Based on an unfinished romance by Sir Walter Scott.
THE SIEGE OF MALTA - ST. ELMO
Many times in her long history Malta has held a key position in the struggle to control the Mediterranean. Her strategic importance has been much discussed again lately. During World War II she withstood the fury of the Nazis. But, four hundred years earlier, she sustained an even more famous and dramatic siege.
For five long months in 1561 a huge Mohammedan force attacked Malta - and was defied, in a great epic of endurance, by the Knights of St. John.
The story of this siege fascinated Sir Walter Scott, who visited the island, gathered material and began writing a novel about it. Scott died before the work reached anything like a finished form. More than a century later, S. Fowler Wright traced Scott's manuscript and notes to New York, and from them wrote this splendid romance, The Siege of Malta, now published for the first time in a single volume.
It is a story of high courage and deep faith. At its centre stands the old Grand Master of the Order, La Vallette (after whom Valetta was named), grim and unshakeable as though he had been carved from the very Rock of St. Peter. But it is also a story of love undaunted amid fearful perils; of a girl who, rather than be separated from the man she loves, learns to wield a sword, and, escaping by a hairs-breadth from the clutches of the infidel, finally wins even the Grand Master's grudging admiration.
Fowler Wright - or perhaps one should say Fowler Wright and Walter Scott - paint with rich colours on a huge and teeming canvass. Here is a historical novel to stir the blood and stimulate the imagination. And its theme has become strangely relevant again today.
FOREWORD
IT was in the last year of his life, and in broken health, that Sir Walter Scott visited Malta, with the double purpose of avoiding the rigour of the northern winter and collecting material for a contemplated romance on the siege of Malta. During that time he was without the clerical assistance to which he had become accustomed, and both his Journal and the MS. of this projected book were written with a hand over which he had lost full control.
Lockhart, into whose possession the MS. came at his death, condemned it lightly as illegible nonsense, and that verdict naturally prevailed so long as its author's reputation for judgement and veracity remained unshaken.
But the fact that the entries in the Journal, made during the same period, have been deciphered, created a presumption that the MS. of the Siege of Malta ( In his journal, Scott uses the titles 'Siege of Malta' or 'Knights of Malta', indifferently, and I have followed this precedent.) would be equally legible; and the further fact that those entries are very far from nonsense and show Scott's intellect to have had, at the least, intermittent vigour (they include saner and more accurate estimates of his business position and prospects that his son-in-law was afterwards to present) suggested the possibility that it might not be wasted labour to discover what the Siege of Malta really was.
In the pursuit of this object, I traced the ownership of the MS. and its copyright to Mr. Gabriel Wells, who gave me an opportunity of inspecting it when in New York, and to whom it is a pleasure to express my gratitude, not merely for giving access to it, but for the courteous generosity of his permission to use it as the foundation of this romance.
The original MS. consists of about 75,000 words. It contains the opening scenes, and one or more later episodes, very much as they now appear. Beyond that, it is mainly an account of the Siege of Malta, which it follows to its conclusion. It is frequently inaccurate and repetitions are numerous.
When Scott started home from Naples on his last journey, in the hope of recovered health (Lockhart's suggestion that he hurried back with a premonition that death was near is not merely a doubtful guess, it is clearly disproved by Scott's own statements and by the leisurely nature of the first part of the journey) he sent this MS. to Abbotsford by sea, to await his arrival; and there is at least one reference by which he appeared to regard it as a finished work.
If he did so, it was a mistake; and had it been published in such a form it must have been a grotesque failure. But it is far more probable, as evidenced by its substance and brevity, that he considered it rather as the historical skeleton on which he would construct a complete romance in the leisure of the succeeding summer.
The short months in Malta had been used for the accumulation of historical material, and in this sense the brief MS. which he had written with his half-palsied hand had finished what he required. The opening scenes were sketched out: the historic background was complete. The romance itself could be dictated (as had become his method for creative work during several previous years) in the summer peace of his Abbotsford library.
The probability of this theory is increased by the nature of the defects of the MS. in its present form. Had it a weak or confused plot, it might be more reasonable to accept Lockhart's suggestion that it was an abortion of failing powers. But the more curious fact is that it has none. After the opening chapters, Angelica (for instance) is not mentioned at all. She fades out; and Francisco soon follows her into a similar silence. The MS. becomes nothing more than a picturesque account of the siege of Malta, vigorous in parts, but with the defects and repetitions that such a draft, so written and unrevised, would be likely to have. Whatever might have happened had Scott lived for another year, it may be asserted with entire confidence that he would not have published it in its present condition.
Its form being thus, it became natural to examine it carefully for any indications of the plot which Scott had designed to use, and this resulted in the discovery of one slight but probably significant clue.
The account of the visit of the Maltese envoy to Don Manuel, with which the story opens, contains no suggestion that he is other than he professes, unless it be in the remark of a boatman whom he first approaches, that he has the look of a heathen Moor, and in some petulance on Don Manuel's part at the medium of communication that the Grand Master had chosen. Neither of these is at all conclusive, as a genuine Maltese might have given such an impression to an Andalusian boatman, and Don Manuel would have had a similar ground of complaint against the genuine messenger. But in a later part of the MS. there is an incidental allusion to the envoy "said to have been a herald at some college of arms," as a man under suspicion of being a traitor to the Maltese cause. It is an allusion without consequence, the herald not being mentioned again, but it is obviously suggestive, and it is on the pregnant implications of that phrase, and the foundations supplied by the master of historical romance, that I have ventured to build this tale.
S. FOWLER WRIGHT.
SIEGE OF MALTA
PART I - ST. ELMO
CHAPTER I
THE sun was setting over the broad waters of the Straits of Gibraltar, and its western rays adorned with brilliant colours and violet shades the serrated mass which has in its wild variety one of the most impressive effects of mountain scenery in the world, when a light galley, flying the scarlet sign of the Maltese Cross, and having cast anchor in Vilheyna's harbour, but at some distance from the other shipping which it contained, dropped a small skiff, which pulled rapidly toward the quay.
From the boat a single officer disembarked, and had directed it to return, even before he was approached by the warden of the quay with a courteous but yet somewhat peremptory challenge of whom he was, and what business had brought him there.
It was a tone which may have owed something of its quality to the stranger's appearance, his turban, and the looseness of the white garments he wore, giving him more the aspect of a Turk than a Christian man. But he answered with the assurance of one confident alike in himself and the business on which he came.
"I am from Malta, on a commission from the Grand Master to the Commander of Vilheyna and Aldea Bella, to whom I will thank you to guide me without delay."
"Don Manuel will be at meat in the next hour, which is not a time when he will consent to give audience, unless the matter be one of an urgent kind."
"My commission is here," the pursuivant answered, showing a chain of gold with the insignia of Malta around his neck, "and its urgency would excuse intrusion were he engaged in his private prayers."
The Spaniard, surprised at the boldness of this reply, regarded the speaker with more intentness than before.
"He must surely," he thought, "be either Christian or a most insolent and audacious dog to have landed thus; though I have seldom seen one whom I would have more quickly called by the
name of a heathen Moor. But to the Castle he shall go by his own desire, and his reception should not be a dull sight."
Having so resolved, he delayed only to give charge to an assistant officer to take order till his return, and led the way from the harbour and through a fishing village that lay on its eastern side and then by an uphill road to the great castle of Aldea Bella, which stood on a steep height overlooking the bay.
They walked on in the growing dusk until they came within sight of the castle, crowning the head of a deep precipitous valley, the wide sweep of its walls being broken by a succession of turrets, both round and square, after the fashion of the military architecture of that period. The main gate of the castle, to which the road gave access, had the usual defences of barbican, drawbridge and portcullis, which were kept guarded and closed, even in this time of comparative peace, except to those who had a recognised right of entrance.
But as they came to the wide space before the castle which was left bare to prevent the covered approach of a hostile force, they were aware of a solitary figure upon another path, which was converging upon them.
"It appears," the pursuivant's guide remarked, "that you will not need to enter the castle to meet its lord."
A moment later, they stood before the Commander of Vilheyna himself, a tall, grey old man, muscular even in age, clothed in a black cloak which bore neither ornament nor any token of rank, except the scarlet sign of the eight-pointed cross which was embroidered thereon.
Don Manuel's glance passed quickly from the stranger to the servant he knew, with a sharp enquiry of what it meant that they should be there - which did not condescend to the familiarity of a spoken word - and the man answered with the brevity which he knew his master approved: "Lord, this officer comes from Malta."
The Commander turned his gaze upon the pursuivant. "With what tidings?" he asked.
"I am to inform you that the island of Malta is threatened by the instant invasion of the whole force of the Turkish Empire. The Grand Master orders that you shall - "
"You have said enough. I do not need to be told my duty by such as you. Follow me, and be prepared to answer such questions as I may ask at a later hour."
With these words the Commander turned and led the way to she castle, the gravity of the tidings he had received being scarcely sufficient to overcome his resentment at the method by which they had been communicated. "Such," he thought, "is the degradation of the times to which we have come that the Grand Master thinks it no offence to communicate his wishes through such a channel, to one who is little less than himself in the great Order to which we belong; and who is, besides, one of the greatest nobles of Spain. I can recall a time when a knight of the Order would have been the only possible messenger to employ."
It was not until they had passed the entrance and stood in the great hall of the castle that he again showed himself to be conscious of the pursuivant's presence.
"You have told all that you need," he then said, in a tone somewhat more cordial than before but still of a condescending quality, "when you have told me that the Moors are preparing attack. We know enough of the tender mercies of the infidel to understand what their success would mean to our brothers there. But we may be sustained again, as we have been in many earlier perils. I must suppose, beyond that, that you have come to intimate the Grand Master's pleasure that I shall go to his aid with such troops as my revenues can supply or that I can solicit among my friends."
The pursuivant appeared about to reply in a speech of sufficient solemnity when the Commander abruptly checked him: "But I will spare you the trouble of telling me my duty on this occasion, which it is possible that I know better, not only than yourself, but than most of the younger brethren. You must forgive me, sir herald; I am aware that our Order, following the example of many important potentates, has of late entrusted its relations with its own members or foreign states to diplomatists of your character. It is an innovation of which I do not approve, but I will assure you in few words that I shall support the Grand Master with instant speed and with all the resources at my command."
"My lord," the pursuivant replied, with a ceremonious and even humble courtesy, which yet seemed to be of deliberate assumption rather than a natural attitude, "no one conversant with the Maltese Order could entertain doubt that your Lordship would on this occasion, as on every other of the kind, show a brilliant example to the Knights among whom you have ever been an illustrious light. The summons is of routine, as I need not say and sent indifferently to all."
"So it may be, yet it remains that it is not fitting for such as you to inform me of what my duties to the Order may be. But," he continued in a more courteous tone, 'it is the hour of the evening meal, which I will ask you to share, and after which you can tell me more than it is now convenient to hear.... Ramegas, will you make this senor's comfort your care?"
He spoke to one little less than himself in age or gravity of demeanour, and who also wore the distinctive dress of the great half-monastic Order to which the Commander belonged. But though also a servant of St. John of Jerusalem, he was not one who ranked among the dignitaries of the Order. He was one of those who were known as Brothers-at-Arms, or Serving Brothers, being men of good birth and repute, but not of such rank or wealth as would avail them to claim the high honours of Malta's Knights. Such men would often attach themselves to one of courage and high conduct among the principals of the Order; and those who did this, like Juan Ramegas, and afterwards distinguished themselves by the standard of their own conduct, might gain reputation and authority far beyond the title that they were permitted to bear: but though Ramegas had thus acquitted himself, yet at his patron's retirement from the sea-warfare upon the Turks, which was now the main occupation of the Maltese knights, to the comparative seclusion of his own Commandery of Aldea Bella, the door of preference within the Order was closed against him. His time was now largely occupied in control of the estates which Don Manuel ruled in the Order's name, and his pride may have been secretly somewhat touched that he should be so completely under the domination of one man's pleasure....
