The Siege of Malta

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IIIRinaldo found 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 Señor 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 of 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 realize 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 to-morrow, 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,” Señor 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 over-reach 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 foemen 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.”

“Señorita,” 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 Señorita 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, Señor 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 sss 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 leechcraft 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.”

“Señorita,” 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.