Part 8

It is needless to say that the hour found me at the wicket gate, but I had hardly got there when there was a great bruit or noise of clashing of naked weapons in the same street at its further end, and I clearly perceived that it was a brawl between two parties of pretenders to Dolores’ favour, who, being on the same errand intent, had there met. In haste to escape their observation I knocked at the gate, but scarcely had I done so than one being hurt in the skirmish broke out of the press, and fleeing towards the place where I stood, fell down dead at my feet, even as the duenna, the confidante of Dolores, opened the wicket to let me enter. She straightway conducted me into a garderobe or inner chamber, where I hardly passed three words to my dear mistress, whom I found there awaiting me, when we heard a great noise and hurly-burly in the street of the alguazils, who, finding the dead body at the door, inquiring of the neighbours were told that the murderer had but now slipped into the house before which the body lay. Whereupon the captain began to bounce at the door with such assistance of his company that we were struck with fear at the uproar, I for her honour, while she was in terror for my safety lest they might search the house and take me for the murderer, notwithstanding that I knew nothing of it. With her ready woman’s wit Dolores bade me instantly follow her, and leading me into a manservant’s chamber then disused, showed me how I might mount to the midst of the chimney, which I did just as her father was parleying with the officers who insisted on searching the house. I had nothing to support me but a narrow bar of iron upon which there was barely space to stand, while Dolores retired to her chamber, from which she presently issued, feigning to be disturbed from her slumber, and exclaiming at the indecency of such a disturbance at such an hour. But the captain was forced by what the neighbours had said (though half against his will) to continue his search, and receiving the keys from Señor Escañuela, began to ransack each corner and cabinet in the house, in which he omitted nothing, for no coffer escaped without its bottom turned upward, and every bed and bolster was tried with the point of a sharp poignard. When they came to the chamber where I was hid in the chimney I would have cursed my folly, had my love not been so great, for venturing thus upon one of the most dangerous enterprises that can be undertaken in Spain, and risking the honour of my mistress by my discovery; and, as evils never come alone, after they had well searched the chamber, which had very little furniture in it, though fortunately not bethinking them that one might be perched up in the chimney, that being the last part of the house examined, the captain was dissatisfied at not having found anyone, and so proposed to set a guard for the night and to continue his search at the return of daylight. To that end, despite the protestations of Dolores’ father, two men were left on guard, and what was worse, these men quartered themselves in the very chamber where I hung up in the chimney, as being one of those in the house not at present in use. You may well imagine that Dolores was terribly distressed at this, and all the more that she feared, as I did, that since the night was cold the men would desire to kindle a fire, wherefore she gave special charge that no fuel should be supplied to them, but that if they wished it a pan of hot coal, after the manner of us Spaniards, could be placed in the midst of their chamber. Hearing these two wretches establish themselves, I had almost given myself up for lost, but that I might not for the reputation of my mistress which I valued more than my life. I had grown during this time exceedingly tired of standing upon my perch, hardly recovered in strength as I was from my severe wounds; moreover, the smell of the soot and the cold air excited in me a very great desire to sneeze, which I durst not gratify and yet scarce could stay it. Soon after I heard my mistress enter the chamber again with two of her women, and proffer wine to the men, in reward, as she said, for their services in guarding her. This they took very graciously, but knowing what I did, methought she had put a sleeping-draught therein, which, indeed, turned out to be the case, for presently they slept and soundly, but I durst not come down until her duenna, whom she had sent there to spy, seeing that the guards were governed by the potion, bade me descend, which I joyfully did, and withdrew quietly to another chamber where I found my dear mistress. Our common adventure had brought us nearer together, for the danger we had mutually suffered and were not yet escaped from, had swept away the artifices of coyness, our hearts seemed already to sympathise and burn in the flame of mutual affection. She entertained my vows and speeches of unalterable love with many blushes which came and went, casting a roseate veil over the milk-white lilies of her complexion, which, together with her soft eyes, her delicate stature, and the many perfections of her beauty, confirmed the subserviency of my zeal and wedded constancy to my love. With many protestations we took our leaves, but, impatient of delay, the very next day I waited upon her father, and in due terms requisite for me to give and him to receive, demanded his daughter in marriage. Señor Escañuela, while thanking me for the honour, which, as he protested, I had done him, replied: ‘Señor, our family is much beholden to you for the flattering proposal which you make, and words hardly suffice me to express the pleasure I should experience by the union of our two families in marriage, which is as much an honour to me as a condescension in you. Nevertheless, much as I may regret it, I have already pledged my daughter Dolores to the Count de Villegas, and my pledged word will not permit me to alter my decision in your favour. Therefore, señor, I am your humble servant, and must beg you in future to put away from your thoughts all notion of my daughter.’ To this I could only answer: ‘Illustrissimo, I am your humble and obedient servant,’ and so take my leave, knowing full well that he preferred the titled and rich Count de Villegas to poor me, who had nothing, no title and no riches. Nevertheless my love was so great and the encouragement my mistress had given me was such, that I was resolved not to give her up without a struggle, and therefore I indited an epistle to her as follows, which I entrusted to el Moro to deliver to her, who, however cowardly he might be, possessed a discretion and a subtlety that few could equal.

