CHAPTER IX.
DONA ANGELA.
Before relating, however, what took place at Guetzalli between deLaville and the colonel, we must return to the adventurers' encampment.
Louis, still holding the maiden pressed to his breast, carried her tothe interior of the hut of branches which his comrades had built forhim at the entrance of the church. On arriving there he laid her in achair, and seated himself on a stool. There was a long silence, duringwhich both reflected deeply. A strange phenomenon took place in Louis'heart. In spite of himself he felt hope returning to his soul: heinhaled life through every pore--a desire to live came back to him. Hethought of the future--that future he had wished to destroy in himself,by choosing as his mode of suicide the mad and rash expedition at thehead of which he had placed himself.
The heart of man is made up of strange contrasts. The count had wrappedhimself up in his grief; he had, as it were, settled it in his mind,living with it and through it, making it in his own eyes an excuse forjustifying the line of conduct he had traced for himself, or ratherwhich his foster brother had made him adopt, only desiring and acceptingthe bitterness of life, and disdainfully rejecting the joy and happinessit contains. Now, though unable to account for the extraordinaryrevolution that had taken place in him, he instinctively felt that griefhe had so nurtured and petted growing: less, and ready to disappear, tomake room for a gentle and dreamy melancholy, which, before he thoughtof wrestling with it and tearing it from his heart, had put forth suchpowerful roots that he felt it had seized on his whole being.
This new feeling was love. All passions are in the extreme, and, aboveall, illogical. Were they not so, they would no longer be passions. DonLouis loved Dona Angela. He loved her with the love of a man who hasreached the confines which separate youth from age; that is, furiouslyand frenziedly. He loved her and hated her at the same time; for hewas angry with this new love, which caused him to forget the old, andrevealed to him that the heart of man may at times slumber, but neverdie. The empire the maiden held over him was the stronger and morepowerful, because physically and morally she afforded the most strikingcontrast to Dona Rosaria, the gentle creature with angel's wings, thecount's first love. Dona Angela's majestic and severe beauty, herimpetuous and ardent character--all in her had seduced and subjugatedthe count. Hence he was angry at the power he had unconsciously allowedher to gain over his will, and blamed as a weakness unworthy of hischaracter the reaction which this love had effected in his heart, byobliging him to recognise that it was still possible for him to be happy.
Louis was far from forming an exception in the great human family.All men are alike. When they have arranged their existence under theinfluence of any feeling, either of joy or grief, they take pleasure inthe continual development of that feeling, convert it into a portionof their being, and intrench themselves behind it as in an impregnablefortress; and when, by some sudden blow, the edifice they have takensuch pains to construct falls in ruins, they feel angry with themselvesfor not having known how to defend it, and, as a natural consequence,blame the innocent cause of this great overthrow.
While reflecting, the count had let his head sink on his breast,isolating himself in his thoughts, and plunging deeper and deeperinto his sombre reverie, following instinctively the incline on whichhis mind was at the moment gliding. He raised his eyes, and fixed onDona Angela a glance in which all the feelings that agitated him werereflected. The maiden was lying back, with her face buried in her hands:the tears were slowly dropping between her fingers, and resembled a dewof pearls. She was weeping gently and noiselessly: her breast heavedconvulsively, and she seemed a prey to intense grief. The count turnedpale. He rose hurriedly, and walked toward her.
At this sudden movement Dona Angela let her hands sink, and regardedDon Louis with such a gentle expression of resigned grief and truelove, that the count felt a thrill of happiness flush through his body.Exhausted, overcome, he fell on his knees, murmuring in a panting andbroken voice,--
"Oh! I love you--I love you!"
The maiden half rose from her seat, bent over him, and regarded him fora long time pensively. Suddenly she fell into his arms, laid her headon his shoulder, and began sobbing. The count, alarmed by this grief,the cause of which it was impossible for him to discover, gently put herback on her chair, sat down by her side, and took her hand, which heheld between his own.
"Why these tears?" he asked her tenderly. "Whence comes this grief thatoppresses you?"
"No, I am not weeping. Look!" she replied, trying to smile through hertears.
"Child, you conceal something from me--you have a secret!"
"A secret! That of my love. Did I not tell you that I love you, Louis?"
"Alas! and I, too, love you," he replied sorrowfully. "And yet I cannotthink of that love without alarm."