Don Manuel having withdrawn to his own apartment, the pursuivant found himself committed to Ramegas's charge, and under the necessity of introducing himself in a more personal way than the Commander had required or would probably have considered it seemly for him to do.
He gave his name as Rinaldo, and described himself as being an ensign of a noble Florentine family; but having said that, he was quick to turn the conversation adroitly to an account of improvements made upon the fortifications of Malta since Senor Ramegas had last been there, and to the reputed size of the Turkish fleet, which was reported to be taking the sea for the destruction of Malta's knights, until they were interrupted by the loud clang of the bell which announced the bringing-in of the evening meal.
CHAPTER II
RINALDO found himself directed to a seat beside Ramegas at the upper end of a long board which divided the centre of the hall, and in a place of honour inferior only to the smaller cross-table at the head, which was reserved for Don Manuel himself and those of his own blood.
The Commander of Vilheyna had taken the vows of the Order of St. John Baptist at an early age, and had been prominent for over forty years in the incessant struggle which had been waged between Christian and Infidel, between Charles V and the great Turkish Emperor Soliman, for the control of the Mediterranean. He had been present at the unsuccessful defence of Rhodes, when the Order had been expelled, though not without the honours of war, which their valiant resistance won: he had taken a distinguished part in the expedition which captured Tunis in 1535, and liberated 20,000 Christian slaves. Six years after that he had been present at the disastrous attack upon Algiers, from which Charles had retreated with a mere remnant of his men, leaving his baggage and artillery for a Turkish spoil.
Now - twentyfour years later - Charles V was dead, and his son, Philip II, ruled in a Spain which still increased in dominion, prestige and wealth. But while it gained in Northern Europe and the Atlantic, the course of events had caused a gradual abandonment of the Mediterranean, which had become little better than a Turkish lake.
Soliman still lived. He still warred in Europe, where he had overrun Transylvania and reduced the power of Hungary.
Forty years before, he had captured Rhodes, driving out the Knights of St. John, who had previously held the island for over two centuries. After that, they had been granted - by Charles V - possession of Malta and the adjacent islands for the quitrent of a yearly falcon to the Sicilian crown. With the bitter experience of Rhodes to urge them, they had made the fortifications of Malta strong, and had remained there during the intervening years in an apparent security, making it an eyrie from which they had preyed upon the commerce of the Mohammedan powers.
But now Soliman the Magnificent, as men had begun to call him, designed to repeat in his age the triumph which had adorned his youth. He planned, with the aid of the tributary powers of Egypt and Algiers, to dispatch a fleet and army of ample strength to drive the Knights from the refuge which Charles had given, and to complete the dominion of the Mediterranean.
But through all these changing fortunes of forty years, the Viceroy of Algiers had learnt that he had, upon the opposite coast of Spain, in the person of the Commander of Vilheyna, a ruthless and sleepless foe. This Viceroy of Soliman, Dragut by name, had become of a great and feared repute in the western waters of the Mediterranean, where, since the battle of Djerbeh four years before, there had been no nation of Europe disposed to dispute his power, But the galleys of Don Manuel still sallied out, as occasion offered, to strike some swift and disconcerting blow, and return, before retribution could overtake them, to shelter beneath the security of his fortress guns.
It was in recognition of these relentless and long-continued activities that Don Manuel had recently received from the King of Spain a present of two large and powerful galleys, to replace others which, after facing many years of battle and storm, had become unfit to be put to sea....
Seated at the Commander's right hand, Rinaldo observed his nephew, Francisco, to whom common repute gave a more direct relationship; but since a statute of the former Grand Master, De L'Isle Adam, had forbidden, under penalty of expulsion, that any knight of the Order should openly admit that he had broken his vows of chastity by recognition of children, the relationship of nephew had become so common as to be almost synonymous with a nearer word. It was, at least, clear to all who observed the youth so seated at the side of the older man, that they were of no distant blood.
Young though he was, Francisco had already received the honour of knighthood, and had seen active service on the decks of his uncle's galleys. It was assumed that he would, in due course, himself enter the Order, and take its monastic vows.
It was a destiny to which the sons of the Maltese knights were directed, if not compelled, by the policy on which it had based its power. The estates that the Commanders controlled, originally dowered by - ancestors or others - those who had dedicated themselves to the Order's service, had become of enormous value in all parts of the Christian world, and were now commonly held on the terms of remitting a certain yearly sum to the Treasury at Malta, beyond which they were not required to make account during peaceful days, on the understanding that threat of war, or other crisis, would place their whole resources at the Grand Master's call.
Holding estates on such terms as these, they could make no disposition of them by gift or will to a son, whether so recognised or not. The only method of succession was by submission to the Order's authority, and the acceptance of its monastic vows.
Seated on Don Manuel's other hand, Rinaldo observed the Senorita Angelica, a girl little younger than Francisco, and the Commander's actual niece, being his sister's child.
The least house-boy in the castle well knew that, as surely as Francisco would be regarded as dedicated to the service of the Order of Malta, so Angelica - from the day when, at the age of ten, on her mother's death, she had come under her uncle's authority - had been engaged to enter the Convent of Holy Cross, where she would be able to confer great benefits on her family by a life of prayer.
But, having arranged this from the first, Don Manuel had seemed in no haste to part with her to her pious calling; and the Abbess of Holy Cross was in no doubt that it would be to her own interest to defer to the Commander regarding the time of introducing his niece to the house over which she ruled.
Angelica's entrance to the holy state continued therefore to be spoken of as a settled thing, though no time was mentioned at which she would begin her novitiate. In the meantime, she had remained under the charge of Morayma, a Moorish captive, who had been her nurse at the first and her duenna in recent years.
Rinaldo had leisure enough to observe the members of Don Manuel's household, and, in particular, to let his eyes linger as much as courtesy would permit upon a type of beauty which may have differed from those which he had previously been privileged to observe, for the Commander made it plain both by his silence and by the directions to which he would lead the conversation when he occasionally interposed, that he had no intention of allowing Rinaldo's errand to be discussed in the common hearing of his retainers and of the menials at the lower end of the board.
It was only as the meal drew to its end that he said, in a voice of authority that brought instant silence upon the hall: "We have with us tonight one who brings word that the invasion of Malta, of which there have been many rumours of late, is no less than a certain thing, and the Sultan's fleet may be already upon the sea. At such a need, we can have neither choice nor wish but to go there with our utmost speed, and with all the rescue that we can raise. I will, therefore, that you shall forthwith address your minds to that end, while awaiting further orders from me.... Senor Ramegas, you shall remain to take counsel with me hereon."
His words were sufficient to clear the hall in a brief space, the murmur of excited voices only rising outside the doors. When none but Ramegas and Rinaldo remained, he addressed the latter in the tone of authority which he was accustomed to use.
"I may not ask you to tell where my duty lies, which I am not needing to know, but if you have knowledge of the Sultan's latest designs, or of any special cause from which this invasion springs, you have the season to tell me now."
"There has been something of special cause," Rinaldo replied, "though it may surely be said that the very principles on which the Order is founded are such that there can be no peace between it and the Sultan's power; and the species of piracy" - here he paused as he observed that the word was ill received, and substituted another expression -" or rather of sea-warfare as practised by us against the commerce of the Moslem states, could not fail to sustain the traditional enmity which divides the Christian world from the followers of Mahomet; but the immediate cause of the invasion that threatens now is said to be the pressure put upon the Sultan by some odalisques that his seraglio holds.
"It appears that a number of these ladies united the gold that his favour gave in a trading venture that would have brought them fortune had it arrived at its intended harbour.
"They equipped a vessel of the largest size with one of the richest cargoes that have ever been loaded into a single hold. To secure its safety, it was mounted with many guns, and half a thousand janizaries manned its upper decks to secure it from capture, if an enemy should succeed in grappling it on the sea. Its commander was one of the most famous officers in the Sultan's fleet.
"But the Knights of Malta, having obtained secret knowledge of when this vessel would put to sea, had made preparations of equal magnitude. In a word, ship and cargo were captured: the captain was mortally wounded: the crew and janizaries who survived the combat were chained to the benches of Maltese galleys, or sold in the slave-market of Venice.
"The odalisques were furious both at the loss and indignity of this issue of their adventure into the merchant's perilous ways, and they had voices which Soliman could not decline to hear. They were extremely offended on finding that it was not a simple matter to obtain redress from a Master whose power they were taught to believe was absolute in extent as well as in kind.
"There is no doubt that the capture of this vessel was felt by the Sultan to be of the nature of a personal affront, and that it roused him to extremities of effort against the Order of Malta, which he might otherwise have directed toward the more active prosecution of the Hungarian war."
"I have heard something of this before," Don Manuel replied, "though in a less detailed way. Can you tell me further to what extent the Sultan's anger is shown in the force he assembles for Malta's end?"
It was a question to which Rinaldo appeared to have no difficulty in finding a full reply. He said, as Don Manuel knew to be no more than a constant truth, that there could be little happening at Byzantium, even in the palace itself, which would not be betrayed for sufficient gold, such as the Grand Master would not neglect to provide for so great a need; but he went on to describe the counsels the Sultan had received, both from Mustapha, the Egyptian Pasha (now an old man, but of a high military repute, and having been in his youth the general in command when the Knights were driven from Rhodes), and other of his greatest lords, at a secret conference he had called, with such detailed particularity that Don Manuel was led to express some wonder that he could be so fully informed.
"I am somewhat puzzled," he said, "to understand how you can have acquired information so complete, and that even of a conference which, by your own showing, was entirely protected from hearing or observation."
For a moment, the pursuivant appeared to be disconcerted by this criticism, even beyond reasonable expectation; but, if that were so, he recovered himself very quickly, and his explanation was plausible and adroit.
"So I can suppose that it may appear, and had I not thought that personal reference would have approached impertinence, I should have mentioned before that not only have I had, owing to the nature of the office I hold, a full acquaintance with all the information that has reached the Grand Master during the last year, but I have a particular familiarity with the places and individuals of whom I am now speaking, as I was captured by the Turks at the battle of Djerbeh, and was in captivity in Egypt, and afterwards in Byzantium, for nearly three years before my friends were able to effect my ransom."
"May I conclude," Senor Ramegas interposed, with a deferential gesture toward the Commander, as though to speak unasked were in the nature of a liberty in that formidable presence, "that it is to the circumstance of your captivity that you owe the fact that you are somewhat darker in complexion than is common either in this country or your native Florence?"
"I have no doubt that you may," Rinaldo replied very readily, "though, as a fact, those who are native of Malta are sometimes even darker than the hue to which I have been burned by Egyptian suns."
"That is so," Don Manuel confirmed, as one who closes an interruption which had already exceeded its occasion, "for so I have seen it to be.... I would now have you proceed."
He addressed a few further questions to Rinaldo concerning the strength and leadership of the Turkish fleet and army, from which he learnt that Mustapha had somewhat reluctantly consented, at the Sultan's urging, to take the military control of the expedition, while the Admiral Piali would command the fleet, and Dragut, with his Barbary corsairs, would bring not only a strong support to the forces that would be engaged in the coming siege, but an experience in Mediterranean warfare, which, by the Sultan's orders, his colleagues were not lightly to overrule.