‘Madam,’ I wrote, ‘though your father prove obdurate in entertaining the hope with which I burn, yet so great and inextinguishable are the flames of my desire, that I cannot tamely acquiesce in his decision to give you to another whom I cannot think worthy of those transcendent beauties. That your charms have vanquished me is nothing, and would give me no claim to your consideration; but you have deigned to distinguish me from the common crowd, and in so doing have raised me to that degree among the competitors to your favour, that I now consider myself the equal and even superior of any grandee in Spain. Oh, grant me, divine being, some confirmation of my pretensions, that my fainting heart be again raised by thy word, for without thee nothing is left to me to live for, while the hope of thy favour will give me strength to fight against paternal objections, my superiors in rank or riches, or even the devil himself.’ This letter I despatched by el Moro, who, by feigning an attachment to Dolores’ maid, had no great difficulty in delivering it to her own hand without the observation of her parents. By the same means I received the following answer: ‘Señor, it is with blushes and hesitation that I so far transgress maidenly decorum as to answer your letter; and the more since I fear that my conduct in giving you an opportunity of private converse may be misconstrued. Nevertheless, it would show ill manners in me to pass over your letter in silence, since it plainly comes from the heart of an honourable gentleman. I may freely confess that your person is not unpleasing to me, and that, were it my parents’ wish, I might be prepared to entertain your flattering proposal; but since you have not succeeded in obtaining from them the confirmation of your wishes, it only remains for me to say that I will never consent to a union with the Count de Villegas.’ To this I replied by the same means as follows: ‘Fair mistress! Ah, madam, though I be not so fortunate as to please thy parents, yet love is no crime to be visited by thy divine displeasure, when thou thyself art the bright object of my affection. Though thy parents, swayed rather by their ambition than by dislike to me, do not favour my suit, yet the union of two souls should not be governed by Mammon, but rather by Cupid, the gentle god of love. Hymen ever joyfully confirms the union of them that are invited to join themselves by Cupid, and as constantly refuses to bless those introduced to him by pride or avarice. Give then scope to thy gentle heart, dear lady, that hath already rescued me from the death nearly brought upon me by rivals for thy affection, and confirm my life, which is otherwise valueless, by the hope of thy dear hand.’