"Why so if you love me?"
"If I love you, child! For you and your love I would sacrificeeverything."
"Well?" she said.
"Alas, child! I am an accursed man. My love is deadly, and I tremble."
"What greater joy than to die for the man I love?"
"I am proscribed--a pirate, an outlaw."
She drew herself up proudly and haughtily, with frowning brow, dilatednostrils, and flashing eye.
"You are truly noble, Don Louis!" she almost shrieked in her excitement."You have dreamed of the regeneration of an enslaved people. What doI care for the names given you, my friend? The day will come whenbrilliant justice will be done you." Then growing gradually calmer, shesmiled tenderly. "You are proscribed, my poor darling," she said gently;"and is it not woman's mission in this world to support and console? Thestruggle you are about to undertake will be terrible. Your project isalmost a madman's for grandeur and boldness: perhaps you will succumbin this struggle. You need, not a counsellor or a brother, but a womanfriend whose soul understands yours; from whose heart your heart keepsno secrets; who consoles you, and cries 'Courage!' when you allowdespair to master you, and when, like a vanquished Titan, you feel readyto retire. That faithful, devoted friend, ever watchful over you and foryou, I will be, Don Louis--I who will never leave you, and who, if youfall, will fall by your side, struck by the same blow that crushed you."
"Thanks, child; but I am not worthy of such sublime devotion. Think ofthe painful existence you create for yourself--think of the pleasantcalm and peaceful life you leave behind you, to affiance yourself togrief, perchance to death."
"What do I care for that? Death will be welcome if it come by your side.I love you!"
Don Louis hesitated.
"Think," he said presently, "of the immense grief of your father, whomyou abandon--your father who loves you so dearly, and has only you----"
She laid her hand quickly on his lips.
"Be silent--be silent!" she screamed in a heart-rending accent. "Do notspeak of my father. Why do you say that to me? Why augment my despair?I love you, Don Louis--I love you! Henceforth you are everything tome--fortune, parents, friends--all, I tell you. From the day when Ifirst saw you, powerful and terrible as the exterminating angel, myheart fled toward yours. Something, a presentiment perhaps, revealedto me that our two destinies were for ever enchained to each other.When I saw you again my heart had divined you, but I remained in theshadow, for you did not need me; but now times are changed. You arebetrayed, tracked, abandoned, by those whose interest it would havebeen to support you. The country you have come to deliver renouncesyou. My father, whose life you saved, has become your most implacablefoe, because you spurned his offers, and would not serve his paltryand shameful ambition. Well, I, intrenching myself in my heart as in afortress, have in my turn renounced my country, abandoned my father,and, like a true daughter of the Mexican volcanoes, feeling lavainstead of blood coursing in my veins, bounding with indignation atthe numberless acts of treachery which have begirt you on all sides--Ihave forgotten everything, even that modesty innate in maidens, anddefying that world which I abhor and despise, because it rejects you, Ihave come t
o you to love you--to render sweeter the few days which areperhaps still left you to live; for I do not deceive myself as to thefuture any more than you do, Don Louis. And when the fatal hour arrives,when the hurricane bursts above your head, I shall be there to supportyou by my presence, to encourage you by my boundless love, and to die inyour arms!"
There is in the woman who really loves, and whom passion masters, sogrand a magnetic attraction, a poesy so powerful, that the man withthe greatest self-restraint feels, in spite of himself, a species ofvoluptuous dizziness, and suddenly finds his reason desert him, only tosee that love he inspires, and of which he is proud.
"But you wept, Angela," the count said. "Your tears are still flowing."
"Yes," she continued energetically, "I wept--I still weep. Well, cannotyou guess why, Don Louis? It is because I am a woman, after all; becauseI am weak, and, in spite of all my will and all my love, my rebelliousnature is struggling with my heart; and because, in order to follow you,and give myself up to you, I despise all that a woman ought to rememberunder such circumstances, confined as she is by the miserable claimsof a puny civilisation, a slave to stupid proprieties, and compelledconstantly to hide her feelings in order to play an infamous comedy.That is why I wept--why I still weep. But what matter these tears, mywell-beloved? There is as much joy as shame in them, and they prove toyou the triumph you have gained over me."