And then, having learnt all that he wished to know, Don Manuel rose with an abrupt word that he would talk again on the next day.
CHAPTER III
RINALDO fount himself in a room which was comfortably, though somewhat austerely, furnished, and of a quality which showed that the rudeness (as he was disposed to view it) of the Commander of Vilheyna did not imply that he would not be regarded as a guest of consideration.
But while he observed this circumstance with satisfaction, he dismissed it promptly from a mind which was fully occupied with more urgent and important things.
"So," he said, half-aloud, but in a tongue which only one in that castle would have been likely to understand, and which we must presume that he had learnt during the years of slavery which had darkened his countenance, "I have played the pursuivant well enough, as I had little doubt that I should.... Slave in Egypt! Well, they may prove what it means to be that, if I can shake this fruit to my father's lap, as I have good hope that I shall be able to do.... The old Spaniard would learn how to bend his back, and to answer in a more abject way.... But the niece is an Allah's dream. It will be soft cushions for her! Worse than she have been sold before now for a Sultan's pet! "
With these singular reflections, Rinaldo stretched himself on the bed and passed into the dreamless slumber of those who have health and youth, and to whom adversity is a distant and unregarded foe.
He was awakened by a beam of light falling across his face from one of the narrow windows of the turret chamber in which he lay, at which he was quick to rise, seeing that the sun was already at some height in the morning sky. He went down, to be met by Senor Ramegas, who invited him to partake of an ample breakfast, at which Don Manuel did not appear, but which was attended by Francisco and brightened by Angelica's presence, with that of the Moorish governess or duenna, who appeared to be her almost inseparable companion.
It was obvious that the absence of the Commander caused a general relaxation of the atmosphere of restraint which Rinaldo had previously experienced. Ramegas was formal still, but it might be described as a more urbane formality and of an added dignity, which did not display itself with the same assurance in Don Manuel's presence. Francisco was, in physical attributes, a striking illustration of the deeply impressed and repeated characteristics of an ancient race. Although not yet come to his full stature or strength, he was a living likeness of what his uncle must have been in his own youth. There was evidence in him already of the same pride, even of the same dignity and gravity, which made his father distinguished among a race which had come at that time to be regarded as among the most arrogant of mankind; but that which in his uncle had become fixed with the hard coldness or ice, had in him the motion and impetuosity of a torrent; and he was aflame this morning with the hardly-restrained excitement of expectation. For he did not doubt that his uncle would permit him to accompany the expedition, and surely in such a position as the dignity of his name required.
Angelica was alive also with excitement of a different kind. Like her cousin, she saw that they were at the end of the quiet life in which the years had seemed so long to the impatience of youth, but had drifted too quickly past in her uncle's estimation, as he had deferred the day when he must part with her for the convent's claim.
Now, she wondered, would she be left in the castle, alone and forgotten amidst the bustle of more urgent and important matters, or would this crisis of events cause Don Manuel to decide that the time had come when the promise should be fulfilled which had been made nearly eight years before?
If so, could she contrive any argument that would persuade him to defer a purpose which she was hopeless to change, as she knew that she had cajoled him during the last three years, though he might suppose that the delay had been his own decision, the weakness of love for her?
She knew his character well enough to realise that he would tolerate no suggestion of breaking a pledge made to the Church - that the mere proposal of such dishonour would probably produce in him an inflexible resolution for its instant consummation, and she knew that, while he lived, she was at his disposal, alike by social custom and the iron bond of the law. She had also a strong affection for him, as she knew that he had for her, and she had not herself till now been in open rebellion against the idea of a convent life, which had not been entirely repugnant, so long as it remained a vague and undated destiny. Apart from a marriage to be negotiated in the Spanish fashion with some stranger of equal rank, what hope had she of a life of similar dignity or responsibility? For she knew that, even in her novitiate years, the niece of Don Manuel would have an honoured place in the Convent of Holy Cross.
In the end she would be Abbess, when the Abbess died. She would come to an absolute control over the lives of all within the convent walls: a wide authority over the convent lands: an absolute disposal of the convent wealth. There was no other position of equal importance and independence for any woman beneath a queen in the Spain of that day. Yes, it was well enough - as a dream. To take the step tomorrow, in an irrevocable way - well, what was the haste? Let it wait for another year. And beyond that - must we look as far ahead, when the years of our life are few?
"Sir herald," Senor Ramegas remarked from his place at the head of the board, which he had held since the childhood of those who must soon have come to challenge his place had the life of the castle continued its normal course, "if I may say so without offence, which is not meant, you look more closely your part in a peaceful garb than when you appeared last night with a sword girded, and that somewhat of Turkish pattern to Spanish eyes. I have always seen that those of your office had gone unarmed, as is surely meet in such as claim to be secure from capture or ransom, and to stand aside from the strife of swords."
Rinaldo looked at the speaker the while this speech pursued its leisurely course, not in a hostile, but in a somewhat watchful way, as though weighing what it might mean; but his answer was easy and frank, and there was reason in what he said.
"What you say is true, as I do not doubt, for those who move only among men of a Christian kind, where, as I suppose, your observations have lain, but on that galley by which I came - had we fallen in with the Corsair's fleet, and had they boarded our deck, would it have availed me then that I did not fight? Had the galley fallen their prey, would they have sent me home, and by what way? No, it must have been my part to take sword with the rest and drive them back if we could."
"Yes," Ramegas replied, "I can see cause that you should feel thus; though I have heard that the heralds pass without risk between the Christian and heathen hosts in the Eastern wars. But we may both have found that the rule of the sea is of a more turbulent kind. Did you see aught of the Corsair's fleet?"
When he asked that, his thought was of the galleys of the Dey of Algiers, who was the scourge of all who did business in the western waters of the Mediterranean at that time, and so Rinaldo understood it to be.
"No," he said, "though we might have had little fear if we had, unless we had been entirely becalmed, and even then we might have escaped. For our galliot is not only very lightly built and well rigged, but it has twelve oars aside, and there are not, as I am told, more than three or four of the fastest of Dragut's fleet which could overreach its speed on a quiet sea.
"But we saw nothing of them, the Grand Master having secret knowledge of where they would be, which is a matter I have yet to speak in the Commander's ear. For I was charged, if he should have vessels that he could bring or send at a short date, that I should guide them by such a route that they would reach Malta without being waylaid, which you would not wish them to be."
"As to that," Ramegas answered, "if Dragut be one who is to be engaged in this siege, we may as well fight him soon as on a later day, and I suppose that the two galleys that Don Manuel has would not be easy to take, they having been the King's gift but a short time ago, and perhaps as large and well-found as any ships in this sea; though they may not be equal to those that are built to sail across to the Spanish Main, which are the largest the world has seen. But those, as you know, are built without oars, it being of doubtful gain for a voyage of such length to take so many men as the benches need, or to be low-waisted amid the storms of the wider sea."
"Do you say your vessels could fight the whole strength of the Corsair's fleet? "
"No, I would not say that. And, for that risk, I daresay that Don Manuel will not despise the guidance that you can give."
"Yet, I dare suppose," Rinaldo went on, "that being so newly built, and as well-found as you say, they are too swift to be greatly in fear of any fight that they might think it wiser to shun?"
"I would not boast to that height," Ramegas replied, "though they are as swift as most, or as their kind can be expected to be. They carry sail of a wide spread, and have twenty oars on each side, but they are heavy with guns, and bear crews which are not much short of a thousand men. They have thick walls, and good space for the holding of stores, being, indeed, built rather to fight than fly."
"And how soon should you say that they will be ready to put to sea?"
"It may be no more than two days, as you heard Don Manuel say that he designed that it should, for their seamen are aboard now, and we can send fighting men enough from the castle here and from the country round at a day's call."
"And for stores?"
"They are kept ever ready to sail at a quick need."
"I like not," Francisco interposed, "that we should turn from a straight course to avoid a fleet of a strength that we do not know, with two such ships as we have - and with the good aid of yours." (He addressed the last words to Rinaldo in a tone of rather perfunctory courtesy.) "I should have said that there would be few so bold on these seas that they might not trim sails to another course; and, if we be in this war, it is our part to grieve Dragut at all times, and the most we may."
Rinaldo looked at him with some curiosity as he said this, debating perhaps in his mind whether the speaker were of the courage his words conveyed, or no more than a boastful youth, who had much to learn of the stern lessons of war. He seemed about to speak, but Morayma was quicker than he.
"The Dey," she said, "has a score of ships that are swifter than those two by a mile in five, and could bay them down as the dogs deal with a wolf which may be somewhat larger than they.... I pray the Virgin," she added, for she had long since taken the Christian faith, "that you be kept widely apart." She looked with such real affection at Francisco as she said this, that it must have been easy to forgive her boast of the power of her native land.
"You will be less rash than your words intend? You will think that we would see you again?" Angelica asked, with eyes upon her cousin which were so troubled that Morayma thought it somewhat more than should be shown at that time. What (she feared) would Don Manuel think, if he should see such a glance, his niece being pledged for the convent walls?
But whether or not she read the look in a true way, she could not think that it brought response from one whose thoughts were clearly on other things. "You would not have me come back," he said, "with no better boast than a skill in avoiding foes?"
There was something of arrogance in both tone and manner as this was said which caused Rinaldo to look at the speaker again in a doubtful way. It was as though he assumed his return to be beyond doubt, and resented suggestion that it might not be made with all his foe-men beneath his feet. From the lips of one so young, who could have had little experience or practise of war - But, as Rinaldo looked, he was disposed to rebuke his own doubt for a second time. The youth might have his uncle's arrogant style, but Rinaldo thought that he was one whose boast might be made good at the last. There was a quality in him that shone like a bare sword. Rinaldo thought of a time when he had been a slave who toiled under the constant threat of the driver's lash - when he had been subject to a hundred indignities that it was hard to forget. How would the young Spaniard behave if he were reduced to buying life by endurance of such conditions as those?
But while these thoughts crossed his mind, Angelica answered in a way that showed that she was neither critical of her cousin's manner, nor conscious of rebuke to herself:
"I would have you return, as I think you will, with all the honour that you have the merit to win. For I could not think that you would come back in another way. Yet I would have you use the caution which is said to come with the years, for how can later honour be won, if life be lost on the first day?"
"Your cousin says well in that," Ramegas remarked; "for rashness is ever the snare of youth, and discretion comes at a later year."
Francisco showed no resentment at this admonition, nor did he appear impressed by any wisdom it might contain. He answered with more wit than Rinaldo would have felt sure that he had:
"So the old have said at all times, and who can show they are wrong? Yet how they came alive themselves through the foolish years to be where they are is a thing they do not explain. Their rashness should have destroyed them a hundred times."
"I would take the risk," Angelica surprised their guest by remarking, "with a gay heart, were it twice what it is likely to be, if I were sailing forth on the same track."
"Senorita," Rinaldo said, looking at her in such a way as brought her to blush as she surely had not for any glance or word that had passed between Francisco and her, "I should have said that few would wish to throw down the potent arms which you now bear for a sword which you could not wield."
"You must not think," Morayma interposed in a quick way, "that the Senorita means more than a jesting word, she knowing well the parts in the game of life which are fitting for such as she. Yet I would not have you think that she could not play a more hardy part than her looks can show, having lived a free life in these hills, where she may go in safety and honour by any path that she will, they being all in her uncle's rule, and she has even had some practise in the lighter weapons of war."