Though I succeeded in corresponding with Dolores without the knowledge of her parents, yet this correspondence could not be so subtle as to hope for concealment from the eyes of a lover, and so the Count de Villegas was not without intelligence of what was going on, of which he took good care that Señor Escañuela should be informed, who thereupon gave instructions that el Moro should be prevented from coming to his house. At the same time the Count de Villegas sent me the following challenge:

‘Since I am given to understand that thy baseness doth not fear to aspire to the incomparable beauty of the phœnix of her sex and bright star of beauty, my mistress Dolores, if thou dost not instantly give up all pretension to her hand, doubt not that my sword is prepared to chastise thy insolence. Either, therefore, return me an answer under thy hand, that thou art prepared henceforth to avoid all communication with my mistress, or be prepared to-morrow morning to meet me without the walls with rapier and sword, if thou hast any pretence to be thought to have the breeding of a gentleman, to justify thy audacious resolution.--+Villegas.+’

To this I bade the messenger reply that I would not fail to meet him according to his desire and appointment. I bore this challenge privately from my father, and all the world except a young gentleman, one of my few acquaintances, whom I chose to be my second in the quarrel, named Señor Velasco, a valiant and true friend, who very readily engaged himself to me, so that he and the Marquis de Campofrio, the second of the Count de Villegas, with as much friendship as secrecy, met in the city and resolved on the rapiers and other ceremonies requisite in the duello. As soon as the morning appeared, both parties were early astir, and showed themselves on the field of battle a little before six, which was the hour appointed. The seconds duly performed their allotted office in visiting the principals, who cast off their doublets and drew, and so we fell to deeds. The Count de Villegas played the first close with great wariness and coolness, but presently warming to the business, he wounded me in the right arm, while I gave him a thrust in the left side which did but little hurt as it glanced along a rib. At the second encounter, the Count wounded me betwixt the breast and shoulder, while I thrust him clean through the left arm, which piercing his sinews and arteries, he was no longer able to hold his poignard, and despite his resolution and courage, it fell out of his hand, an unlooked-for disaster which did much perplex and afflict him. Upon seeing this, disdaining to fight upon unequal terms, I threw away my poignard also, and after a short breathing space we again closed, when running in upon him I ran him through the right flank and withdrawing my rapier leapt back to put myself upon a defensive guard, but my foot slipping, I could not prevent myself from falling to the ground. The Count following me close, and being eager in pursuit, could not forego his advantage, and being bloodthirsty in his revenge and forgetful of all honour, working upon the misfortune of my fortune, he right then and there nailed me to the ground, and withdrawing his rapier was preparing to pierce me through the heart and so act a perpetual divorce betwixt my body and soul, when his second unable to look on at so base an act, ran forward and turned aside his weapon. My own second coming forward at the same time, raised me from the ground, and the chirurgeon advancing examined my wounds, so that the combat was put an end to.

I was conveyed to my home, and lay betwixt life and death for the space of about a week, when an alguazil of the Inquisition came to cite me before the Holy Tribunal upon certain charges of heresy, and I was conveyed to a noisome cell of their prison, which, as my father afterwards learnt, was at the instance of the false Count, who repenting him of my life had thus accused me.

