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

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"Your Excellency," said old Don Cæsar de Agramonte, a man, who, as Mercedes had said, had literally grown gray in the service of the Viceroy, and who was man of birth scarcely inferior to his own, "the words of the Lady Mercedes move me profoundly. By your grace's leave, I venture to say that she hath spoken well and nobly, and that the young Alvarado, whom we have seen in places that try men's souls to the extreme, hath always comported himself as a Spanish gentleman should. This may be a lie. But if it is true, his old association with you and yours, and some humor of courage and fidelity and gentleness that I doubt not his mother gave him, have washed out the taint. Will you not reconsider your words? Give the maiden to the man. I am an old soldier, sir, and have done you some service. I would cheerfully stake my life to maintain his honor and his gentleness at the sword's point."

"He speaks well, Don Alvaro," cried Captain Gayoso, another veteran soldier. "I join my plea to that of my comrade, Don Cæsar."

"And I add my word, sir."

"And I, mine."

"And I, too," came from the other men of the suite.

"Gentlemen, I thank you," said Alvarado, gratefully looking at the little group; "this is one sweet use of my adversity. I knew not I was so befriended----"

"You hear, you hear, my father, what these noble gentlemen say?" interrupted Mercedes.

"But," continued Alvarado sadly, "it is not meet that the blood of the princely de Laras should be mingled with mine. Rather the ancient house should fall with all its honors upon it than be kept alive by degradation. I thank you, but it can not be."

"Your Excellency, we humbly press you for an answer," persisted Agramonte.

"Gentlemen--and you have indeed proven yourselves generous and gentle soldiers--I appreciate what you say. Your words touch me profoundly. I know how you feel, but Alvarado is right. I swear to you that I would rather let my line perish than keep it in existence by such means. Rather anything than that my daughter should marry--forgive me, lad--the bastard son of a pirate and buccaneer, a wicked monster, like that man!"

"Sir," exclaimed a thin, faint old voice from the outskirts of the room, "no base blood runs in the veins of that young man. You are all mistaken."

"Death and fury!" shouted Morgan, who was nearer to him, "it is the priest! Art alive? Scuttle me, I struck you down--I do not usually need to give a second blow."

"Who is this?" asked de Lara. "Back, gentlemen, and give him access to our person."

The excited men made way for a tall, pale, gaunt figure of a man clad in the habit of a Dominican. As he crossed his thin hands on his breast and bowed low before the Viceroy, the men marked a deeply scarred wound upon his shaven crown, a wound recently made, for it was still raw and open. The man tottered as he stood there.

"'Tis the priest!" exclaimed Hornigold, who had been a silent and disappointed spectator of the scene at last. "He lives then?"

"The good father!" said Mercedes, stepping from her father's side and scanning the man eagerly. "He faints! A chair for him, gentlemen, and wine!"

"Now, sir," said the Viceroy as the priest seated himself on a stool which willing hands had placed for him, after he had partaken of a generous draught of wine, which greatly refreshed him, "your name?"

"Fra Antonio de Las Casas, your Excellency, a Dominican, from Peru, bound for Spain on the plate galleon, the _Almirante Recalde_, captured by that man. I was stricken down by his blow as I administered absolution to the mother of the young captain. I recovered and crawled into the woods for concealment, and when I saw your soldiers, your Excellency, I followed, but slowly, for I am an old man and sore wounded."

"Would that my blow had bit deeper, thou false priest!" roared Morgan in furious rage.

"Be still!" commanded the old Viceroy sternly. "Speak but another word until I give you leave and I'll have you gagged! You said strange words, Holy Father, when you came into the hall."

"I did, my lord."

"You heard----"

"Some of the conversation, sir, from which I gathered that this unfortunate man"--pointing to Morgan, who as one of the chief actors in the transaction had been placed in the front rank of the circle, although tightly bound and guarded by the grim soldiers--"claimed to be the father of the brave young soldier."

"Ay, and he hath established the claim," answered de Lara.

"Nay, my lord, that can not be."

"Why not, sir," interrupted Alvarado, stepping forward.

"Because it is not true."

"Thank God, thank God!" cried Alvarado. Indeed, he almost shouted in his relief.

"How know you this?" asked Mercedes.

"My lady, gentles all, I have proof irrefutable. He is not the child of that wicked man. His father is----"

"I care not who," cried Alvarado, having passed from death unto life in the tremendous moments, "even though he were the meanest and poorest peasant, so he were an honest man."

"My lord," said the priest, "he was a noble gentleman."

"I knew it, I knew it!" cried Mercedes. "I said it must be so."

"Ay, a gentleman, a gentleman!" burst from the officers in the room.

"Your Excellency," continued the old man, turning to the Viceroy. "His blood is as noble as your own."