"Then," Rinaldo said, with an admiration in his eyes which was of more boldness than was perhaps becoming from a pursuivant to Don Manuel's niece, "is she doubly armed, which may be held to be less than fair."
Angelica, quickly recovering a self-control which she seldom had occasion to lose, took the explanation upon herself:
"It is true, Senor Rinaldo, that I have some little practice with rapier and poniard, and can send a shaft near the mark at times, but that is not because I am of an Amazon kind. It is because my cousin and I have been reared alone, and must have the same sports or none."
"Yet," Morayma added, as though she thought her own tuition disparaged by the inferences of this explanation, "you must not suppose that they have been taught in the same way. Angelica has no lack of all arts that belong to ladies alone, even to leech-craft and the skill in the healing of wounds which I have been able to give."
"I talked not," Angelica said, "of work but of sport. Yet I would not have you think" (and here her words were for Rinaldo alone) "that I am one who would wish to play a man's part in the dirt and horror of war; but it is possible that a caged bird may look through the bars at times and wish for the open sky."
"Knowing less of hawks," Rinaldo replied, "than it might learn in the next hour."
"Yet some would think that an hour of freedom, and the right to soar to the sun, might be worth more than a longer life in the narrow bars."
"Senorita," Rinaldo replied, "you have said a good word. Yet for such as you there should be the freedom without the fear."
"Which," Ramegas concluded, with gravity, "would be to enter heaven before we die."
Rinaldo became silent. He was not unconscious of the attraction of the girl with whom he had been making exchanges which might have been no more than idle compliment, but were, in fact, of a sincerity which surprised himself, and roused the thought that to cultivate a too friendly feeling for these Spaniards of a day's acquaintance would ill consort with some plans which were private to his own mind.
"You talk," Francisco said, "as though freedom had all the risks, and there were safety and peace in a captive's gyves. If you asked of our galley-slaves, I should say you would get a different answer from that."
Rinaldo did not respond. He seemed to have retired to his own thoughts. But Ramegas replied:
"You confound restraints of two kinds; for they may be born either of hatred or love, or of such confusion of these as may come to no certain flower. For the slave toils in dread of the driver's stripes, and is gyved in a different style from that of the sure peace of the convent walls."
The words seemed to rouse Rinaldo's attention again. He looked across at Angelica as though seeing her in a new and surprising light. As he did so, their eyes met, and hers fell.
"I had not supposed," he began, and then checked his speech. He concluded: "But it is esteemed a high calling in all the lands of the Christian pale." It was clear to all that that was not what he had been commencing to say.
After a pause, during which he appeared to be withdrawn again to his own thoughts, he said: "If, as I suppose, Don Manuel will not require my presence here, I will return to my own ship, awaiting the time when you will be ready to sail."
"I know not," Ramegas replied, "whether the Commander will wish to hear further from you upon the matter you have reported to him, but I am well assured that he will intend that the hospitality of this castle shall be yours while you wait us here."
But Rinaldo excused himself with the plea that, when all was preparation and haste, it must follow that they would be better pleased to have no strangers within the walls, and when Ramegas replied somewhat coldly to that, saying that the castle could not be incommoded by the care of a single guest, be there what bustle there might, he urged pretexts of his own occupations. Yet, being urged by Ramegas, and it being put to him that Don Manuel might consider that he would show a defect of courtesy if his hospitality should be thus contemned, he agreed that he would go aboard at that time, but would return at dusk, at the banquet hour, and remain ashore during the night.
Upon this bargain, somewhat reluctantly made by Rinaldo, who yet could advance no sufficient reason which would explain a more obdurate attitude, the little party broke up and went their several ways.
CHAPTER IV
IT was at the height of noon that Don Manuel paced the high battlements of the castle of Aldea Bella, from which he could look down upon the fishing village and the harbour where his galleys lay. The quiet peace of yesterday had been transformed into a scene of activity upon which its master could look with the satisfaction of observing the alacrity with which his orders were being carried out. His plans were complete, his directions given, and he was now able to take a space of leisure for his own reflections.
The two galleys lay at the quay. They were taking in such stores as could be hastily collected and were likely to be of most use to the Maltese garrison in the coming siege. Among these it might be observed that the decks were being loaded with planks and logs and huge baulks of timber, for the Maltese islands were naturally destitute of trees, and every beam used in its fortifications had been imported from other lands; every spar that might need to be renewed on its vessels must be obtained in the same way.
The bustle which Don Manuel's orders had aroused was not confined to the castle and its immediate vicinity. As he paced the battlements he could hear the tocsin ringing in a score of hamlets among the Andalusian hills. As though an actual invasion of the Moors - who had been driven from the land a mere half century before - were impending, he had called the people of the countryside at the need of the Maltese order, to which he belonged, and whose feudatories they were.
As he walked the length of the battlements he came upon Angelica, seated at a projecting corner which overlooked the harbour. She did not appear to observe him at first, her eyes being fixed upon the loading galleys and the smaller, more rakish form of Rinaldo's vessel, which was anchored in the outer bay. She watched them with an expression of misery which he did not miss. With the real though formal kindness with which he had always treated her, he enquired the cause of her grief.
She answered with apparent frankness: "Is it not for Francisco that I should fear? He is unpractised in war, though he knows the ways of the sea, and, as I have heard, he is to go without waiting for you."
The doubt which Morayma had felt when she had seen Angelica's concern at her cousin's coming departure did not enter Don Manuel's mind. It seemed to him that she expressed a woman's natural feeling, though it is not one to which much heed can be given when trumpets call. He sat down on the stone seat beside her as he replied: "He must go, as his fathers went, on the path of danger, without which there is no honour which can be won. He is the one heir of the name I have, yet it is so I would have it be. But the prayers of those who are innocent reach, as I well believe, to the throne of Heaven; and it is such as thou whom the Virgin herself may be prompt to hear.
"I am going myself to the court of Spain, where I will beseech our king for such aid as will be of greater use than could be rendered by my own arm, even were I much younger than I now am; and, after that, I hope to join my brethren, if I can still pass the besiegers' lines.
"I shall go at sunrise tomorrow, and the galleys should be ready to sail, as I suppose, by the next day. I am giving the command of one to Ramegas, and Francisco will have the other. I was but a few months older than he when I was engaged in a fight by which I sunk one of the corsairs' fleet. I remember the grief I had that it should have gone down before we could release the slaves who were chained to the rowers' benches, they being for the most part of Christian blood.
"For yourself, I sent word to the Abbess an hour ago, that she may expect your arrival in two days' time, which will give Morayma space to prepare your needs. You will go in her charge, but she will return when you are settled there.... I have delayed your going too long, it having been an old man's weakness to have you here. But now that our lives will be broken apart, and we know not to what end, evil or good, it would be wrong to withhold you more."
The length of this speech had given Angelica time to control the first impulse of protest against a doom which she had dreaded ever since she had heard of the intended expedition the night before. Before Don Manuel had finished, she had realised that to protest would be useless, and might even be worse than that. If there were any way of avoiding a fate from which she rebelled more resolutely as its shadow was closing upon her, it must be found by herself. And what way could there be? There was no one, of whatever rank or degree, to whom she could look for aid. No one would think of listening to any protest with more than inclination to comfort or to persuade. It would appear to all to be a settled, inescapable thing. She thought of the conversation of the morning, and she saw herself as a bird behind bars that she had not the will or the strength to break. Was there really no way? Or, if there were, would it be her courage which would be too small for her need? If the cage-door stood unlatched, would she break loose that she might soar an hour in the sun, before the falcon would strike her down?
As she pondered thus, she became aware that Don Manuel had gone. She had been scarcely conscious of his farewell words, or of the hand that had stroked her hair.
On his part, he had regarded as little that she had heard his decision without response or reply. He was accustomed to issue orders which would be taken in the same silent manner. It did not occur to him as a possible thing that she would resist his will.
After that, she met Francisco, who had just heard of the command that was to be his. He was affectionate in a preoccupied way, but it was plain that he was excited by the prospect of adventure and the dignity of his new command, to the exclusion of other emotions or any active sympathy with herself. He looked before, not behind. The playmate of his childhood days, the companion of the years that had ended but yesterday, felt that she was shut out of his life. As she saw that the warship's deck would be natural for him to tread, so he would regard the cloister's wall as being natural for her. They must go out to the world by their different roads, for the days of childhood had passed since the Maltese galley had come to anchor within the bay.
She did not suppose that he had lost affection for her, which would reassert itself under more normal conditions, and of which he would become more aware as the moment of parting came. But, for the time, nearer and more immediate excitements had left her little place in his thoughts. It would be waste of words to tell him that she did not wish to ride with Morayma in two days' time, to enter the gates of the Convent of Holy Cross.
She might tell Morayma, of course. She would be sure of sympathy, and of some measure of understanding. But there would be no power to help. Sympathy alone was something for which she had no use. She was of a character which can better endure disappointment or grief if it be kept silent in the sufferer's heart.
Resolved that she would not go, she would see the last hours of freedom pass, and would go at last, as how many thousand had gone before on the same road? For what else was there to do?
The hours passed in such thoughts until that of the evening meal returned, at which she took her accustomed place, looking pale and sad. It was a contrast to the bright vivacity of her usual expression which would have attracted attention under different conditions, but now it may be doubted whether it were noticed at all amid the excitement and talk of preparation and plan which was around her, like the buzz of a lively hive, till Don Manuel entered the hall, and which scarcely lessened even under the restraint that his presence caused; and if it were noticed by any, was it not natural that she should be grieved at the thought of parting from those who were her nearest and had been her most intimate relatives? So she was left to her own thoughts, in the midst of talk to which she gave little heed - and to a growing consciousness that she had somewhat more than her share of Rinaldo's eyes.
And with the consciousness, curiosity stirred. She had, in fact, felt a certain intimacy of understanding, of a strange, exciting novelty to her sheltered life, since the exchanges of the breakfast-table, in which, with that feminine instinct which rarely sleeps or errs, she had known that she had attracted his admiration, and could go further if she should have the will for so bold a game.
And with that consciousness of the interest she had aroused, there came a lively consideration of what Rinaldo was, and a curiosity to know much more than she did.
He had the name of a noble Florentine family - that was well. He was a herald, and so could scarcely claim equality with the niece of Vilheyna's lord. He was a trusted envoy of the Maltese Order, and in command (she had understood) of the galley in which he came. So much was clear; but she felt with the same instinctive certainty that there was much more to know. She had perceived on the previous night, as Don Manuel had failed to do, that the pursuivant's humility of word and manner were little more than a perfunctory deference. He was at ease in himself, or, if there were any awkwardness at all, it was not that of one who is embarrassed by contact with higher rank, but rather that of one who assumes obsequiousness which it is not his habit to use. She felt that there was a mystery here which she would have been glad to solve, and the puzzle kept him before her mind.
Having this imagination, she watched Rinaldo's conversation as he was questioned again by Don Manuel during the meal, for her uncle had many things on which he desired to be more fully informed to enable him to put the needs of Malta before the King; and it seemed to her that, though Rinaldo answered adroitly and well, and with the same manner of deference that he had shown on the previous day, yet he was watching his words, as though he might say the wrong thing if he were not constantly wary of speech. If Don Manuel observed this, he may have thought it to have sprung from no more than the timidity of one who was so much his inferior both in rank and age, but Angelica was sure that it had a different cause. "He is a prince in disguise, and is in fear lest he say something by which his rank will become known." She thought of nobles who had been exiled from Elizabeth's court, or from that of the King of France. But he was not of such race. Of that she was sure. He might be Italian, as he declared. But she was doubtful of that. Perhaps Hungarian? She knew less of the nobles of Eastern lands. They might (she supposed) be as dark as he. Could he be one who had lost his crown as Soliman's army had spread over Hungary and Transylvania during the last forty years, like an advancing plague? Perhaps his father had been a king who had died by the Sultan's sword. Now he sought revenge, fighting the Turkish power where he could do it the greatest harm, but keeping his name concealed till he should raise it to such a height as it held before. Yet why then assume a pursuivant's part? It was that which she could not guess. But she remembered that Ramegas had said that he was armed like a Turk when he landed first. Who, she wondered in vain, could he really be?
