hardly refrain from exclaiming that he was better than all of them put together; but she coughed and bit her lip, and by a supreme effort kept the tears out of her eyes.
“And when they found they were slighted, while he was allowed to come and strum night after night at the reja, they grew furious. None were more indignant than the two cousins Leonardo and Gaspar de Contreras. One night, as they were passing casually by Doña Josefa’s house, and saw Don Pedro standing under the window, basking in the smiles of the lady, while they had to wander by as unrecognized outcasts, their blood was up, and without reflection or premeditation, they set upon him there and then, without calling upon him to defend himself, and killed him like a – ”
“But what ails you, fair sir?” ejaculated the speaker, as he observed poor Josefa making vain efforts to look indifferent, and trembling from head to foot.
“Nothing, sir, thank you,” stammered Josefa bravely; “the wind is high to-night. With your permission I will e’en close this window.” The moment’s seclusion from the company, and the gasp of air thus gained, enabled her to appear once more a not too eager listener.
“I can now understand why the Contreras are running away like —dogs,” she replied, not without some little display of feeling, for she burned to bandy back against the assassins the epithet which, though it had not been breathed, had so nearly been applied to her lover.
A very little more talk elicited that the cousins expected to find a ship sailing from Cartagena in three days; in the mean time they were making the best of their way to the coast. Worn out with the long tension of suppressed emotion, Josefa was glad to retire as soon as there was a break in the conversation.
Next morning she purchased a horse, fleet as the wind, and arrived the same night at Cartagena; and here she once more set to work to find out the retreat of the assassins. In this, fortune again favoured her. For having placed her horse in a stable, and hired a room in the principal inn for herself, she sat down beside an open window, while she thought upon the plan to pursue. As she sat here, her attention was arrested by a conversation going on between two men seated under a leafy parral13, which effectually concealed her from their sight.
“Where are you going to-night, so finely arrayed?” inquired one of the voices.
“Where every one is going,” responded the other; “to the house of Don Juan Mancilla, for he gives a right noble banquet in honour of two guests he has staying with him, natives of Valencia. He is to give a representation of a comedy, and many other fine things.”
Doña Josefa held her breath, and leant further out of the window.
“Something I heard of their arrival yesterday morning,” rejoined the first voice. “But why all this haste? Methinks the comedy would have been the better got up for one or two days’ rehearsal.”
“Ah, but you see, the Valencians take ship at half-past twelve this very night,” replied the other; and then in a lower key, “They are even now running from Valencia for some charge of a duel there – ”
“Hold, man, hold!” warily ejaculated the first voice; “who knows who may overhear you?”
Doña Josefa had overheard enough; her work now up to half-past twelve was but to learn the situation of Don Juan Mancilla’s house, and the way thence to the harbour; no difficult task, for Don Juan Mancilla’s was one of the first names in Cartagena; and near the landing-place she met a garrulous servant of the Contreras, who was easily led to speak of his masters’ movements. Between the two points lay an alameda, or promenade, planted with poplars, such as adorns the outskirts of every Spanish town, affording a most convenient spot for the rencontre for which she had now with beating heart to lie in wait.
The tress which on that last sad night she had severed from her lover’s fair young head, and which now alone remained of him who had been all to her, in her hand, she paced backwards and forwards under the pollard poplars, like a knight keeping watch before a sacred shrine. Her thoughts wrapt in the absorbing memories of the past, and the fantastic part fate had assigned to herself, she had taken no note of how the hours had sped by, and when the clocks chimed out the hour of mid-night, it came upon her as a sudden warning. Not many minutes more had elapsed, before she perceived two cavaliers advancing towards her, whom her eye, practised by long acquaintance, readily recognized as the game she had come so far to seek. Their loud talk, swaggering mien, lofty stature, and moreover the clanking of their swords as they walked, reminding that in Valencia the Contreras bore the reputation of the most accomplished fencers of all the country round, might have made a less resolute heart faint even then, and give up the enterprise. But Doña Josefa never flinched. With one foot firmly planted on the path, and resting on the other as a kind of prop, placed in position to support her against any attempt to thrust her aside, she stood firmly and calmly waiting their approach.
“Don Leonardo, and you, Don Gaspar Contreras!” she said, as soon as they had advanced within hearing, “know ye, who I am?”
“Another time, good friend,” said Don Leonardo impatiently, and tried to pass on.
“We are pressed, and have but time to join our ship,” said Don Gaspar; and he endeavoured, though not without courtesy, to make his way past her.
“You must hear me, Señores de Contreras,” rejoined Doña Josefa in a hollow voice; “and when you have heard me, you will never want a ship more.”
“Come, this is more than pleasantry!” exclaimed Don Leonardo, getting angry.
“Make way, good sir; you see we are pressed for time,” said Don Gaspar, more conciliatingly; for he felt it was no time for picking a quarrel.
“It is no pleasantry, indeed!” Doña Josefa had replied almost before he spoke; “but most serious earnest. Señores de Contreras, again I ask, Do you know me?”
“What does this trifling mean?” exclaimed Don Leonardo, hotly, and at the same time putting his hand on his sword.
“It means,” replied Josefa, calmly and solemnly – “It means that you are called to answer with your vile lives for the noble life of Don Pedro Valenzuela, whom you treacherously slew without so much as calling on him to draw. My sword is the sword of justice, not of the assassin; yet I call on you to defend yourselves, if you dare!”
“Good sir, you rave; we are not those you seek; and we know not who you are!” interposed Don Gaspar, putting his hand on Don Leonardo’s sword-arm, for he had already drawn.
“I have twice asked you if you do not know me,” answered Josefa. “Now, then, I tell you: I am Doña Josefa Ramirez y Marmolejo. Have I not a right to avenge the blood of Don Pedro Valenzuela?”
“Ho! ho! so brave anon, you would now make this pretence of womanhood a shield. Methinks your tongue knows not the timidity of woman, and that your arms are no woman’s toys,” blurted out Don Leonardo contemptuously, despite of Don Gaspar’s warnings.
“Draw! Don Leonardo,” commanded Josefa; “nor waste more time in words. I seek no quarter, nor – give any!”
“At you then!” exclaimed Don Leonardo, rendered furious by her impassibility, and breaking away from Don Gaspar’s hold.
Josefa awaited his onset firmly, her drawn sword extended in her hand, like a statue of the avenging angel. Don Leonardo rushing at her, blind with rage, thrust himself right upon her rapier, which pierced him through and through; and, before he had time to utter a cry, he fell a lifeless corpse at Don Gaspar’s feet.
Don
A spreading vine, trained along a horizontal trellis, so as to form a shady arbour; an unfailing adjunct to most houses in the south of Spain.
