The Siege of Malta

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER IVIt 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 raking 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 to-morrow, 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 realized 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 pre-occupied 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 re-assert 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 half-way 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.