Works of Jules Verne/The Pearl of Lima/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV
THE MARQUIS DON VEGAL
Excepting Martin Paz there was scarcely another man in all the world to whom the torrent of the Rimac would not have proved a sure destruction. But his strength of body was amazing, and his strength of will resistless; and he was, moreover, greatly aided by that imperturbable sang froid which is characteristic of the free Indians of the New World.
Knowing intuitively that the soldiers would reckon on capturing him below the bridge, where the stream was too powerful to be combated, he put forth all his energy, and succeeded in stemming the torrent the other way. He found the resistance less in the side-currents, and contrived to reach the bank, where he concealed himself behind a cluster of mangroves.
But what would happen next? Soon the soldiers would change their tactics and explore the river upwards; and then what would be his chance of escape? His determination was soon taken; he would re-enter the town and find a refuge there.
To elude the observation of any of the residents who might be out late, it would perhaps have been best to take the wider streets. But he could not resist the impression that he was watched, and he dared not hesitate. All at once he caught sight of a house still brilliantly lighted up; the gateway was open to allow the carriages to pass out, and the very élite of the Spanish aristocracy were thence returning to their own homes.
Without being seen he entered the house, and the gates were almost immediately closed behind him. He hurried on, ascending a cedar staircase adorned with costliest tapestry, and after passing through apartments still brilliantly illuminated, but absolutely empty, he found a place of concealment in a dark chamber beyond.
Before long the lamps were all extinguished, and silence reigned throughout the house. Martin ventured from his hiding-place to reconnoiter the situation. He found that the window of the room opened on to a garden below; escape seemed to him to be quite practicable, and he was on the point of leaping down when he was startled by a voice behind him: "Stop, señor, you have forgotten to take the diamonds that I left on the table."
He looked back. There stood a haughty-looking man pointing to a jewel case that lay before him.
Thus assailed, Martin approached the Spaniard, who was still standing without moving a muscle, and drawing a dagger, which he pointed towards his own heart, he said, with a voice trembling with agitation, "Repeat your words, and you find me dead at your feet!"
Dumb with amazement, the Spaniard gazed steadily at the Indian, and felt an involuntary sympathy rising up within him. He went to the window and shut it gently; then, turning to the Indian, who had let his dagger fall to the ground, he asked him who he was, and whence he had come.
"I am Martin Paz. I was escaping the pursuit of the soldiers. I had wounded a half-breed with my dagger. I was defending myself. The man I struck is betrothed to the girl I love. It rests with you to save me, or to surrender me, as you think best."
The Spaniard stood in silent thought. After a while he said, "To-morrow I am going to the baths of Chorillos. If it will answer your purpose, go with me. For a time, at least, you will be safe, and you will not have to complain of any lack of hospitality from the Marquis Don Vegal."
Martin Paz bent his head in tacit assent.
"But now," continued Don Vegal, "you had better take a few hours' rest. No one in the world will suspect your hiding place."
The Spaniard retired to his own apartment. Martin was deeply touched by the generosity with which he had met, and, relying on the good faith of the marquis, resigned himself to a peaceful slumber.
Next morning, at daybreak, the marquis gave his orders for starting, but previously arranged to have an interview with Samuel the Jew. First of all, however, he went to the early morning mass. The Peruvian aristocracy were always constant in their attendance at this service. From its earliest foundation Lima had always been pre-eminently Catholic. Besides its numerous churches, it counted at that time no less than twenty-two convents, seventeen monasteries, and four pensions for ladies who had not actually taken the veil. To each of these separate establishments was attached its own chapel, so that altogether there could not be less than a hundred places of worship, in which about eight hundred secular and regular priests, and three hundred nuns, besides lay brotherhoods and sisterhoods, devoted themselves to the offices of religion.
As he entered St. Anne's the eye of the marquis was attracted by the kneeling figure of a girl, who was weeping as she prayed. So great was her agitation, that he could not repress his sympathy, and was about to address her in some words of kind encouragement, when Father Joachim whispered, "Do not disturb her, marquis, I pray you!"
And then he beckoned to the girl, who followed him into a dim and empty chapel. Don Vegal made his way to the altar and attended mass, but could not dismiss from his memory the image of the girl who had so strangely arrested his attention.
Upon his return home he found Samuel the Jew awaiting his commands. Samuel seemed to have entirely forgotten the incidents of the past night; the prospect of gain had made him quite oblivious of all besides, and gave a keen vivacity to the expression of his face. "I await your lordship's commands," he said.
"I must have thirty thousand piastres within an hour."
"Thirty thousand!" cried the Jew. "How is it possible? By our holy David, I should have more difficulty in rinding them than you seem to think."