Doubtless, she told herself at the last, he was no more nor less than he said. She made childish mystery in a heart which would know nothing of life, beyond what it could build in a world of dreams. So she would cheat herself, and the hours go by; and the shadow of convent walls was advancing to close her in. And as she thought thus, she became aware that her uncle had risen, and was addressing the hall in sombre words, which were yet lit with a high resolve.
"You have heard, my friends," he said, "of this new affront which the infidels have advanced against the Order of Malta and the Cross of God. They seek our destruction with the same undying ferocity with which they assaulted Rhodes twenty-three years ago, and now, as then, we must defend ourselves in the power of the same Blessed Sign in which our fathers were believers and found their strength.
"Touching earthly valour, we may be loth to compare ourselves to those warriors of immortal fame, but we have been sworn by the same oath to defend the Cross with the best blood that our bodies hold. We may therefore look up to God with the same confident hope that His blessing will point our swords. And in such hope, and no vain confidence of earthly might, we take our arms in the great name of Him, whom these, His enemies, have denied and would now defy.
"And touching the summons of the Grand Master to me, his unworthy brother, you already know the orders that I have given, by which the two galleys that are mine through the gift of my Royal Master the King will sail at the first possible hour, with all the stores and men that they are fitted to bear.
"But I would not that you should think that when I have done that I have finished all that is within my will or my power. At this summons I have now had, all the wealth I own, all the revenues I control, I surrender to the use of the great Order of the Maltese Knights, for it is to no less than that that we are sworn at so great a need."
He paused a moment, and there was a deep murmur of assent and approbation from those who heard, and who were in too much reverence of him who spoke to applaud in a freer way. He went on in a lower voice, that rose again to a final intensity, as it struck a more personal note:
"We will now break up this sad festival, knowing too well that we shall not assemble here again with unbroken ranks, for there is much to be done, and it would be wrong to linger with wine-cups now.
"I go with the morning light to throw myself at the feet of my gracious Sovereign, to solicit his further aid; but I trust it will not be long before I am among you all on the field of war. And for that arch-corsair Dragut, who calls himself Viceroy of Algiers, whom we know as the enemy of our own coasts, and, who has sent a message of defiance to myself, I will say this, that there is no knight of our Order by whom he has been either loved or feared. The sword I wear is still that with which I broke his helm at Golitta's siege, and if we meet again he may find that age has been no more kind to himself than it has to me.
"And here, my friends, is a health to the Christian knight, be he whom he may, who shall meet him first."
He filled his own cup as he spoke, and as the toast was drunk the feelings of the assembly broke out at last in a shout that was unrestrained.
Don Manuel raised his hand in a gesture which was at once recognition and dismissal, and left the hall without further words.
Angelica had not been unmoved, even among her own private troubles, by the tone, stern, melancholy, and at times pathetic, in which her uncle had spoken, with a depth of feeling she had never known him to show before. But through it all the puzzle of Rinaldo continued to vex her mind. In what thoughts had he been so absorbed as Don Manuel spoke that he had failed to make the sacred sign which had been done almost mechanically by all besides at the mention of the name of God? Why had he appeared to hesitate for a moment as the toast was called, so that he had been later than others to fill and raise the cup? Had he not moved his lips in silence before he drank, as though he added invocation or prayer to that which the others heard? Was it, perhaps, his own vow that he would meet the infidel chief, and did he hesitate to drink to himself, as it might seem to him that he had been invited to do?
With such thoughts contending in a confused way with the despair that darkened her mind, Angelica went to her rest. It has been said that, if a woman's curiosity be directed upon a man, she is halfway to the mood in which she will seek his love. Angelica would have been surprised if it had been proposed to her that she could think of Rinaldo in such a way. She would have felt that any tendencies she might have were for one of a nearer blood, who had shown within the last hours that he had no such feeling for her.
Yet it was Rinaldo's dark, handsome, enigmatic face, his slender athletic form, that were on the darkness before her eyes. They were his words that were in her mind: "The potent arms which you now bear - You have said a good word - For such as you there should be the freedom without the fear." She had always been treated with the respect due to her rank. She had taken as her natural right the regard which youth and beauty receive. But here was something different from the deference which domestics pay. Something new in kind, of which she could do with more - which she was never likely to have.
Why must she be held in two days from now within the narrow compass of convent walls, while her cousin would have all the freedom of sea and air and a galley's deck? She had no love for the game of war. She was not of a masculine mind. But she longed for life - to do, and not merely to be. Her mind shrank from the thought of the Convent of Holy Cross. It was like being laid in a coffin while you yet lived.
If she could have gone to Malta, she felt that she could be useful there - perhaps as much as one who could handle a sword. She had learnt much from Morayma in nursing and the curing of wounds, which had ever been a woman's province among the Moors, and in which Morayma had more than a common skill. But to ask her uncle would, she knew, be a useless attempt. There could be no greater shame to his mind than a broken pledge; and the fact that he had given the pledge, which it was her part to pay, would not weigh with him at all. It was the custom throughout the land. Has a guardian no rights? Shall the old not judge for the young? So he would say, if he should condescend to argue at all. But to move him would, she knew, be most utterly vain. To make such request would do no more than to disturb and anger his mind at a time when he had cares and troubles enough without another from her. She had too much sense, and perhaps too much regard for him, to make such useless attempt.
But suppose - a sudden hope leapt to her heart, and her pulses beat - suppose when he had gone - suppose Francisco could be cajoled to let her go on the Santa Martha with him? Three times of four she had had her way in their differences of the past. She would persist or persuade. But not in such a matter as this. It was a wild hope! Such a hope as may seem good in the night, but will shrink to a smaller size in the cold light of day. Yet, for the moment, a hope it was, and it gave sleep, and changed her dreams to a gayer colour than they would otherwise have been likely to have.
CHAPTER V
ANGELICA waked with the ease of youth when the dawn was no more than a line of light along the eastern horizon of the Mediterranean. She looked down from her turret-window upon a harbour which was already astir. Boats moved over the water in the growing light. There was bustle and loading of stores where the two great galleys lay warped along the side of the quay. It seemed that men had not slept at all under the urgency of the preparations that Don Manuel's instructions required. She distinguished Senor Ramegas giving orders upon the quay.
Further out, she saw Rinaldo's galley, the Flying Hawk, with the Maltese cross fluttering at its peak: the eight-pointed cross, red on its ground of white, which had been the terror of the infidel through five hundred years of a war that had never ceased. The Flying Hawk had its own reputation too. It was not of a weight to face the largest Turkish galleys, but it had a speed which rendered it careless of them. In the five years since it had been built in a Venetian dockyard it had a record of raids and captures, of battles with galliots of its own kind, which it would not have been easy to match.
Angelica looked and was bitter of heart that a mere difference of sex should hold her back from part or place in the great adventure which these preparations forecast. Bitterer still, perhaps, in her secret mind, in the deep instincts of womanhood, that she was destined to a life which would be frustrated in its more natural purpose, in the fulfilment of the very difference which held her separate from the busy crowd that she watched below.
It would be no use till her uncle had gone, but then, though she could deceive herself into no more than a little hope, she would try what could be done when she had only Ramegas and Francisco to cross her will.
She went down to breakfast at a later hour, and felt a new depression when she saw that Rinaldo's seat was empty and was told that he had already gone.
"He has consented," Ramegas said, "to aid us by taking some stores on board which must else have gone on our own decks, which will be burdened enough without them. But, for some reason, which must be a better one than he gave, he will not have the Flying Hawk warped to the quay. It must all go out in barges, and be hauled aboard where he now lies. When he had consented to this, he went in haste, as though he feared it might be put in hand before he would be there to control. It might be thought that the Flying Hawk were his own babe, instead of a boat that has had five years' buffets of storm and shot, and of which he has no more than charge for this voyage. It would not be hurt by a bump, if a hawser broke."
Angelica was not interested in the bruises that Rinaldo's galley was not to get. She asked: "Will he be here again for this night?"
"No. He said he would stay aboard. We must sail tomorrow at dawn, or, to be more exact, at an hour before."
Angelica made no answer to that. What was she to him, that he should dally to say goodbye or come back for so small a cause? What, also, was he to her? It seemed that nothing was all he could ever be. Yet she would have been glad to have had him to talk to now; and for him, perhaps, to say such things to her again as it would be easy to bear in mind. But she saw that that dream was done.
And while she put this folly back from her mind, Don Manuel came to the meal, which it was seldom that he would share, it being his habit to eat alone at this hour. But now he would have all the time that he could to talk to Ramegas and Francisco, as he was taking horse in an hour from then, and Angelica found that she could be silent, and none would notice at all. She felt that she had already gone out of their lives.
She had thought that a short respite from what she feared might be won in another way, when it occurred to her that she might go with Don Manuel to Seville, and to this she almost gained his consent.
"Uncle," she said, "it is four years since I have seen Seville, and I would gladly do so again. And the King I have never seen. Would it not be well that you should present me to him? They say he never forgets any whom he has once met either for evil or good. Who can say that I might not be grieved on a far day that I had missed such a chance as this?"
Don Manuel thought, and was not averse. He saw that there was a shrewd reason in what she said. An abbess might have times when she would have petition to make to a king's throne. It may be well to be able to say you are known of him.
Angelica, watching his face, thought that her point was won.
"I see no reason against that, if it will give you joy," he said, in the way of distant kindness he had, "and it would mean but a short delay in that which you have to do. You shall surely come, if you will; though I shall be in haste for one end, and - nay, but it is useless to think, for I am not like to return here. I am more likely to sail from Cadiz, when I have put the case to the King."
"Yet," Angelica urged, "I could return alone. I could take Morayma, if you desire. It is but twenty Spanish leagues to Seville."
"It is not to be thought. I ride with but two knaves, whom I must have with me where I may go. Morayma will have much to do here. Could she leave in an hour's time? I am grieved, but it cannot be."
"Yet it is a safe road - ", Angelica began, but she let the word drop, for she saw that his attention was gone. He was talking to Francisco as though he did not know she was there. It would be useless to ask again.... And, after all, it would have spoiled her chance of a larger hope.
So Don Manuel bade her a kind farewell, which would yet have been kinder had he had fewer calls upon his emotions in other ways, and rode off on a steed which was still powerful and proud, though, like himself, it had seen days when it had been more supple of limb, and had thought him a lighter weight; and on the next day he came to the King's court at Seville.
Seville was a great city at this time, very splendid and gay. It was the frequent home of the Spanish kings, and though Spain was losing strength every year, she still seemed to be of an impregnable power.
It was more than fifty years since she had driven the Moors out of the southern end of the land. She sought to make it one of her own blood, and was now doing herself more harm than good by the severity of her Inquisition against the Jews. It was less than fifty years ahead that she would complete her ruin by driving out all her subjects of Moorish blood, being 600,000 of the best that she had.
But, at this time, the Spanish monarchy was of a great and very arrogant power, and Seville, which was the favourite residence of its kings, was magnificent in its palaces and splendid with silk and gold.
