The Heart's Secret; Or, the Fortunes of a Soldier Part 13

The young soldier looked at her silently for a moment; at first he seemed puzzled; he was weighing in his own mind the meaning of all this as contrasted with the repulse he had just received, and with the estimate he had before formed of her; at last, seeming to read the spirit that had possessed her, he said:

"Ah, lady, I bless you a thousand times for that tear!"

"Nay, sir, I do not understand you," she said, quickly.

"Not your own heart either, lady, else you disguise its truth. Ah!

why should all this be so? why should hearts be thus masked?"

"Sir, this is positive impertinence," said Isabella Gonzales, struggling once more to summon her pride to sustain her.

"Impertinence, lady?" repeated the prisoner, sadly.

"That was my word, sir," answered the proud girl, with a.s.sumed harshness.

"No, it would be impossible for me, on the very brink of the grave, to say aught but the truth; and I love you too deeply, too fervently, to be impertinent. You do not know me, lady. In my heart I have reared an altar to wors.h.i.+p at, and that shrine for three years has been thy dearly loved form. How dearly and pa.s.sionately I have loved-what a chastening influence it has produced upon my life, my comrades, who know not yet the cause, could tell you. To-morrow I must die. While I hoped one day to win your love, life was most dear to me, and I was happy. I could then have clung to life with as much tenacity as any one. But, lady, I find that I have been mistaken; my whole dream of fancy, of love, is gone, and life is no better to me than a burden. I speak not in haste, nor in pa.s.sion. You must bear me witness that I am calm and collected; and I a.s.sure you that the bullets which end my existence will be but swift-winged messengers of peace to my already broken heart!"

"Captain Bezan," said Isabella, hesitating, and hardly speaking distinctly.

"Well, lady?"

"How could you have so deceived yourself? How could you possibly suppose that one in your sphere of life could hope to be united to one in mine?" asked Isabella Gonzales, with a half averted face and a trembling voice, as she spoke. "It was foolhardy, sir; it was more than that; it was preposterous!"

"Lady, you are severe."

"I speak but truth, Captain Bezan, and your own good sense will sustain it."

"I forgot your birth and rank, your wealth-everything. I acknowledge this, in the love I bore you; and, lady, I still feel, that had not my career been thus summarily checked, I might yet have won your love. Nay, lady, do not frown; true love never despairs-never is disheartened--never relinquishes the object that it loves, while there is one ray of light yet left to guide it on. It did seem to me now, when we are parting so surely forever, that it might have been, on your part, more kindly, and that you would, by a smile, or even a tear-drop, for my sake, have thus blessed me, and lightened my heavy steps to the field of execution and of trial."

Isabella Gonzales, as she listened to his words, could no longer suppress her feelings, but covering her face with her hands, she wept for a moment like a child. Pride was of no avail; the heart had a.s.serted its supremacy, and would not be controlled.

"You take advantage of my woman's heart, sir," she said, at last. "I cannot bear the idea that any one should suffer, and more particularly one who has endeared himself to me and mine by such important service as you have done. Do not think that tears argue aught for the wild tale you have uttered, sir. I would not have you deceive yourself so much; but I am a woman, and cannot view violence or grief unmoved!"

"Say, rather, lady," added the soldier, most earnestly, "that you are pure, beautiful, and good at heart, but that pride, that only alloy of thy most lovely character, chokes its growth in your bosom."

"Sir!"

"Well, Senorita Isabella."

"Enough of this," she said, hastily and much excited. "I must leave you now, captain. It is neither fitting that I should hear, nor that you should utter such words as these to Isabella Gonzales.

Farewell!"

"Lady, farewell," replied the prisoner, more by instinct than by any comprehension that she was actually about to leave him.

"I pray you, Captain Bezan, do not think that I cherish any unkind thoughts towards you," she said, turning when at the door; "on the contrary, I am by no means unmindful of my indebtedness to you; but far be it from me to sanction a construction of my feelings or actions which my heart will not second."

"Lady, your word is law to me," replied the submissive prisoner.

When she had gone, and the rough grating of the turnkey's instruments had done sounding in his ear, Captain Bezan remained a moment looking upon the slot where she had stood, with apparent amazement. He could not realize that she had been there at all; and hardest of all, that she had left him so abruptly. But her "farewell" still rang in his ears, and throwing himself upon his rude seat, with his face buried in his hands, he exclaimed:

"Welcome, welcome death! I would that thou wert here already!"

After a few moments thus pa.s.sed, as it were, in the very depths of despair, he rose and walked his dreary cell in a sad and silent reverie, a reviewal of all these matters.

"How I have mistaken that beautiful creature, how idolized, how loved her! I knew that there was much, ay, very much, of pride in her heart. I knew the barriers that rose between her and me; but, alas, I thought them not so very at high, so very impregnable. I would not, could not, have believed that she would have left me thus. It was our last farewell. She might have been more kind; might, without much risk of loss of pride have permitted me such a parting as should have rendered my last hours happy! Alas! alas!

what toys of fortune we are; what straws for every breeze to shake-for every wind to shatter!

"We set our hearts upon an object, and blinded by our warm desires, believe, like children, that which we hope for. I have never paused to think in this matter of my love, I have been led ont too precipitately by the brilliancy of the star that I followed; its light blinded me to all other influences; and, too truly, I feel it, blinded me to reason also. Isabella Gonzales, the belle of this brilliant city, the courted, beloved, rich, proud Isabella Gonzales; what else might I have expected, had one moment been permitted to me for reason, for cool reflection. I was mad in my fond and pa.s.sionate love; I was blind in my folly, to ever dream of success. But the end will soon be here, and I shall be relieved from this agonizing fever at my heart, this woeful pain of disappointed love, of broken-heartedness."

He folded his arms, and permitting his head to sink upon his breast, sat down, the very picture of despair.

CHAPTER IX.

THE EXECUTION SCENE.

THE morning was bright and beautiful that ushered in the day which was appointed for the execution of Captain Lorenzo Bezan, in accordance with the sentence pa.s.sed upon him. The birds carolled gaily in the little grove that is formed about the fountain which fronts the governor-general's palace and the main barracks of the army, while the fresh, soft air from inland came loaded with delicious flavors and sweet aroma. Nature could hardly have a.s.sumed a more captivating mood than she wore at that time.

The soldiers, who sauntered about the Plaza, and hung around the doors of the guard house, wore an air quite different from that which the bright and beautiful tropical morning might be supposed to induce. They knew only too well of the tragedy that was that day to enacted; such occasions-the spilling of the tide of life, in cold blood-suited not their chivalrous notions at any time, much less so now, for they loved the officer who was to lose his life-a victim to Harero-whom, again, few men respected, either as a soldier or a man-his character was repulsive to nearly all.

"So the captain is to be shot to-day," remarked one of Captain Bezan's own company, to a comrade whom he had just met in the Plaza.

"Yes, I had rather it had been--"

"Hush, Alonzo," said his companion, observing General Harero walking across the street.

"That is he, and he is the only man I ever saw," continued the officer, "that I would like to see shot in cold blood. Poor Bezan, he's sacrificed to the general!"

"I wonder what gave the trouble between them."

"Don't know; some say there's a lady in the case."

"I hadn't heard of that."

"Yes, you know he challenged the general?"

"Yes,"

"Well, that was about a lady, in some way; I heard one of the officers say so."

"The first file do the business."