My dungeon was situated close beneath the roof, and since it was winter I was almost perished with cold. Yet, withal, that was better than the extreme heat of summer that I had to look forward to, for the stink and noisomeness of the air was less in the winter. The cell was narrow, and for that reason belike, and also perhaps because I had not yet been put to the question, I had no fellow-prisoner. No light entered therein save for a narrow rift in the wall high up, and no wider than a man’s finger, but I might have had a worse apartment if it had not been expected that my father would be willing to pay for my better accommodation. For the same reason the order of my diet was better than the common, for my father paid very large fees to the Holy Office for it, and had it not been for this, in my then state of weakness with my wounds scarcely healed, I had surely perished. And yet, easy as it is to get into the prison of the Inquisition, few go out, for if they have not already perished from the hardships of their imprisonment and the torture of the question, yet they seldom go forth but clad in the San Benito for the stake, or at the least to a life-long slavery in the galleys. It was far otherwise with the ordinary prisoners who had no money to bless themselves withal. Those poor creatures have a daily allowance of half a rial from the king for their diet, which is about equal to two sous French, out of which poor pittance is to be defrayed their steward and laundress’s wages, and whatsoever other necessary charges grow besides must be from thence discharged. Moreover, of this allowance given to them by the king, not one half comes to their use, for it passes through two or three men’s hands, to whose fingers some of it sticks. First there is the treasurer, and then comes the steward, then the cook, and lastly, the jailor, all of whom will have their fees. But if the prisoner be a rich man then is his lot even worse, for they do not suffer him in any case to better his condition out of his own goods, which they look to for plunder, nor do they allow him to have other than a little brown bread and cold water. No sound is heard in those sorrowful walls, for no prisoner is allowed to raise his voice, and some heretics that would be singing of psalms in the vulgar tongue, for fear that they should thereby solace themselves or let others know of their presence, had wooden bits fastened upon their tongues, and were so compelled to silence. For this reason it happens that father and son, husband and wife, or brother and sister, may be in the prison-house for the space of two or three years, and neither of them know of the other being there until the time comes of meeting on the scaffold--if it ever comes, for the most perish in prison as I have said, from the great filth and stench, and their corrupt and naughty diet, or they become altered in their wits from their prolonged and lonely imprisonment, or perchance some fever consumes them little by little, making their living life worse than any death they could die. Yea, so great are the cruelties of this prison, and so easily are men cast therein at the mere whisper of an enemy, that it would confirm these Turks in their false religion did they know and understand thereof. Indeed, there was a certain Turk who had voluntarily forsaken and abjured the Mahometan idolatry and was newly come into Spain to be confirmed in the true religion, who, finding more faults and worse sins among the Christians than he had left behind him among his own countrymen the Moors, happening to say one day that the Mahometan law was better than the Christian, was immediately denounced by some, and lodged forthwith in a dungeon of the Inquisition, whence he never again issued forth but to one of their Acts, and that only after the torture of the rack, when he was burnt at the stake, which is a thing that the Turks, pagans as they are, will not do, save that you revile their religion or so-called saints.

The walls of my dungeon were written all over with the sad complaints of prisoners that had been there before me, and though in some cases there were blasphemous inscriptions by heretics, denying the divinity of our Lady, or even the reality of the Blessed Host, yet for the most part they were but the expression of their hopelessness, their trust in God, a farewell to the world, or an invocation to death. Some of these I remember, for I had leisure to impress them upon my memory during my long imprisonment; and since they help to show the horror of my suffering, and the mutability of human affairs, I will repeat them to you. One of them ran as follows:

Erst I did live in calm content, And passed each day in merriment; And in my arrogance and pride, Methought no evil could betide, No stroke of fortune break it, nought Save Death one day must cut it short. Now, as the past day is the morrow, One long agony of sorrow; And in humbleness I sigh To thee, Lord, to let me die!

And another:--

Ye gloomy walls whose massy stones Such wicked actions have seen done, What shrieks ye’ve heard, what hollow groans! What tortures have ye looked upon! Yet there’s no spot in all your parts So hard as are your masters’ hearts!

The wretch whom fate doth immure here Will ne’er go free while he has life; Ne’er more he’ll see those he holds dear, Ne’er bid farewell to child or wife! An age of torment is begun, That ne’er will end till life be done.

Oh, Virgin Mother, grant me strength That I may be resigned to pain; And through thy Son’s mercy at length May unto heavenly bliss attain! My body’s weak, then pity take Upon me for thy dear Son’s sake!

And again:

With limbs disjointed by the rack, And by the trough a broken back, I hardly have sufficient breath To breathe a quavering prayer to Death, Can scarce my trembling limbs command To trace these lines with palsied hand! I pray thee, Lord, to let me die, And so cut short my agony!

And again:

Alas, Constantia, we’ve loved long, And hoped to pass our lives together, But unkind fate hath proved too strong, And ruthless our dear love doth sever

I hoped thy joys and griefs to share, While thou didst do the same by me; And hand in hand together fare Through Death into Eternity.

But now, alas, in all my pain, Thou art not by to soothe my woes, And if we e’er shall meet again, The God above us only knows!