"Angela," the count answered nobly, "I will deceive neither your lovenor your confidence. Your happiness will not depend on me."
She gave him a glance of sublime abnegation.
"Nothing but your love!" she said gently. "I want nothing but that. Whatdo I care for aught else?"
"But I care that the woman who has given up all for me should not sinkin public opinion, and be scandalised."
"What will you do?"
"Give you my name, my child--the only property left me. At any rate, ifyou are the companion of a pirate," he said bitterly, "no one shallreproach you with being his mistress. In the eyes of the world, I swearit to you, you shall be his wedded wife."
"Oh!" she said, clasping her hands in mad delight.
"Good, brother!" Valentine said as he entered the hut. "I will take onmyself to have your union blessed by a simple-hearted priest, to whomthe Gospel is not a dead letter, and who understands Christianity in allits gentle and touching grandeur."
"Thanks, Don Valentine."
"Call me brother, madam; for I am so to you, as I am his brother. Youare a noble creature, and I thank you for the love you bear Don Louis.And now," he added, with a smile, "there will be a struggle between us:there are two of us to love him."
The count, his eyes filled with tears, but not finding words to expressall he felt, held out his hands to these two beings, who were so goodand so devoted, with an emotion that came from the heart.
"Now," Valentine said gaily, to change the conversation, "let us talkabout business."
"Business!"
"By Jove!" the hunter said with a laugh, "it seems to me that, for themoment, what we have on hand is sufficiently important for us to troubleourselves about it."
"That is true," Louis answered; "but can we, in the presence of thislady----"
"That is true: I did not think of that. I am so little accustomed tosociety, I trust the lady will pardon me."
"Permit me, gentlemen," she said with a smile: "a woman is often a goodcounsellor, and under present circumstances I believe I can be of someuse to you."
"I do not doubt it," the hunter said politely; "but----"
"But you do not believe a word of it," she laughingly interrupted, herpetulant character gaining the upper hand again. "However, you shalljudge for yourselves."
"We are listening," the count said.
"My father is at this moment making great preparations: his objectis to crush you before you are prepared to undertake a campaign. Allthe Indios Mansos capable of bearing arms are called out, and anextraordinary levy of troops is ordered through the whole of Sonora."
"Ah, indeed!" Louis observed. "Those are tremendous preparations."
"That is not all. Is there not somewhere near here a French colony?"
"Yes, there is," the count said, suddenly becoming serious; "the colonyof Guetzalli."
"My father intends to send there, if he has not done so already, hisaide-de-camp, Colonel Suarez."
"For what purpose?"
"I suppose to neutralise, by the brilliant promises made to thecolonists, the assistance you might expect from them."
Louis became pensive.
"We must make up our minds," Valentine said sharply, "while thecompany is preparing, to open the campaign speedily. We must send somesafe person to Guetzalli. As the colonists are French it is impossiblefor them not to make common cause with us in a quarrel like thatwhich compels us to take up arms, and which concerns them as much asourselves."
"You are right, brother. No more delay; but let us act vigorously. Youwill accompany me to Guetzalli."
"What do you mean?"
"It is only two days' journey at the most from here. It is always bestto manage one's own business; and besides, nobody can obtain from thecolonists so much as I can."
"How so?"
"That is too long a story to tell you now. It is enough for you to knowthat, on a recent occasion, I rendered rather a great service to thecolony, which I hope they have not yet had time to forget."[1]
"Oh, oh! if that be the case, I no longer object. In truth, no one canhave a better hope of succeeding in the negotiation than yourself. Letus go, then; and may Heaven aid us!"
"Let us go," Louis answered.
"Well," Dona Angela said with a smile, "did I not say I should be a goodcounsellor?"
"I never doubted it, madam," the hunter replied gallantly. "Besides, itcould not be otherwise, as my brother assured us that you would be ourguardian angel."
Don Louis, after handing the command over to the first lieutenant, andrecommending the greatest activity and vigilance, announced to hiscomrades his temporary absence, though he did not reveal to them theobject of his journey, in order not to discourage them in case hisnegotiation failed; and at sunset, followed only by Valentine, and aftersaying farewell to Dona Angela once more, he left the mission, andstarted at a gallop on the road to Guetzalli.
[1] See "The Tiger Slayer." Same publishers.
The Indian Chief: The Story of a Revolution Page 9