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

the absent soldier had aught to do with it.

Had not Isabella Gonzales treated Lorenzo Bezan as she did at their last meeting, he would never have accepted the governor-general's pardon on the terms offered, nor life itself, if it separated him from her he loved. But as it was, he seemed to feel that life had lost its charm, ambition its incentive for him, and he cast himself forth upon the troubled waters without compass or rudder. And it was precisely in this spirit that he found himself upon the deck of the vessel, whose white wings were wafting him now across the ocean.

He, too, was misanthropic and unhappy; he tried to reason with himself that Isabella Gonzales was not worthy to render him thus miserable; that she was a coquette-an unfeeling, though beautiful girl; that even had he succeeded, and fortune favored him in his love, she would not have loved him its his heart craved to be loved. But all this sophistry was overthrown in a moment by the memory of one dear glance, when Isabella, off her guard, and her usual hauteur of manner for the instant, had looked through her eyes the whole truthfulness of her soul; in short, when her heart, not her head, had spoken!

Alas! how few of us feel as we do; how few do as we feel!

Perhaps there is no better spot than on shipboard for a dreamer to be; he has then plenty of time, plenty of space, plenty of theme, and every surrounding, to turn his thoughts inward upon himself. Lorenzo Bezan found this so. At times he looked down into the still depths of the blue water, and longed for the repose that seemed to look up to him from below the waves. He had thought, perhaps, too long upon this subject one soft, calm evening, and had indeed forgotten himself, as it were, and another moment would have seen the working of what seemed a sort of irresistible charm to him, and he would have cast himself into that deep, inviting oblivion!

Then a voice seemed to whisper Isabella's name in his ear! He started, looked about him, and awoke from the fearful charm that held him. It was his good angel that breathed that name to him then, and saved him from the curse of the suicide!

From that hour a strange feeling seemed to possess the young soldier. Like him in Shakspeare's "Seven Ages," he passed from love to ambition. A new charm seemed to awake to him in the future, not to the desertion of his love, nor yet exactly to its promotion. An indefinite idea seemed to move him that he must win fame, glory and renown; and yet he hardly paused to think what the end of these would be; whether they would ultimately bring him nearer to the proud girl of his hopes and his love. Fame rang in his ears; the word seemed to fire his veins; he was humble-he must be honored; he was poor-he must be rich; he was unknown-he must be renowned! With such thoughts as these, his pulses beat quicker, his eye flashed, and his check became flushed, and then one tender thought of Isabella would change every current, and almost moisten those bloodshot eyes with tears. Would to God that Lorenzo Bezan could now but shed a tear-what gentle yet substantial relief it would have afforded him.

Thus was the exiled soldier influenced; while Isabella Gonzales was, as we have seen, still living on under the veil of her pride; unable, apparently, for one single moment to draw the curtain, and look with naked eye upon the real picture of her feelings, actions, and honest affections. She felt, plain enough, that she was miserable; indeed the flood of tears she daily shed betrayed this to her. But her proud Castilian blood was the phase through which alone she saw, or could see. It was impossible for her to banish Lorenzo Bezan from her mind; but yet she stoutly refused to admit, even to herself, that she regarded him with affection-he, a lowly soldier, a child of the camp, a myrmidon of fortune-he a fit object for the love of Isabella Gonzales, the belle of Havana, to whom princes had bowed? Preposterous!

Her brother, whose society she seemed to crave more than ever, said nothing; he did not even mention the name of the absent one, but he secretly moaned for him, until the pale color that had slightly tinged his check began to fade, and Don Gonzales trembled for the boy's life. It was his second bereavement. His mother's loss, scarcely yet outgrown, had tried his gentle heart to its utmost tension; this new bereavement to his sensitive mind, seemed really too much for him. A strange sympathy existed between Isabella and the boy, who, though Lorenzo Bezan's name was never mentioned, yet seemed to know what each other was thinking of.

But in the meantime, while these feelings were actuating Isabella and her brother at Havana, Lorenzo Bezan had reached Cadiz, and was on his way to the capital of Spain, Madrid.


CHAPTER XI.


THE PROMOTION.

WE have already given the reader a sufficient idea of Lorenzo Bezan, for him to understand that he was a person possessed of more than ordinary manliness and personal beauty. A distinguished and chivalric bearing was one of his main characteristics, and you could hardly have passed him in a crowd, without noting his fine manly physical appearance, and strikingly intelligent features. Fired with the new ambition which we have referred to in the closing of the last chapter, Lorenzo Bezan arrived in the capital of his native land, ready and eager to engage in any enterprise that called for bravery and daring, and which in return promised honor and preferment.