Without taking any notice of what the usurer was saying, the marquis explained that, besides his valuable cases of jewels, he had a piece of land near Cusco that he would sell at a price far below its real value.
"Land!" exclaimed Samuel. "Why, it's land that ruins us! We can't get any labor to till the land since the Indians have withdrawn to the mountains. Land! why, its produce does not pay its expenses!"
"But, tell me," said the marquis, "at how much do you value the diamonds alone?"
The old man drew from his pocket a small pair of jeweler's scales, and proceeded to weigh the gems with an air of minute precision, at the same time, according to his habit, keeping up a running current of depreciation.
"Diamonds! yes, they are diamonds; but see how badly set! One might as well bury his money in the ground. Look here! what a stone! no purity about it. I can assure your lordship that I shall find it very difficult to get a customer at all for this costly purchase. Perhaps if I send them to the States, the Northerners will buy them in order to get rid of them to some English purchaser. No doubt they will make a good profit out of them, but then the loss would all fall upon me. Upon my word, your lordship, you must be satisfied with ten thousand piastres. It seems a little, but—"
"I have already told you that ten thousand piastres are of no use to me," said the marquis, with an air of profound contempt.
"Not one half-real more. I could not afford it," rejoined the inflexible Jew.
"Then take the caskets; only let me have the sum I ask, and give it me at once. Thirty thousand I must have, and you shall have a bond upon this house of mine. Substantial, is it not?"
"Ah, your lordship, but there are so many earthquakes here. One never knows who may be alive and who may be dead from one moment to another, nor yet which houses may stand, or which may fall."
And all the time the Jew was talking he kept stamping with his foot upon the inlaid floor, as if to test its real stability. He paused for an instant, and then resumed, " However, to oblige your lordship, it shall be as you wish; although just now I am indisposed to part with ready cash, as I am marrying my daughter to the young squire, André Certa. Do you know him?"
"Not at all. But lose no time: our bargain is made. Take the caskets, and give me the gold."
"Would your lordship wish for a receipt?" asked Samuel.
The marquis condescended to give no reply, and left the room.
"Arrogant Spaniard!" muttered the Jew, and gnashed his teeth in wrath. "Would that I could crush your pride as I can ruin your estate! By Solomon! 'tis clever practice to make one's interests and one's wishes agree so well."
After leaving the Jew, the marquis had gone to Martin Paz. He found him in a state of the gloomiest dejection.
"Well! how now? " he said kindly.
"Ah, señor! the daughter of that Jew is the girl I love."
"A Jewess!" exclaimed the marquis, in a tone of abhorrence which he could ill disguise; but compassionating the sorrow of the Indian, he only said," Now then, it is time to start; we will talk about these things as we go along."
Within an hour Martin Paz, after changing his clothes, left the town in company with the Marquis Don Vegal, who took no other attendants.
The sea-baths of Chorillos are two leagues distant from Lima. It is a parish inhabited by Indians, and has a pretty church. During the warm season it is a favorite resort of all the élite of Lima, for the public gaming-tables, which are forbidden in the city, are here kept open throughout the summer. The ladies especially show a remarkable enthusiasm for this amusement, and during the season many a wealthy knight has seen his large fortune pass away into the hands of his fair opponents.
Just at that time Chorillos was almost deserted, and Don Vegal and Martin Paz, in their retired cottage on the sea- shore, were free to contemplate in peaceful solitude the wide expanse of the Pacific.
The Marquis Don Vegal, a scion of one of the most ancient Spanish families in Peru, was the only surviving representative of that noble lineage of which he was so justly proud. Traces of the deepest melancholy were ever visible on his countenance, and although, during a considerable portion of his life, he had been engaged in political affairs, the perpetual revolutions, instigated as they had been by motives of mere personal aggrandizement, so disgusted him with the outer world, that he withdrew from it altogether, and passed his time in a seclusion from which only matters of the strictest etiquette could ever induce him to emerge.
Little by little his fortune, once so immense, was dwindling away; he could with difficulty obtain credit for advances of capital, so that not only had his estates fallen into a condition of great neglect, but he had been obliged to mortgage them very heavily. The prospect of ultimate ruin stared him in the face, but in spite of the hopeless aspect of his affairs he never flinched for a moment. The heedlessness, characteristic of the Spanish race, together with the weariness induced by his objectless life, combined to make him utterly indifferent to the future. He had no domestic ties to bind him to the world; a beloved wife and charming little daughter, the sole objects of his affection, had been snatched from him by a melancholy fate; and he was contented passively to take his chance and await the chapter of events.