There was the glorious cathedral, which had been building for more than a century, and completed forty years ago. There was La Lonja, the great Exchange, which had been built by the present King. There was La-Torre-del-Oro, a building of still greater significance, which had been erected to receive the cargoes of gold which every year the galleons brought in to Cadiz from the mines of the Spanish Main.
There also was the Palace of Pilate, where the dukes of Alcala lived, and which was said to be an exact replica of that which had been built in Jerusalem by the Roman governor; and, strangest and loveliest of all, there was still the Moorish royal palace, the Alcazar, now become the southern residence of the kings of Spain.
Philip II received Don Manuel with the royal courtesy and munificence which it was his habit to offer to all visitors of importance. There may never have been a more accessible monarch nor one whose courtesies were of smaller worth. He had just returned from Madrid, where he had parted from Count Egmont, the prince of Gavre, after entertaining him with the lavishness which befitted his rank, and showering more substantial favours upon him. Yet he may even then have been contriving within his heart the murder which was soon to follow. He knew, already, more of the contemplated assault upon Malta than Don Manuel would have been able to tell him, and had used it with Egmont as the reason why he was unable to pay a visit to the Netherlands which (he said) he had been eager to undertake.
Now he praised the energy and devotion which the lord of Vilheyna had shown at this crisis of the fortunes of the great Order to which he belonged. He gave promises of support of the most lavish kinds, which he might mean or not, for in either event it would be his policy to give them in an equal profusion. He urged Don Manuel to convey these assurances to the Grand Master, which he was naturally eager to do.
As the news at the Spanish court indicated that the besiegers might already be surrounding the Maltese island, with such a fleet that the entry of a single vessel to its harbour would be a precarious enterprise before Don Manuel could be expected to arrive before it, he decided to proceed to Sicily in a frigate of that country which was sailing from Cadiz, and to complete his journey by such means as should seem most prudent, in the light of what he would be able to learn on arrival there.
CHAPTER VI
AFTER Don Manuel's departure, Angelica saw that the decisive hour of her life had come. By the break of dawn, the two galleys would have sailed away, and, if she were left behind, she would be doomed to the convent life to which she was more averse as its shadow fell more imminently upon her. While it had seemed a distant and yet inescapable certainty, she had endured it mainly by refusing it the tribute of thought, as one in health may reject the terror of death, though reason cannot doubt that it must be faced at last. But at the near threat of some fatal malady - at the possibility that it may be avoided - or overcome - how different will the feelings be!
So with Angelica had the vague avoided terror become real and near; and, at this extremity, the resignation with which the inevitable might have been faced had broken down as the possibility of escape, however faint, had invaded her mind.
Now she saw two possible sources of flight: to persuade Senor Ramegas to take her on the Santa Anna to Malta, or Francisco upon the Santa Martha, of which he was to have command, though under the authority of the older and more experienced captain.
But when she considered the possibility of persuading Ramegas to the granting of such permission, her reason told her that it was no more than a baseless hope. Even if she could obtain his sympathy for such a project (which was unlikely enough) his sense of fealty to her uncle would forbid the possibility that he should assist her to defy his authority in such a manner. And even if he could have been persuaded to do so, she saw that it was not fair to petition for that which would involve his own certain disgrace. For Don Manuel was not one who would hear excuse if his authority were defied.
The better, if not the only, chance lay in persuading Francisco that she would not take the veil - or, at least, not at this time - and that she was resolved to help the need of Malta in an extremity in which even women must have some functions they could fulfil.
She considered also boarding his ship at the last hour, and announcing that she was resolved to go, without asking his consent, but the thought that there would be no cabin reserved for her use, no female companion such as she designed to have, and the fear above all that she might be put ashore with the ignominy of force, if Ramegas should be consulted on such an issue, deterred her effectually. For, in her more feminine way, her pride was no less than that of Francisco or Don Manuel himself. She might brave danger, she might face the unknown with courage; but the fear of failure and ridicule were less easy to overcome.
In the same spirit, she saw that, if she should fail in resolution or power of persuasion now: if the ships should sail at the dawn and she should still be under the castle roof, she would surely go to the Convent of Holy Cross on the next day without showing that it was not cheerfully or even willingly done. It would be intolerable to her pride to remain there in passive, futile rebellion until, sooner or later, her uncle should come again and compel her to that which she had tried in vain to avoid.
On this determination she sought her cousin, and found that it would not be easy to make a favourable opportunity for the interview she desired. Two days before, she could have had his society at any hour. But how great was the difference that that time had made !
She sought him at last on the deck of the Santa Martha, through the crowded haste of the quay, to be told, after a time of enquiry that had produced only doubtful or contradictory answers, that he was with Senor Ramegas in the cabin of the other ship, so that she must wait his return, having no wish to go to him there.
And when he came he was in haste and a ruffled mood, for Ramegas had told him of more than one error into which he had fallen through inexperience and slowness to consult one who was his superior officer now, and had made it clear that their ranks held something more than a nominal difference. He had to learn that, though he was Don Manuel's nephew, Admiral of the Fleet was a position he had not yet gained.
"Francisco, can we talk somewhere alone?"
"What is it now?" he exclaimed, with an impatience which, to his cousin at least, he would rarely show. "I have much to do. We sail before dawn."
Angelica thought it best to be straight and bold. "I am coming with you," she said. "I want a cabin for my use, and one for a maid whom I shall bring."
A moment before. she had had the sense of being forgotten or pushed aside, which she had experienced at the morning meal, but there was no doubt that she had his attention now.
"Coming with us! How can you do that? It is tomorrow you are riding to Holy Cross."
"But that can wait. It has done so for eight years. Should not all help at this great need at which Malta lies? There is work for women as well as men in a leaguered town."
"Have you our uncle's word that you come?"
"He had much else of which he must think. I would not vex him with smaller things."
"You will vex him more if you come here when he thinks you at Holy Cross. As to cabins, do you know that we are to bear more than eight hundred men on this ship, and that it is laden with stores? And every hour I hear of more that must come. The men of most rank must lie in a crowded way. The slaves must sleep where they pull..
"Does Senor Ramegas know this? Then you must talk to him. I am nothing here. He would have me ask whether I am to go out by the stern."
"It would be useless to ask him. You must know that. Francis, I cannot go to that tomb at so great a time. I must come with you."
Francisco heard the pleading note in his cousin's voice and considered her request in a more serious way. As he did so, he regained the self-control that he had been near to lose as he came from Ramegas' cabin a few minutes before.
"I would have you here," he said, "with a blithe heart, but I see not how. If we would do this, and let there be wrath at a later day, yet I see not how to contrive. If I should find a cabin for you, there would be those who must be turned out, and they would not keep their tongues still for an hour.
"There are some who are sore now, and have taken tales to Senor Ramegas of how I would have them lie, which I must change, though I know not how.
"It could not be done without the knowledge coming to him and, as I think, it will be better to ask him now. He would not endure that we plan it without his will. You should ask him first. It is a small chance, or else none."
"Well," she said, "I will do that." She had no hope, but she saw that there was no other way.
She went on to the Santa Anna and found its commander upon the poop. He observed her at once, seeming to have more leisure than her cousin, and to be aware of all that went on without disturbing the calm of his own mind. He met her with grave rebuke that she should have come seeking him thus.
"Was there none you could send? Did you not know you should not be here?" But when she said she wished to speak to him alone he took her to his own cabin and listened calmly to what she said.
She came out a few minutes later with but one thought in her mind - to keep back tears from the sight of the men among whom she must make her way. Ramegas had been patient and kind. A child's folly had hindered his work, but he was too self-controlled to show anger for that. Also, she was a child of whom he was fond, and Don Manuel's niece. But the thing itself was too foolish for more than a kind rebuke. He had thought her to have more sense, and that her duty would be more plain to her eyes.
When she went, he called to one he could trust to follow her back to the castle gate.
Angelica had passed through a rough crowd, and some things which were not meant for her eyes and had not been pleasant to see. But except for the slaves who were already being labelled and chained to the benches where they must row till the voyage should end, they had mostly been men she knew. And the galley-slaves had been far beneath, in the low waist of the ship.
She saw well that she would have been queen of her cousin's ship, having all the comfort she could, among hundreds who would have run at her word. And the voyage to Malta would not be long. She would still have gone if she could; but she saw that it would not be. She had done no more than to give others a cause for jest, and to soil her pride.
When she had regained her room, and could be private to her own mood, she looked out on the harbour with eyes that were bright with tears. They were tears of anger and shame, of one who was not used to defeat. She saw Rinaldo's galley anchored far out in the bay. Why had she not asked it of him? His galley would not be so crowded of men. There might be more comfort there. "The potent arms that you now bear." She had a confident thought that he would not refuse to help her up the side of the ship. But she knew it to be a thing that she could not do. She did not trust him enough - or, at least, not in the right way.
CHAPTER VII
IT was in the later day that Morayma came to Angelica, where she still sat apart in a mood of rebellion against the fate that was closing her in. The call of sea and wind and the wide freedom of life became louder and more alluring as it seemed more hopeless that she could accept its charm. She had all the hunger of youth and she looked down on a meal which was to lie for a lifetime untasted before her eyes. At least, so it seemed to her. The Abbess of Holy Cross, had she been in a confessional mood, might have told her that the plate was not always bare.
"Senor Francisco," Morayma said, "has sent for some things he needs but lacks time to fetch. There is a yellow scarf which he says you have."
"Yes. It is in my chest. It has been there since the masquerade. I will get it now."
She went to a coffer in which she kept such clothes as she seldom wore. After turning out much that it held, she came to the scarf she sought. It was last winter that she had dressed herself as a page for the Twelfth-day masque, which her uncle had chidden somewhat at first, and then praised her, as making a pretty boy. There was not much that might not be done on that night. She had borrowed her cousin's doublet and hose; a suit that had become small for him, though it had been ample for her. The clothes were still there.
As she looked at them now, a thought came which she put away, but which would come back to her mind. "There is none," she thought, "that would guess, if my hair were shed." Then she thought: "But I should be shamed if they did." And after that: "But I am slim enough, and I stride well. I see not how they should know."
She said aloud: "It is a wild thought. It is a thing I shall never try.... I should need a sword, if I did."
She might be sure that it was a thing she would never try, yet she went to her cousin's room and found the rapier he mostly wore when he was dressed in a formal way. He had left it for a heavier sword, now that he went to the grim business of war, so it was there with the belt and dagger to which it belonged, all of which she took to her own room, with some other things which were of a man's kind.
She had some gold saved, which her uncle would give her freely at times, and this she put in a hollow belt that ran round the inside of the doublet, where it was drawn close at the waist, and was well concealed. She did not know what her need might be, but she knew that to have gold at hand is best for those who wander about. There was a pouch also hanging upon the belt, at the dagger's guard, and she put some smaller money in that for an instant need.
"It is what," she said to herself, "I shall never dare; but it can be no loss to have ordered well if my mind change at the last, as it will not do."
It was in this mood she remained till the day went down and the darkness came, though her hands had not been idle the while, and after that, as the space of escape narrowed towards its last hour, she came to a mood that was both active and bold, and though it might change with another day, it might do more before then than could be undone by too late a fear.
Through the hours of night there was coming and going of men between castle and quay, and the castle gates were not closed, nor its lights dimmed. At two hours before dawn it was easy for one who walked out with assurance enough to pass unchallenged and unobserved; and it was at about that time that an old fisherman, grounding his skiff on his own beach - to which he had returned from taking some goods to Rinaldo's galley - was aware of a young gentleman who stood at the water's edge, and asked him, in a voice that was somewhat husky and low, if he would earn some coins by pulling out again to the Flying Hawk.
