Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer, Cyrus Townsend Brady [i read book TXT] 📗

fearful struggle was going on in Alvarado's breast. What she proposed was the very thing he would have attempted were the circumstances other than they were. But his patron, his friend, his military duty, his honor as a soldier--the sweat beaded his forehead again. He had made up his mind at the betrothal to give her up. He had abandoned hope; he had put aside possibilities, for he could see none. But here she was in his arms, a living, breathing, vital, passionate figure, her heart beating against his own, pleading with him to take her away. Here was love with all its witchery, with all its magic, with all its power, attacking the defenses of his heart; and the woman whom he adored as his very life, with all the passion in his being, was urging, imploring, begging him to take her away. He was weakening, wavering, and the woman who watched him realized it and added fuel to the flame.

"The love I bear your father!" he gasped.

"Should it bind where mine breaks? I am his daughter."

"And Don Felipe is my personal friend."

"And my betrothed, but I hesitate not."

"My oath as a soldier----"

"And mine as a woman."

"Gratitude--duty----"

"Oh, Alvarado, you love me not!" she cried. "These are the strongest. I have dreamed a dream. Lend me your dagger. There shall be no awakening. Without you I can not bear----"

As she spoke she plucked the dagger from the belt of the young soldier, lifted the point gleaming in the moonlight and raised it to her heart. He caught it instantly.

"No, no!" he cried. "Give back the weapon."

The poniard fell from her hand.

"Thou hast taken me, I thank thee," she murmured, thinking the battle won as he swept her once more in his arms. This time he bent his head to her upturned face and pressed kiss after kiss upon the trembling lips. It was the first time, and they abandoned themselves to their transports with all the fire of their long restrained passion.

"And is this the honor of Captain Alvarado?" cried a stern voice as the Viceroy entered the room. "My officer in whom I trusted? Death and fury! Donna Mercedes, what do you here?"

"The fault is mine," said Alvarado, stepping between the woman he loved and her infuriated father. "I found Donna Mercedes in the cabinet when I came in. She strove to fly. I detained her--by force. I poured into her ear a tale of my guilty passion. Mine is the fault. She repulsed me. She drove me off."

"The dagger at your feet?"

"She snatched it from me and swore to bury it in her heart unless I left her. I alone am guilty."

He lied instantly and nobly to save the woman's honor.

"Thou villain, thou false friend!" shouted the Viceroy, whipping out his sword.

He was beside himself with fury, but there was a characteristic touch of magnanimity about his next action; so handsome, so splendid, so noble, in spite of his degrading confession, did the young man look, that he gave him a chance.

"Draw your sword, Captain Alvarado, for as I live I shall run you through!"

Alvarado's hand went to his belt, he unclasped it and threw it aside.

"There lies my sword. I am dishonored," he cried. "Strike, and end it all."

"Not so, for Christ's sake!" screamed Mercedes, who had heard as if in a daze. "He hath not told the truth. He hath lied for me. I alone am guilty. I heard him praying here in the still night and I came in, not he. I threw myself into his arms. I begged him to take me away. He spoke of his love and friendship for you, for Don Felipe, his honor, his duty. I did indeed seize the dagger, but because though he loved me he would still be true. On my head be the shame. Honor this gentleman, my father, as I--love him."

She flung herself at her father's feet and caught his hand.

"I love him," she sobbed, "I love him. With all the power, all the intensity, all the pride of the greatest of the de Laras I love him."

"Is this true, Captain Alvarado?"

"Would God she had not said so," answered the young man gloomily.

"Is it true?"

"I can not deny it, my lord, and yet I am the guilty one. I was on the point of yielding. Had you not come in we should have gone away."

"Yet you had refused?"

"I--I--hesitated."

"Refused my daughter! My God!" whispered the old man. "And you, shameless girl, you forced yourself upon him? Threw yourself into his arms?"

"Yes. I loved him. Did'st never love in thine own day, my father? Did'st never feel that life itself were as nothing compared to what beats and throbs here?"

"But Don Felipe?"

"He is a gallant gentleman. I love him not. Oh, sir, for God's sake----"

"Press your daughter no further, Don Alvaro, she is beside herself," gasped out Alvarado hoarsely. "'Tis all my fault. I loved her so deeply that she caught the feeling in her own heart. When I am gone she will forget me. You have raised me from obscurity, you have loaded me with honor, you have given me every opportunity--I will be true. I will be faithful to you. 'Twill be death, but I hope it may come quickly. Misjudge me not, sweet lady. Happiness smiles not upon my passion, sadness marks me for her own. I pray God 'twill be but for a little space. Give me some work to do that I may kill sorrow by losing my life, my lord. And thou, Donna Mercedes, forget me and be happy with Don Felipe."

"Never, never!" cried the girl.