"His name?" said the old man, who had stood unmoved in the midst of the tumult.

"Captain Alvarado that was," cried the Dominican, with an inborn love of the dramatic in his tones, "stand forth. My lord and lady, and gentles all, I present to you Don Francisco de Guzman, the son of his excellency, the former Governor of Panama and of his wife, Isabella Zerega, a noble and virtuous lady, though of humbler walk of life and circumstance than her husband."

"De Guzman! De Guzman!" burst forth from the soldiers.

"It is a lie!" shouted Hornigold. "He is Morgan's son. He was given to me as such. I left him at Cuchillo. You found him, sir----"

He appealed to the Viceroy.

"My venerable father, with due respect to you, sir, we require something more than your unsupported statement to establish so great a fact," said the Viceroy deliberately, although the sparkle in his eyes belied his calm.

"Your grace speaks well," said Morgan, clutching at his hope still.

"I require nothing more. I see and believe," interrupted Mercedes.

"But I want proof," sternly said her father.

"And you shall have it," answered the priest. "That cross he wears----"

"As I am about to die!" exclaimed Morgan, "I saw his mother wear it many a time, and she put it upon his breast."

"Not this one, sir," said Fra Antonio, "but its fellow. There were two sisters in the family of Zerega. There were two crosses made, one for each. In an evil hour the elder sister married you----"

"We did, indeed, go through some mockery of a ceremony," muttered Morgan.

"You did, sir, and 'twas a legal one, for when you won her--by what means I know not, in Maracaibo--you married her. You were forced to do so before you received her consent. One of my brethren who performed the service told me the tale. After you took her away from Maracaibo her old father, broken hearted at her defection, sought asylum in Panama with the remaining daughter, and there she met the Governor, Don Francisco de Guzman. He loved her, he wooed and won her, and at last he married her, but secretly. She was poor and humble by comparison with him; she had only her beauty and her virtue for her dower, and there were reasons why it were better the marriage should be concealed for a while.

"A child was born. You were that child, sir. Thither came this man with his bloody marauders. In his train was his wretched wife and her own boy, an infant, born but a short time before that of the Governor. De Guzman sallied out to meet them and was killed at the head of his troops. They burned Panama and turned that beautiful city into a hell like unto La Guayra. I found means to secrete Isabella de Guzman and her child. The plague raged in the town. This man's wife died. He gave command to Hornigold to take the child away. He consulted me, as a priest whose life he had spared, as to what were best to do with him, and I advised Cuchillo, but his child died with its mother before it could be taken away.

"Isabella de Guzman was ill. I deemed it wise to send her infant away. I urged her to substitute her child for the dead body of the other, intending to provide for its reception at Cuchillo, and she gave her child to the sailor. In the confusion and terror it must have been abandoned by the woman to whom it was delivered; she, it was supposed, perished when the buccaneers destroyed the place out of sheer wantonness when they left Panama. I fell sick of the fever shortly after and knew not what happened. The poor mother was too seriously ill to do anything. It was months ere we recovered and could make inquiries for the child, and then it had disappeared and we found no trace of it. You, sir," pointing to Hornigold, "had gone away with the rest. There was none to tell us anything. We never heard of it again and supposed it dead."

"And my child, sir priest?" cried Morgan. "What became of it?"

"I buried it in the same grave with its poor mother with the cross on its breast. May God have mercy on their souls!"

"A pretty tale, indeed," sneered the buccaneer.

"It accounts in some measure for the situation," said the Viceroy, "but I must have further proof."

"Patience, noble sir, and you shall have it. These crosses were of cunning construction. They open to those who know the secret. There is room in each for a small writing. Each maiden, so they told me, put within her own cross her marriage lines. If this cross hath not been tampered with it should bear within its recess the attestation of the wedding of Francisco de Guzman and Isabella Zerega."

"The cross hath never left my person," said Alvarado, "since I can remember."

"And I can bear testimony," said the Viceroy, "that he hath worn it constantly since a child. Though it was large and heavy I had a superstition that it should never leave his person. Know you the secret of the cross?"

"I do, for it was shown me by the woman herself."

"Step nearer, Alvarado," said de Lara.

"Nay, sir," said the aged priest, as Alvarado came nearer him and made to take the cross from his breast, "thou hast worn it ever there. Wear it to the end. I can open it as thou standest."

He reached up to the carven cross depending from the breast of the young man bending over him.

"A pretty story," sneered Morgan again, "but had I aught to wager, I'd offer it with heavy odds that that cross holds the marriage lines of my wife."

"Thou wouldst lose, sir, for see, gentlemen," cried the priest, manipulating the crucifix with his long, slender fingers and finally opening it, "the