jewry outlet, but £ surge of the human sea burst forth.

In a moment he was entangled in a host of men, citizens, gypsies, vagabonds and watchmen, trying in vain to suppress a tumult.

Making a sign by which his agents in the multitude would recognize the head of the royal police, Jose fortified himself with some twenty of these desperadoes and peered into the scuffle.

"Death of my life!" said he; "it is the partner of that gypsy dancer! It is—oh, my cousin, the dissipated Count of Garofa!"

CHAPTER ly.

COUSINS IN CONTRAST.

It was only by a glimpse that Don Jose had recog'-nized his college mate at the University of Salamanca, patronized by the nobility twenty years before.

This glimpse was temporarily afforded. For the man was set upon by several bullies and swashbucklers, who, unable to draw their preposterously long swords in a close combat, hung about the victim as bulldogs upon a baited bull.

The single fighter held his own, using his dagger by the hilt, so held as to beat like a maul; he pummeled, blow for blow, evaded the treacherous stabs by catching the points in his rolled-up cloak, as a true Spaniard and one inured to such encounters could alone do. Presently two or three of the hectors, who had enough of the struggle, one-sided though it was, stumbled and fell into the kennel, v>^here their blood mingled with the garbage and mud. The others, grasped by the muffled arm, gasped that they were strangled, and implored relief for the love of the martrys, whose fate their own promised to equal. Lastly, a persistent antagonist, resorting to treachery worse than that already attempted without serious avail, dropped on all fours and sought to hamstring the brave and unconquerable hero.

Perceiving or divining this cowardly move, Don Cassar lifted his stout Cordovan boot, which, while without spur, was dangerous with its massy heel. He dealt such a kick as a wild horse might alone imitate, and the wretch, his breath knocked out of his body, rolled twenty paces until brought to a stop against the first house door.

over which hung one of those wooden crosses denoting that the plague-stricken lay there.

Dispensing with this final attacker, Bazan slowly released the pair, whom he had not ceased to hug. They staggered back, as if the bear of the Pyrenees had era-braced them, opened their mouths without power to emit a cry, and fell doubled up.

The victor stood erect, looked round with a ferocious glare, as if seeking fresh foes, and uttered a "Viva Es' pana and the Garofas!" like a warcry.

"Don't you get up," said he sarcastically to the fallen scoundrels, sprawling and vainly trying to stand on their feet. "You asses are only in your natural position—on your hoofs!"

Then, as if he were before a mirror in a dressing-room of his ancestral mansion, he leisurely pulled his tatters into a show of decency;

The victory and this coolness deserved a better result than instantly befell it.

The watchmen, reinforced by their comrades coming over from the cathedral, where they were no longer required since the queen had departed, did not care to handle the beaten ruffians, besmeared with mire and blood. According to the best traditions of their profession, to make an arrest without much regard to the guilt of the party, and with as much respect for their own safety as possible, they moved in a mass upon the solitary man. They reasoned that, formidable though he had been to the bandits, he was now exhausted and must submit to the authorized apprehenders. Besides, it is regretable to say, but already the degraded Count of Garofa bore a bad name among the archers of the city watch from having turned over their sentry-boxes and feet cords across the street to trip them up.

They surrounded Don C^sar, It was a wise manc3eu-

vre, since their ranks separated him from the outcasts' quarter, seething with excitement at this furious hurly-burly.

He seemed to disregard them in his attention to his frayed toilet. The bystanders, after admiring him for his courage, now smiled at his reckless humor.

"The curs!" said he, loudly, like one who lived in pop*" ular breath, "they have spoiled my rufitles, veritable Brabant lace! But for it disgracing my sword, which came? out of the armory of Vincenzo of the Rose-alley, Toledo, I should have spitted the whole six of them like larks for a breakfast! Zoons!" continued he with a pretended distress, which drew out a roar, "they have despoiled me of my gold-thread galloon, a yard good measure, worth three pistoles!"