She rose to her feet and came nearer to him. Her father stood by as if stunned. She laid her arms around Alvarado's neck. She looked into her lover's eyes.

"You love me and I love you. What matters anything else?"

"Oh, my lord, my lord!" cried Alvarado, staring at the Viceroy, "kill me, I pray, and end it all!"

"Thou must first kill me," cried Mercedes, extending her arms across her lover's breast.

"Donna Mercedes," said her father, "thou hast put such shame upon the name and fame of de Lara as it hath never borne in five hundred years. Thou hast been betrothed to an honorable gentleman. It is my will that the compact be carried out."

"O my God! my God!" cried the unhappy girl, sinking into a chair. "Wilt Thou permit such things to be?"

"And, Alvarado," went on the old man, not heeding his daughter's piteous prayer. "I know not thy parentage nor to what station thou wert born, but I have marked you from that day when, after Panama, they brought you a baby into my house. I have watched you with pride and joy. Whatever responsibility I have placed before you, you have met it. Whatever demand that hard circumstances have made upon you, you have overcome it. For every test there counts a victory. You have done the State and me great service, none greater than to-night. With such a temptation before thee, that few men that I have come in contact with in my long life could have resisted, you have thrown it aside. You and your honor have been tried and not found wanting. Whatever you may have been I know you now to be the finest thing on God's earth, a Spanish gentleman! Nay, with such evidence of your character I could, were it possible, have set aside the claims of birth and station----"

"Oh, my father, my father!" interrupted the girl joyously.

"And have given you Donna Mercedes to wife."

"Your Excellency----"

"But 'tis too late. The betrothal has been made; the contract signed; my word is passed. In solemn attestation before our Holy Church I have promised to give my daughter to Don Felipe de Tobar. Nothing can be urged against the match----"

"But love," interjected Mercedes; "that is wanting."

"It seems so," returned the Viceroy. "And yet, where duty and honor demand, love is nothing. Donna Mercedes, thou hast broken my heart. That a Spanish gentlewoman should have shown herself so bold! I could punish thee, but thou art mine all. I am an old man. Perhaps there is some excuse in love. I will say no more. I will e'en forgive thee, but I must have your words, both of you, that there shall be no more of this; that no other word of affection for the other shall pass either lip, forever, and that you will be forever silent about the events of this night."

"Speak thou first, Captain Alvarado," said the girl.

"You have loved me," cried the young man, turning toward Donna Mercedes, "and you have trusted me," bowing to the old man. "Here are two appeals. God help me, I can not hesitate. Thou shalt have my word. Would this were the last from my lips."

"And he could promise; he could say it!" wailed the broken-hearted woman. "O my father, he loves me not! I have been blind! I promise thee, on the honor of a de Lara! I have leaned upon a broken reed."

"Never," cried the old man, "hath he loved thee so truly and so grandly as at this moment."

"It may be, it may be," sobbed the girl, reeling as she spoke. "Take me away. 'Tis more than I can bear."

Then she sank prostrate, senseless between the two men who loved her.


CHAPTER XI


WHEREIN CAPTAIN ALVARADO PLEDGES HIS WORD TO THE VICEROY OF VENEZUELA, THE COUNT ALVARO DE LARA, AND TO DON FELIPE DE TOBAR, HIS FRIEND

"We must have assistance," cried the Viceroy in dismay. "Alvarado, do you go and summon----"

"Into the women's apartments, my lord?"

"Nay, I will go. Watch you here. I trust you, you see," answered the old man, promptly running through the window and out on the balcony toward the apartments of his daughter. He went quickly but making no noise, for he did not wish the events of the evening to become public.

Left to himself, Alvarado, resisting the temptation to take the prostrate form of his love in his arms and cover her cold face with kisses, knelt down by her side and began chafing her hands. He thought it no breach of propriety to murmur her name. Indeed he could not keep the words from his lips. Almost instantly the Viceroy departed there was a commotion in the outer hall. There was a knock on the door, repeated once and again, and before Alvarado could determine upon a course of action, Don Felipe burst into the room followed by Señora Agapida, the duenna of Donna Mercedes.

"Your Excellency----" cried the old woman in agitation, "I missed the Señorita. I have searched----"

"But who is this?" interrupted de Tobar, stepping over to where Alvarado still knelt by the prostrate girl. "'Tis not the Viceroy!" He laid his hand on the other man's shoulder and recoiled in surprise.

"Dominique!" he exclaimed. "What do you here and who----"

"Mother of God!" shrieked the duenna. "There lies the Donna Mercedes!"

"She is hurt?" asked Felipe, for the moment his surprise at the presence of Alvarado lost in his anxiety for his betrothal.

"I know not," answered the distracted old woman.

"She lives," said Alvarado, rising to his feet and facing his friend. "She hath but