But cold and deadened as he had deemed his heart to be, his contact with Martin Paz had done something to awaken him from his habitual lethargy. The fiery temperament of the Indian did something towards rekindling the smouldering ashes of the Spaniard's sensitiveness. The marquis was worn out by his association with his fellow-countrymen, in whom he had no confidence; he was disgusted with the insolent half-breeds who were ever encroaching upon the prerogatives of his own order; and so he seemed to turn for relief to that primitive race which had fought so valiantly to defend its soil against the soldiers of Pizarro.
According to the information which the marquis received, it was currently reported that the Indian was dead. Worse than death, however, it appeared to Don Vegal that Martin Paz should ally himself in matrimony to a Jewess, and accordingly he resolved to rescue him doubly by allowing the daughter of Samuel to be married without interference to André Certa. He could not do otherwise than observe the depression which weighed upon Martin, and he hoped to divert him from his melancholy by avoiding the topic entirely, and by calling his attention to indifferent matters.
One day, however, distressed at noticing the saddened preoccupation of his guest, he could not resist asking him, "How is it that the innate nobility of your nature does not revolt against what must be so deep a degradation? Remember your ancestor, the redoubtable Manco-Capac; his patriotism exalted him to the highest rank of heroes, and no one with a noble part to play should condescend to an ignoble passion. Do you not burn to regain the independence of your soil?"
"Ah, señor," said the Indian, "we never lose sight of that glorious enterprise, and the day is not far off when my brethren will rise en masse to accomplish it!"
"I understand to what you refer," replied the marquis; "you are thinking of that secret war which you are planning in the retirement of the mountains; you are going to descend in full array, and at a concerted signal pounce upon the town below. Yes, you may come, but you will come, as you have always come, only to be vanquished. You have not the faintest chance of making good your hold amidst the continual revolutions of which Peru must be the scene, — revolutions which elevate the half-breeds to the detriment alike of Indians and of Spaniards."
"Nay, but we will save our country!" was Martin's eager remonstrance.
"Save it? yes, you may; if only you comprehend your proper part. But listen to me for a moment. I would speak to you as tenderly as though you were my son. I tell you, although I own it with the deepest sorrow, that we Spaniards are degenerate sons of a once powerful race: our energy is gone, and we entirely lack the vigor to regain the supremacy we have lost. But it rests with you to prevail; and prevail you can if you will only crush the mischievous spirit of Americanism which is refusing to tolerate the settlement of foreigners as colonists amongst us. Be sure of this: there is only one policy that can save the old Peruvian Empire; you must have a European immigration. The intestine war which you are contemplating can effect no good at all; it will only trample out every grade but the one you want to extinguish. Nothing can be done except you frankly stretch out the hand of welcome to the laboring population of the Old World."
"Indians, señor," replied Martin Paz, "must ever be the sworn foes of strangers, let them come whence they will. Indians will never tolerate the claims of foreigners to plant their footsteps upon their soil or to breathe their mountain air. My control over them is of such a character that it would not last a moment longer than I should denounce death to every oppressor of their liberty. It must be borne in mind, too," he continued, in a tone of mournful despondency, "that I am myself a fugitive with not three hours to live if I were to venture into the streets of Lima."
"Lima!" exclaimed the marquis, "you must promise me at least that you will not trust yourself in Lima!"
"Were I to pledge myself to that," said Martin, "I should be disguising the true intention of my heart."
Don Vegal sat and mused in silence. There was no room to doubt that the Indian's passion was growing more intense from day to day, and the marquis knew that if he should presume to enter Lima he would to a certainty be exposing himself to an immediate death. What could he do but resolve by any and all means at his command to hurry on the marriage of the young Jewess to André Certa.
To convince himself of the true state of affairs the marquis rose betimes one morning and made his way from Chorillos back into the town. He was there informed that André Certa had so far recovered from his wound that he was about again, and that his approaching marriage was the subject of general gossip.
Desirous of seeing the maiden who had so completely captivated Martin Paz, the Marquis Don Vegal directed his steps towards the Plaza Mayor at the evening hour, when the throng was invariably very great, and on his way encountered his old friend, Father Joachim. The monk was extremely astonished at being informed that Martin Paz was still alive, and nothing could exceed the eagerness with which he undertook to keep a watch on behalf of the young Indian, and to acquaint the marquis with any intelligence which might be of interest to him.
While the two were conversing, the attention of the marquis was arrested by a young girl enveloped in a black mantle, who was reclining on the low seat of a barouche.
"Who is that handsome young lady?" he inquired of Father Joachim.
"That is old Samuel's daughter, the girl who is on the point of marrying André Certa," said the monk.
"That the daughter of a Jew!" involuntarily exclaimed Don Vegal; but he restrained further expression of his astonishment, shook hands with his friend, and retraced his way to Chorillos.
His surprise bewildered him still more when he came to consider that perchance she was not really a Jewess; he had recognized her as the girl whom he had seen kneeling in prayer within the Church of St. Anne.