Tacon, governor-general of Cuba, had marked his qualities well, and therefore wrote by the same conveyance that took the young soldier to Spain, to the head of the war department, and told them of what stuff he was composed, and hinted at the possibility of at once placing him in the line of his rank, and of giving him, if possible, active service to perform. Tacon's opinion and wishes were highly respected at Madrid, and Lorenzo Bezan found himself at once placed in the very position he would have desired-the command of as fine a company, of the regular service as the army could boast, and his rank and position thoroughly restored.

There was just at that period a revolt of the southern and western provinces of Spain, which, owing to inactivity on the part of government, had actually ripened into a regularly organized rebellion against the throne. News at last reached the queen that regular bodies of troops had been raised and enlisted, under well known leaders, and that unless instant efforts were made to suppress the rising, the whole country would be shortly involved in civil war. In this emergency the troops, such its could be spared, were at once detached from the capital and sent to various points in the disaffected region to quell the outbreak. Among the rest was the company of Lorenzo Bezan and two others of the same regiment, and being the senior officer, young as he was, he was placed in command of the battalion, and the post to which he was to march at once, into the very heart of the disaffected district.

Having arrived in the neighborhood of the spot to which his orders had directed him, he threw his whole force, some less than three hundred men, into one of the old Moorish fortifications, still extant, and with the provisions and ammunition he had brought with him, entrenched himself, and prepared to scour and examine the surrounding country. His spies soon brought him intelligence of the defeat of two similar commands to his own, sent out at the same time to meet the insurgents; and, also, that their partial success had very naturally elated them in the highest degree. That they were regularly organized into regiments, with their stands of colors, and proper officers, and that one regiment had been sent to take the fort where he was, and would shortly be in the neighborhood.

Lorenzo Bezan was a thorough soldier; he looked to the details of all the plans and orders he issued, so that when the enemy appeared in sight, they found him ready to receive them. They were fully thrice his number, but they had a bad cause and poor leaders, and he feared not for the result. On they came, in the fullness of confidence, after having already participated in two victories over the regular troops; but they had, though a younger, yet a far better and more courageous officer to deal with in Captain Bezan. The fight was long and bloody, but ere night came on the insurgents were compelled to retire, after having lost nearly one third of their number in the contest.

The camp of the insurgents was pitched some half mile from the old fort occupied by Captain Bezan and his followers, just beneath the brow of a sheltering undulation of ground. Night overshadowed the field, and it was still as death over the battle field, when Captain Bezan, summoning his followers, told them that the enemy lay yonder in sleep; they could not anticipate a sally, and from a confidential spy he had ascertained that they had not even set a sentinel.

"I shall lead you out this night to attack them; take only your weapons. If we are defeated, we shall want nothing more; if victorious, we shall return to our post and our munitions."

He had lost scarcely two score of his men in the fight, protected as they were by the walls of the fortress, while the besiegers were entirely exposed to the fire of musketry, and the two small cannon they had brought with them, and so they entered into the daring plan of their commander with the utmost zeal. They were instructed as to the plan more fully, and at midnight, as the last rays of the moon sank below the horizon, they quietly filed forth from the fortress and turned towards the insurgents' camp. Slowly and silently they stole across the plain, without note of drum or fife, and headed by their young commander, until they reached the brow of the little elevation, beyond which the enemy lay sleeping, some in tents, some on the open field, and all unguarded.

The signal was given, and the small band of disciplined men fell upon the camp. Lorenzo Bezan with some fifty picked followers sought the head quarters of the camp, and having fought their way thither, possessed themselves of the standards, and made prisoner of the leader of the body of insurgents, and ere the morning sun had risen, the camp was deserted, the enemy, totally defeated, had fled, or been taken prisoners and bound, and the victorious little band of the queen's troops were again housed within the walls of the fortress.

But their fighting was not to end here; a second body of the enemy, incensed as much by the loss of their comrades as elated by various victories over other detachments of the army, fell upon them; but they were met with such determined spirit and bravery, and so completely did Lorenzo Bezan infuse his own manly and resolved spirit into the hearts of his followers, that the second comers were routed, their banners taken, and themselves dispersed. These two victories, however, had cost him dear; half his little gallant band had lost their lives, and there were treble their number of prisoners securely confined within the fortress.

Fresh troops were despatched, in reply to his courier, to escort these to