The Heart's Secret, Maturin Murray Ballou [reading fiction .txt] 📗

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