Vaguely, for he was a tired man, Pedro heard a familiar sound in the voice and, had there been better light, he would more certainly have recognised Francisco's clothes and given a closer look to one who wore them with doubtful right. As it was, he thought only of time and toil.
"Senor," he said, "it will be a hard pull, and the time is short, for they weigh anchor in much less than an hour. But I will do what I can."
"There is time, if you pull well. If you get me aboard I will give you something more than I said. There is this to take."
She handed him a valise which she had found heavy enough, though it was not large. The beach at this place had a good slope, and the boat could come well ashore, but as she got aboard she wetted one leg to the knee, at which she was less than pleased. Pedro had settled more than he knew, for she had resolved that he should be the test of whether her disguise would prevail. As he knew her voice as well as herself, it had seemed a sufficient ordeal to pass, and as he pulled over the dark waters of the bay, she had a better confidence that none would guess that she was not that which she appeared, which did much to control her fear of what her greeting might be when she had climbed to the galley's deck.
They passed close enough under the stern of the Santa Anna to hear the voices of those who were casting the hawsers clear, and when they drew into the shadow of the Flying Hawk they heard the noise of men who sang at the capstan bars, and the bow anchor was already awash. Pedro pulled round to the low waist of the ship, and when he hailed that he had a gentleman to be put aboard, the rope-ladder was cast, with less pause to ask for whom it might be required than there might have been in the light of day, or at any moment than that, for the sheet-anchor was hard apeak and as it came clear of the sea-bottom the galley must fall away with the wind. The oarsmen had their long sweeps ready to pull, and Angelica found that she must be agile to seize the swaying ropes before the boat would be backed away. The valise was handled in such a sort that it was by no more than a good chance that it did not fall to the sea.
Pedro pulled away in some wonder and doubt of what he had done, for, as Angelica gave him that he had earned, she had been careless to speak in her own voice, saying farewell. It seemed a wild thought at the first, but when he heard, at a later hour, that the Senorita could not be found, he had little doubt of what he had done, about which he had sufficient sense to keep quiet. He had not seen her, he said, with an oath which his conscience allowed; for who can see in the dark?
Angelica was led by the light of lanterns that swung from the masts, and the first faint efforts of dawn, along a raised plank from which she could look down on the benches of those who were chained to the oarsman's task. She had to keep her footing with care as the ship came loose to the wind, and she heard strange-tongued cries from those who controlled the oarsmen by word and lash, bidding them dip their sweeps to a task which must be sustained till the voyage's end.
She had asked for Captain Rinaldo, not knowing if that were the proper designation to apply to the pursuivant who was also (as she understood) in command of the vessel by which he came. The seaman whom she addressed, who appeared to be of the rank of a quartermaster or boatswain, but whose features were hard to see in the wavering light, had replied in a foreign tongue, which might be Maltese for any better knowledge she had, and had led her toward the poop. He had, in fact, understood no word except 'capitan', which conveyed all that she needed to say, and her dress and manner were sufficient to indicate the part of the vessel to which she would most naturally be assigned.
When she had climbed to the high poop, she saw Rinaldo there, but the man, having led her so far, either had other work of an urgent nature upon his hands, or he did not think it necessary, or perhaps wise, to interrupt the captain in his task of guiding the ship through the harbour-mouth. He pointed to Rinaldo, with some more words of the foreign tongue he had used before, and hurried away. Angelica stood in the shadow of a short mizzenmast which rose from the poop deck. She saw Rinaldo in the light of a lantern which hung over the stern. He was clothed in somewhat looser garments than he had worn when he came ashore, and had a curved sword at his side. She was not sufficiently familiar with the equipment or crew of a Maltese warship to judge the meaning of all she saw, but was aware of a barbaric tone in her new surroundings beyond anything she had expected to meet. It was exotic, even intoxicating, in its first effect, as though she were privileged to walk in safety in Algiers or Egypt, where no Christian, other than the ingratiating ubiquitous Greek, could hope to enter, save in the heavy gyves of a slave.
Finding herself unobserved or unregarded by those around, she turned her attention to the dim forms of her uncle's galleys, coming up behind with spreading widths of canvas which hid at times the lights of the castle which she had left for so wild a path. As she looked back in a tumult of contending thoughts, she was aware of Rinaldo's voice at her side.
There was now a broadening line of dove-grey light on the rim of the eastern sky, foretelling a quiet and misty dawn. She could not see his face clearly, and he less of hers, she being in shadow and her back turned to what light there was.
"May I ask to whom I have the honour to speak?"
The words were courteous, but the tone had an inflection of satire, at which her heart stirred to a sudden fear; but it was a question she had expected, and for which she had an answer prepared.
"I must ask your grace for the way I have come aboard without leave. My name is Garcio - Don Garcio of Murcia - I am near of blood to Don Manuel, and came to give such aid as I could. I did not arrive till his galleys were near to sail, and they were so thronged that I thought it best to ask if you could find me space here."
There was no answer to this, and she added: "If I have taken too great a freedom, I have no doubt Senor Ramegas will find means to bring me to his own vessel. Or I could pace the deck here, if your cabins are full below. You would not mind that?"
She did not want to face Ramegas, but it appeared best to speak in a bold way, and, at the worst, he could not put back for her. She felt that the die had fallen now, and it might not have been unwelcome to have found herself among friends again, and to discard a dress which had served its use. Yet it was not easily to be thought that Rinaldo would be reluctant to welcome any who might come as a volunteer to the defence of the threatened isle, or to refuse hospitality on a ship which the Knights of Malta owned.
"We will speak of this at a later hour." As Rinaldo said this, he moved away without inviting reply. There had been a subtle note of ironic mockery in his voice, at which her heart stirred again to that first instinct of fear.
Yet she was of too fine a blood to be lightly frightened without a cause, and her reason told her that there could be no need for alarm. Even if he had guessed who she was - which she was not quick to believe - she must be in safety enough, with the Maltese flag over her head, and its own envoy in charge. She did not forget that she was the niece of one of the Commanders of the great Order to which the galley belonged. One who was next in rank to the Grand Master, La Valette himself.
Perhaps it was just because Rinaldo had not guessed who she was that he had dared to speak in that mocking tone. He might think her to claim a rank that she did not own. He might even think her a spy. But, even so, she need have no fear. The truth would be her secure defence. Had she been really alone she might have stirred to a sharper fear. But she looked at the two great ships that were but three furlongs behind, drawing out of the harbour now, the Santa Martha slightly in advance on the starboard side, and she knew that Ramegas - her cousin - and a hundred others upon those decks could speak for her of who she was. She looked at the beauty of sea and sky in the growing light with a mind that was more at ease than it had been since Rinaldo's coming had broken the peace of the castle life, as a stone drops in a pool.
And the scene was one of beauty and quiet peace, though it might be pregnant with menace of coming war, as the three galleys, like wide-winged birds, with white gleams of foam at their sides from the measured strokes of the oars, left the dark coastline of Spain behind, and moved outward toward the dawn.
The two galleys of Don Manuel, which had been built at Cadiz, and were the gift of the Spanish king, were each of a length of two hundred feet, being among the largest ships of their kind that were then afloat. The waist was low, where the rowers sat, and they would be drenched in a windy storm, and might even be glad of their chains at such times, without which they had been sucked away by a falling wave; but poop and bow were built high, having several decks. They were like castles, bristling with cannon, crowded with men.
They were built somewhat broad of beam and round of bow, speed being less regarded than strength, and space for armaments and for a large regiment of fighting men. But they carried three masts, and could show a spread of sail that was high and wide. They had twenty oars on either side, each being pulled by three men. With a good wind they could do ten knots an hour, if not more.
The Flying Hawk was a smaller ship of a different kind. It was lean and swift. It had some height of poop, and there were gun-decks there, where it showed teeth that were strong and sharp. But the bow was lower and pointed keenly ahead, like a falcon's beak. It had cannon there on a single deck, long brass swivel-mounted guns that could be trained ahead on a flying prey. It had great grappling-hooks hung out on either side of the prow, that could be used to grip the bulwarks of a ship that might be too shy to close with less persuasion than that. With the sharp-pointing prow, they showed like the beak and claws of the deadly bird that it claimed to be.
It had but twelve oars aside, with two rowers to each, but it could make as good speed with those on a calm sea as could the greater galleys with six-score rowers that pulled on their longer oars; and with a fair wind, it could do nigh three knots to their two.
Angelica looked at it now, gliding forward with less than its full effort of sail, and with its oars stilled for a time, that it might not draw too far ahead of her uncle's galleys, which might be said to be panting behind, and she thought it to be a ship which it would be easy to love. She was at peace with herself and with all she saw, when a man stood at her elbow and spoke to her in a tongue which she did not know, but which had some sound of that which Morayma used when she met one of her own race.
The man had on a red cap, and his jacket and drawers were linen, not over-white, which might be excused on a ship that was scarcely clear of the harbour-bar and was still busy with a crowd of men who were carrying stores to the hold, coiling cables away, and removing, raffle from off the decks.
When she answered in Spanish, and he saw that she did not understand him, he found enough words of that tongue to say that Captain Hassan wished to speak to the Senor.
"Captain Hassan?" she asked, in some surprise, thinking that this must be another officer to whom Rinaldo had referred her business; but she followed the man across the deck, and it was to Rinaldo that she was led.
He looked at her in a cold way, and there was no friendliness in his voice, as he asked:
"Senor Garcio, you are, as I understand from yourself, of a wealthy house? You are one for whom a good ransom might well be paid? Should we say of two thousand crowns, or perhaps more?"
"Yes," she said in some wonder and doubt how to reply to this most unexpected query. "What of that?"
"It may be well for you that you have such friends. You were not asked to come here, and must look for the fate of those who adventure with rashness thus."
Angelica was more puzzled than alarmed by the threat which the words contained. She still thought that, if all else should fail, she had but to reveal who she was, and her safety, at least, was sure. She looked at the Maltese flag overhead, and at the two great galleys that were scarce a gunshot away, and there was no more than a foolish jest in the words she heard.
"Captain Rinaldo," she said, "you talk in a strange way. I am on a Maltese ship, and it is Malta I come to aid. Do the Knights of Malta think that to hold their friends to ransom will aid their cause? Why, all Europe would cry them shame."
"Senor, I know not what the Knights of Malta may do. I am not of their Order, nor was I put in command when this galley was sent to sea."
"Then I will speak to who is."
"If you would do that, you must call the dead."
"Do you tell me that the Captain died, and that you, being no more than the Grand Master's envoy at first, have taken his power?"
"The Grand Master's envoy is on the third bench from the fore, on the starboard side. It is he over whom the driver is standing now with his whip raised, which he will feel the first time that his oar lags, as it is soon that it will."
"I cannot tell what you mean."
"Yet it is simple to see. You are speaking to Captain Hassan, of whom it is likely you may have heard. Six days ago, I was in command of a part of my father's fleet. I fell in with this galley, which I have long lusted to take. Being six to one, we were able to gain it with little loss, having hemmed it round. I took it by the board, for I would not batter it with our guns, more than by the shooting down of some spars to reduce its speed, which were soon repaired.
"My vessels lie with their yards aback but fifty miles off Iviza's coast, and I lead Don Manuel's ships to that place, as two cows that the butcher needs.
