"In the East, they say the nightingale sings to the rose; Devon, more happy, has nightingale and rose in one.""We have no nightingales in Devon, Don Guzman," said Lady Grenville; "but our little forest thrushes sing, as you hear, sweetly enough to content any ear.But what brings you away from the gentlemen so early?""These letters," said he, "which have just been put into my hand;and as they call me home to Spain, I was loath to lose a moment of that delightful company from which I must part so soon.""To Spain?" asked half-a-dozen voices: for the Don was a general favorite.
"Yes, and thence to the Indies.My ransom has arrived, and with it the promise of an office.I am to be Governor of La Guayra in Caracas.Congratulate me on my promotion."A mist was over Rose's eyes.The Spaniard's voice was hard and flippant.Did he care for her, after all? And if he did, was it nevertheless hopeless? How her cheeks glowed! Everybody must see it! Anything to turn away their attention from her, and in that nervous haste which makes people speak, and speak foolishly too, just because they ought to be silent, she asked--"And where is La Guayra?"
"Half round the world, on the coast of the Spanish Main.The loveliest place on earth, and the loveliest governor's house, in a forest of palms at the foot of a mountain eight thousand feet high:
I shall only want a wife there to be in paradise.""I don't doubt that you may persuade some fair lady of Seville to accompany you thither," said Lady Grenville.
"Thanks, gracious madam: but the truth is, that since I have had the bliss of knowing English ladies, I have begun to think that they are the only ones on earth worth wooing.""A thousand thanks for the compliment; but I fear none of our free English maidens would like to submit to the guardianship of a duenna.Eh, Rose? how should you like to be kept under lock and key all day by an ugly old woman with a horn on her forehead?"Poor Rose turned so scarlet that Lady Grenville knew her secret on the spot, and would have tried to turn the conversation: but before she could speak, some burgher's wife blundered out a commonplace about the jealousy of Spanish husbands; and another, to make matters better, giggled out something more true than delicate about West Indian masters and fair slaves.
"Ladies," said Don Guzman, reddening, "believe me that these are but the calumnies of ignorance.If we be more jealous than other nations, it is because we love more passionately.If some of us abroad are profligate, it is because they, poor men, have no helpmate, which, like the amethyst, keeps its wearer pure.I could tell you stories, ladies, of the constancy and devotion of Spanish husbands, even in the Indies, as strange as ever romancer invented.""Can you? Then we challenge you to give us one at least.""I fear it would be too long, madam."
"The longer the more pleasant, senor.How can we spend an hour better this afternoon, while the gentlemen within are finishing their wine?"Story-telling, in those old times, when books (and authors also, lucky for the public) were rarer than now, was a common amusement;and as the Spaniard's accomplishments in that line were well known, all the ladies crowded round him; the servants brought chairs and benches; and Don Guzman, taking his seat in the midst, with a proud humility, at Lady Grenville's feet, began--"Your perfections, fair and illustrious ladies, must doubtless have heard, ere now, how Sebastian Cabota, some forty-five years ago, sailed forth with a commission from my late master, the Emperor Charles the Fifth, to discover the golden lands of Tarshish, Ophir, and Cipango; but being in want of provisions, stopped short at the mouth of that mighty South American river to which he gave the name of Rio de la Plata, and sailing up it, discovered the fair land of Paraguay.But you may not have heard how, on the bank of that river, at the mouth of the Rio Terceiro, he built a fort which men still call Cabot's Tower; nor have you, perhaps, heard of the strange tale which will ever make the tower a sacred spot to all true lovers.
"For when he returned to Spain the year after, he left in his tower a garrison of a hundred and twenty men, under the command of Nuno de Lara, Ruiz Moschera, and Sebastian da Hurtado, old friends and fellow-soldiers of my invincible grandfather Don Ferdinando da Soto; and with them a jewel, than which Spain never possessed one more precious, Lucia Miranda, the wife of Hurtado, who, famed in the court of the emperor no less for her wisdom and modesty than for her unrivalled beauty, had thrown up all the pomp and ambition of a palace, to marry a poor adventurer, and to encounter with him the hardships of a voyage round the world.Mangora, the cacique of the neighboring Timbuez Indians (with whom Lara had contrived to establish a friendship), cast his eyes on this fair creature, and no sooner saw than he coveted; no sooner coveted than he plotted, with the devilish subtilty of a savage, to seize by force what he knew he could never gain by right.She soon found out his passion (she was wise enough--what every woman is not--to know when she is loved), and telling her husband, kept as much as she could out of her new lover's sight; while the savage pressed Hurtado to come and visit him, and to bring his lady with him.Hurtado, suspecting the snare, and yet fearing to offend the cacique, excused himself courteously on the score of his soldier's duty; and the savage, mad with desire and disappointment, began plotting against Hurtado's life.
"So went on several weeks, till food grew scarce, and Don Hurtado and Don Ruiz Moschera, with fifty soldiers, were sent up the river on a foraging party.Mangora saw his opportunity, and leapt at it forthwith.