"Yet I will not say I have done all that I meant, for I thought that the Lord of Vilheyna would have been the best part of the prey which I took some venture to have. He would have pleased my father better than all, for he had longed to bait him for many years; since, in fact, he broke his helm at Golitta's siege, though he might have borne no malice for that. It was some words that Don Manuel said at that time which he must learn to repent. My father will not be content that either shall die till he have him impaled at his galley's stern, for he has a stake there, as you may know, which is seldom vacant of some Christian to whom he may talk at will.
"There is a chance that he may honour you in that way, but it is the larger odds that he will let you go at a good price, thinking you are too feeble and mean for that which he will keep for his major foes."
Angelica heard this with a mind that was stunned by a horror that left it numb, as the pain of a wound delays till the first shock is spent.
She did not doubt it was true; nor to whom it was that she spoke. It was to Hassan, the son-in-law of Dragut, who was the Sultan's Viceroy of Algiers, the scourge of the Mediterranean for the last thirty years, the best naval commander who supported the Turkish power. And Hassan, Barbarossa's son, was his most dreaded lieutenant, to whom he had given his daughter in reward for a former act of audacity such as that which had brought her here. At least - it was her own folly that brought her here!
She looked back at her uncle's ships, striving to make pace with the swifter vessel, and thinking that every knot they gained made it more sure that they would arrive at Malta before the Turks could obstruct their way to the harbour mouth, and she felt, illogically enough, as though she had betrayed them to the doom that they strained to reach. And yet, if she could warn.... And what way could there be to that? She saw - she could have admired at another time in another mood - the superb audacity which had anchored that galley in Aldea Bella bay, with its benches of Christian slaves: slaves too closely watched, too entirely cowed by their ruthless owners, to be able to give alarm, perhaps too terror-weakened to have used such an opportunity had it come.
But now she saw only the eyes which had looked at her so differently two mornings before - which were now cruel with derisive scorn. Was she to watch impotent here while her cousin and all her uncle's power were lured to slaughter or slavery at the Corsair's will? What would be her own fate when the truth were known, which she could not hope that she would be long able to hide?
Desperation brought its own courage. If she had abandoned her womanhood for this pit of horror and shame, was she to forget also the manhood that she assumed? The sword that she yet wore?
They were alone on the high deck, in an ample space, for Captain Hassan was not one on whom others would intrude unless they knew that they were required. Bitter passion and pride, and the wild hope that she might do something to break the trap to which her friends were now led, urged the sudden movement that brought her rapier clear of its sheath. She would have struck, in the revulsion of that instant's despair, be the consequences what they might, but he was as nimble as she. The curved scimitar leapt to light.
"Back!" he cried. "Stand away!" to the running crew. "Do I need aid for such a boy's bodkin as that?"
Angelica thrust twice with a fury replacing strength. Then she knew that her rapier was snapped off at the hilt. The scimitar skimmed over her head, which it did not cut.
"You are more worth," Captain Hassan remarked, "while you yet live. Yet I see not why you should idle here. You may look again at the pursuivant that you thought me to be. He will not last for an hour. When he faints, they will cast him over the side, and his place will be bare for you."
She looked at the bench to which he had pointed before. Standing at the poop-rail, she looked down on the face of a man who was at the extremity of exhaustion and the desperation of a great dread. His bench companion was a huge negro, with a green turban about his head, who pulled strongly and must, indeed, have been doing three-fourths of the work, but the oars were beyond the power of a single man.
The pursuivant, the real Rinaldo, pulled with the knowledge that, if the oar should fail to keep its place with the rest, the lash would descend on a back that was already swollen and raw and in a torture of pain every time that it bent for the next stroke. Nature may do much under the stimulus of such fear, but there is a limit it cannot pass. As Angelica looked, the man's body sank limply forward upon the oar. The lash descended in vain upon a back that quivered hut did not rise. The oar fouled the one that came forward from those who pulled on the bench behind. There was confusion and loss of stroke till the negro lifted it clear.
The driver called two men forward to strike off the chains of the swooning man. He shouted also for one of the slaves who were held in reserve for such a need to be brought to supply his place.
Angelica saw the pursuivant's senseless form lifted over the bench, and dragged to the vessel's side. She realised abruptly that he was to be thrown overboard while he still lived. She had known, all her life, that such things were but daily events in the merciless Mediterranean warfare that had been waged for five hundred years between the Christian and Moslem powers. For the moment she forgot her own peril, even the threat that she was to take the vacated place. She turned to Hassan with a cry in which horror and appeal had an equal part.
"Oh, not that! You can't let them throw him over. He isn't dead."
"Senor," was the cold reply, "the man had no ransom to pay."
There was no mercy in Hassan's heart, for he had known the misery of a slave himself, all the bitterness and the blows, as he had toiled in Malta at the fortifications of St. Elmo, while his captors had refused to discuss any possible ransom, so that he was only released at last when Dragut made capture of a Commander of the Maltese Order, and both parties had been glad to effect exchange.
The pursuivant's body was flung over the side, to tumble for a moment and disappear among the swirling foam of the oars; but Captain Hassan's attention had left it before it fell.
Something in Angelica's voice, in the urgency of that appealing cry, in which she had forgotten the pose of manhood she had assumed, awaked memory and brought his eyes upon her with a new sharpness, even as he lifted the pipe to his mouth, the shrill note of which had been intended to summon those who would have chained her in the vacant place, and put back the wretch who was now being driven toward the bench.
"Now," he said, "you may call me fool if you will. Allah be thanked for the better light! Did not Morayma say you could use the sword? But she left the doublet unsaid. There will be no slave-bench for you - Senor Garcio. You shall have the cabin beside my own."
"I see you know who I am. There is no occasion to mock. And the sword I had was no more than a fragile thing. It might have snapped in your own hand. But if you treat me with honour, you may be sure there will be exchange or ransom agreed "
She was conscious, amid the horror of the murder she had just seen, and a host of contending fears, of some satisfaction, even relief, in the fact that he knew her for whom she was, and that the true issue alone need concern her now. She could feel confidence once again in the great name that was hers, and that might, she thought, be some protection, even in this pit to which she had slipped. Fear she must have; but, for the moment, at least, she faced him with a courage that ruled her fear. And as she heard his reply, she had need of all that she could gather from her own spirit or her race's pride.
"You will be held in honour enough. You need have no doubt about that, for it is there that your value lies. But it will be time to talk of ransom when it is asked, if at all. My father may think you a gift that our Sultan will not disdain to take from his hand; though I do not say you should look for that, for the years of the Protector of the Faithful are more than few, and it is said that his seraglio is already beyond his need. My father may think that I have done well, and that I may claim a rose for my own wreath, if I will."
Angelica checked a reply that was near her lips. It seemed that she gained coolness as well as courage from the extremity of danger which was not hers alone, but that of all who were aboard those following ships. If there were a way that they could be warned in time! She saw that the more quietly she accepted the doom that his words implied, the more freedom she was likely to have, and on the retention of such freedom must rest any hope that she could communicate with those who were now being guided to the waiting trap. She said only:
"I had no rest during last night. Will you show me the cabin I am to have?"
He saw that she accepted the position in a very quiet and sensible way, and though he might not have cared had she wept or pleaded or stormed, there being those at call who had the expertness of use in dealing with such cases as hers, yet her attitude proved her friend in securing a different treatment from that which she would have been likely to have.
"Come this way," he said, and led down a short companionway to the poop-cabins beneath their feet. She recognised in the curt order that she was now something less than either the Senorita Angelica of Vilheyna, or the Senor Garcio that she had claimed to be; but it was something gained that she was being led to the best quarters that the galley held, rather than to the hard slavery of the oar, which she would have had no strength to endure.
"There is no need," he said, as they entered the cabin in which his meals were served, "that it should be known who you are at this time, and will be better not, in two ways."
The room in which they stood was surprisingly large, though its height was little more than six feet. It was on the port side, and as they entered, looking toward the rudder, there were portholes facing them, and on their right hand, through one of which, as the ship dipped to the waves, Angelica had a glimpse of the Santa Anna. She saw the length of its starboard side, and the lifted oars gleam in the sun. She had some comfort in this nearness of friends, and a brave and yet fearful thought that their safety might be dependent upon herself. "I must warn them," she thought, "while there is time, though my life go."
While she thought this, Captain Hassan had called to a Moorish boy, and had led the way to the further of two doors which opened at their left hand.
"You will prepare this cabin," he said, in his own tongue, "for Senor Garcio's use, bringing his baggage here from the deck, and from now you will serve meals for two."
Angelica saw that she was in the stern-most of two sleeping-cabins which opened into each other and into the larger one, the suite of three taking the whole width of the stern. The Knights of Malta might crowd their fighting galleys with men, but they had spacious accommodation provided for the one, whether of themselves or not, who was likely to have command. There would be comfort for him and for one other, wife or amie, whom he might bring aboard on a safe voyage.
"You will live here," Hassan went on, when the boy had gone, speaking in Spanish again, "till we come to port, and my father will order all. You may think that you can call to your friends, but you know more than I, if you know how. For even could you swim such a length through the waves (which it would be random to think), you would be shot from these decks as you rose from the first dive, nor would your friends haul a yard that they might come by your way, for they will not pick up that which a consort drowns."
Angelica feared, as he said this, that he might have observed a moment's change in her face, for to swim to her uncle's ships had been a faint hope that had already come to her mind, though it had also filled it with fear. For, having been born at the sea's side, and of a race that had been less often on land than a ship's deck, she had learnt to swim, which she could do well, though she had never put her strength to a test such as this would be sure to be.
"If you are wise," he went on, "you will put such thoughts from your mind, for your own peace. You can bar these doors or not, as you will. While I live, you will be troubled by none till this voyage is through. And you can drive that toy" (looking at the dagger that hung from her belt) "into my back at a likely time, if your folly rise to that height; but it will be no avail to your friends nor to yourself. If you should do that, you might pray for a quick death in the next hour. There are three hundred men on this ship, besides slaves, and no woman at all. They would have no mercy on one who had wrought my death; and what they would do, should they find that which you are, I may guess but I will not say. You might be glad at the last to be impaled on the stake you will have seen at the helmsman's side, which your friends of Malta have used to the torture of those of the True Faith, as its stains attest, but which will bear Christian fruit from this day."
"I am not of those," she said, "who slay sleeping men or who will strike at the back, as I think you know."
"Are you not? There are few, either women or men, who will not do that at an urgent fear, unless they are faint of heart, which I do not think that you are. I will trust your sense as a better pledge."
"You may trust what you will. While you leave me at peace, I shall not desire evil to you. I can see that it might be to fall into more difficult hands."
"Then we are agreed for this time." He went back to the deck.
Angelica remained in the larger cabin, which was furnished in the style of the Italian luxury of that time, having much of novelty to one who had been brought up in the austere atmosphere of Andalusian grandeur, while the boy Alim prepared her own cabin, fitting with soft cushions and silk coverings a deep-sided berth, which was more fit for a woman's ease than the man she proposed to be.
When he had gone, she lay down in the berth, though without discarding her clothes, for, having had no rest during the previous night, she was physically and mentally exhausted by the experiences through which she had gone. Now, while adversity threatened but paused to strike, she lay for some time devising plans by which she might reach her friends who were so near, and so much more numerous and powerful than these men by whom she was held. But her thoughts showed her no more than the strength of the trap into which she had walked, in a blind way; and, after a time, with the resilient spirit of youth, she passed into dreamless sleep, from which she waked in a mood of buoyant hope, having little cause, beyond the fact that there appeared to be a short space of days during which she need have no imminent fear.
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